Laughyette!

I see you Mildly Aggravated Bellpeppers!  We beat you ugly, so who cares! Series is now 22-6! p.s. I took these photeauxs from Nola Dave and Parker Waters and Steven Lewis

What! That was so exhausting yesterday (never mind the Corndog's Lost Touchdown lol and the ensuing firings elle eaux elle).  This emotional cycle was totally me from the first to fourth quarter:

When the game started I was blissfully ignorantly and just sashayed on up to Westfeldt all smug and ready for the winning to commence. And then slowly realized that no, things were indeed going to go sideways, and omg Toledo would have called that, and is that really gato negro Rick Dickson on the field, and what OMG a punted ball just hit one of our special teams players on the head, wait wait hold on 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9, NINE! THERE'S NINE PLAYERS ON THAT PLAY! what the Facundus is going on! where did the twister mat go!  omg HE DROPPED THE BALL, HE REALLY DROPPED THAT BALL! This Shit Show Continues!

I was so thoroughly aggravated that I left in the middle of the 4th Quarter. I walked a friend to their car on Broadway, wandered around campus, got more aggravated by that stupid loud speaker barking at people incessantly, and then when I realized it was like major overtime situation happening I came back to bite my nails some more for that fourth overtime. Coach Hullabaloo was still right where I left him standing in our section and screaming down at the field. Oh Coach Hullabaloo how I love you so!

When we got that first field goal during the first half of the game, I was so disgusted we couldn't manage a touchdown I didn't hullabaloo.  Yes, I am definitively the most cynical fan ever.  Here I've been dying sick the past two games unable to speak from some monster awful sore throat for two whole games.  Me, of all people! I could not hullabaloo for the Southern game when there was much hullabaloo-ing to be done. It was devastating.  And now here for the USL game I was so peturbed by our performance, it was like when Scelfo punted on 3rd down. I deemed it unhullabaloo-worthy.  0 for 13 in third down conversions!

Anyways, my beloved Greenies pulled out a win and I was much relieved.

Tanzel Smart! Beast!!

Andrew Dirocco! 48 yards where have you been all my life?! Clutch City!

Glen Cuiellette! Comeback Kid!!! We found our passing game finally!

Nicoooooo!!

When Richard Allen got that tackle to stop their attempt at 2 point conversion (quintuple overtime, omg) it was hilarious to see the explosion of spirit rain all over Yulman.  I giggled watching Perry Mason with his popcorn megaphone over on the press box side directing chants or whatever he was cheering.  Those students who bolted for their busy sidewalk flailing appointments outside of the Boot missed out on an EPIC celebration.  Years from now when fans talk about the almost quintuple overtime, they'll all be like well you must understand. loitering outside the Boot was just super important. #EyeRoll

I witnessed powerade bottles fly up into the Westfeldt stands, blue powerade shower for everyone! Huzzah!  Players were doing somersaults across the field. And the Yulman Leaps my goodness!  Oh it was awesome! That ending was worth the wait and aggravation of playing like fools for 4 quarters.

One thing - when watching the replay how funny is it that ESPN for the FOURTH GAME in a ROW has no friggin clue who the hades Willie Fritz is (or Tulane! Hello...they called us Tulsa, Troy, ITT Tech, Tazmania U, practically every T institute of higher education in the free world).  So yeah, ESPN pans their cameras to the sidelines and picks out whatever random person and coronates them as Willie Fritz. Every grad assistant, water boy, position coach, service personnel wandering the sidelines, has been identified as Coach Fritz.  I say, that instead of a ball cap, we should put a crown on Willie Fritz and give him a sash.

I'd be embarrassed about ESPNs faux pas, except that I want Willie Fritz to be ours a bit longer so if nobody knows what he looks like, they can't find him.  Kinda like a witness protection. So it's win-win situation.  He's hiding in plain sight just for us.

So anyways after the game, Coach Hullabaloo and I went and celebrated with Boot Pizza because it was the only thing I could think of still open.  Except that now it's "Broadway Pizza" and they have fancy options now. We ordered the Margherita pizza and waited.

My lord, what happened to the Boot.  There's a line to get in to the Boot. A line with metal barricades. For what reason or purpose I failed to see. Honestly, even in the throes of the hey dey at AT's or Rendon, did you ever remember metal barricades?

Except that now the students just mill about around in the street like burner homeless people with their pot vapers, drug vials, drinking straight from bottles (not even with a proper brown paper bag even!), falling all over grimmy sidewalks, and Holy Jamie Garza the crude and vile behavior of the little boys (because there weren't any gentlemen that I saw) towards the women.  And some of these young ladies were undergarment optional! My eyes!

Of course there's an NOPD officer in his cruiser that is parked right there on the corner to make sure that the drug fueled whatever could carry on without people's children getting mugged.  Because losing their wallets (and not their dignity) is of primary concern.  Those Jesus people on Bourbon Street are missing out on some prime opportunity here.

Out of the sea of horrendous behavior, there was one very sweet student who confidently walked up to Coach Hullabaloo and me to introduce himself and chat. He was so cute!  In addition to asking if we were students (lol), he invited us to party with him because it was his birthday and his friends were lost in the crowd.  Henry you were a doll!  Thank you for complimenting my cute gameday dress!  And I promise, if I smoked pot I totes would have accepted your offer to share a joint and get tokked up with you in honor of your birthday! Thanks for offering us a swing of your Boones Farm too!  Cheers!

Speaking of good dranks, we had us some at tailgating! Woot!  Our Greenie Gal whom I'm calling Queen of the Nile made some blueberry lemonade rum punch.  And it was deeeelicious.  Here are some of us drinking it in our cute tailgating cups.

Also deeelicious was the gumbo made by the Greenie Gent of my girl I'm calling Sarah Jane (because she loves Doctor Who).  We also had boudin, dirty rice, this yummy copy cat of the "cajun dip" from Texas Roadhouse, mini muffs, and y'all....these Butter Pecan Blondies. omg.

These Butter Pecan Blondies were off. the. chain. And Coach Hullabaloo and I totally invented them standing there at Rouse's on Saturday morning perplexed why nobody has boxed blondie mix. So we decided to make something up. Ingenuity.

Off The Chain Butter Pecan Blondies
Betty Crocker Butter Pecan Cake Mix
Water
Butter
Eggs
Pam Spray
Heath Bar crumbles
Tub of Caramel icing

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix the cake mix sans the oil listed in the instructions (apparently omitting oil makes cake mix become brownies). Mix in a half a cup of crumbled up Heath bar (buy the bag). Spray pam real good all over a 13 x 9 cake pan.  Sprinkle another quarter to half a cup of crushed up Heath bar over the top.  Bake for 21 minutes and then let cool.  Warm up a womp of the Caramel icing in the microwave for 20 seconds or so and then drizzle over the cooled blondies. Cut into small squares and then eat up all the random side pieces that nobody would have wanted at tailgating anyways.

To balance out the blondies and the other high carb food offerings, I also made roasted brussel sprouts with homemade creole honeymustard dip which I can attest was yumm-o.  And so easy!  I put toothpicks in the brussels at tailgating for easy snacking.

Slap Ya Mamma Brussels
Half pound of brussels sprout halves
Slap Ya Mamma cajun seasoning
Olive errl
Half red onion
Creole mustard
Balsamic vinaigrette
Honey
Powdered chicken bouillon

Preheat oven to 350. Slice the red onion, toss with the brussels sprouts halves, and a table spoon or so of olive oil.  Sprinkle with seasoning and then spread out on a roasting pan. Spray with extra olive oil to make sure that it doesn't burn or stick to the pan.  Roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes or so until starting to brown, but tender.  Meanwhile mix up a few whomps or creole mustard, about a tablespoon or so of balsamic, a generous squeeze or so of honey mustard, half a packet or cube of chicken boullion cube and quarter cup or so of olive oil.  I whizzed up the dressing in a bullet blender to emulsify. Bring the sprouts to tailgate dry with the dressing in a side container so that people can dip or drizzle as they chose.

Ok y'all.  I'm resting from tailgating for a few.  We may not make it to UMASS because life is crazy. And then we shant be going to UCF this year because, yawn, Orlando.  But I would like to take this moment to thank all of the Cajuns reading this post.  Because we beat you with 9 players on the field. I laughyette you!

The Eyes of Texas Were Upon Us

The Wave Gigged Texas, yes indeedy!

I can't wait til we are formally invited to the Big 12 (ha, sooo still dreaming). What fun! And other than Mr Annoying Man in the section over from us, I very much enjoyed mingling with my people from Texas.

Mrs. Hullabaloo is Texan, you know.

 All the Longhorn Fans were mostly pleasant. AND generous - we got us free tickets to both games as we walked up from very nice strangers, plus we got a golf cart ride to the stadium, and because God is Good: their ice cream stand in the stadium had Reese's Pieces, and they were selling hot chocolate like all normal college stadiums tend to do. Winning!

Their stadium UFCU Disch Falk Field was beautiful. And by the way ... UFCU stands for University Federal Credit Union. I know - I wondered about that a little. Especially with Furman having had "FU" emblazoned on their ball caps last week. Lawd did Big Mike make me laugh with his inappropriate commentary about that! ha!

Isn't that a beautiful ballpark?  UFCU >> Litter Box .  Anyways, so Friday's game washed out after 2 innings unfortunately. But not before we got to show up in our cute outfits. I got this dress online at Loft. Get yours.

Saturday's weather was beautiful, but we only stayed for the remainder of the rescheduled first game and then half of the second game. It got cold and I got hangry again so we had to leave to go stuff my face. My sorority sister whom I'll call Dulcecita brought her precious boys on Saturday. They got to get a baseball signed by Jake Rogers and Lex Kaplan. So cute.

Evan is holding Mr. Pickle in the bottom right which was our lucky charm. #winning

I cant stress enough how much I enjoyed UFCU Field! Before the game Texas shows a video of a former player singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame - I love love love this tradition. Can we please do this at Turchin? Like with Coach Brockhoff and his precious grandsons while he's still alive and we can?

Please excuse Coach Hullabaloo rudely interrupting this video.  I gave him a major eyeroll as these Longhorn fans were all so nice and Coach Hullabaloo was being silly.

So now Mr Annoying Man.  I was having a splendid time until this happened: in the first game on Saturday he got up half way through one of the middle innings, very rudely interrupted my pleasant conversation with a Longhorn fan about Mack Brown and the 2005 CWS, and he screamed at us "HEEEYYYY!!!!! TULANE FANS! Thats how you catch a ball!!" Of course, the other Longhorns in our section sat there embarrassed and silent. I wanted to get up and do something to him. What, I don't know, but it woulda been lights out. Maybe go stomp on his toe with my cute boots.

To be fair, their outfield was boss. They totally shut us down mostly. I am completely shocked we won because we are playing all out position, and Texas really IS that awesome and their players were amazing. Anyways after Mr. Big Mouth opened his pecan pie hole, Richard Carthon outran a throw to first and then Hope got a homerun. I felt like screaming back at him "HEY! Did you see THAT?! That's how you run on base and get a homerun!"

Another funny was that during one of our many Hullabaloos, the Longhorn Fans commented, well Gee all we do is clap.  And my friend whom I'll call Pete said, well our athletic department budget doesn't allow for cannons. ha!  Those cannons, omg.  Probably my least favorite portion of our visit to UFCU Field.

Earlier before the game, Coach and I hit up Stitch Switch BBQ and I fell in love with their Green Bean salad. That is my new favorite BBQ side, so below is a recipe.

GREEN BEAN SALAD

Lemon vinaigrette

Steamed green beans

Chopped red bell peppers 

Toasted pecans

Use pre-made lemon vinaigrette like this or whisk together lemon juice, dijon mustard, dill (or other tasty herb like tarragon), walnut+canola oil, garlic powder, salt/pepper to taste. DE-RIB your green beans (or just use frozen chopped) and steam them with salt pepper and onion/garlic powder. Toast chopped up pecans with butter (either on a baking sheet in the oven or in a pan over the stove). Chop up your red bellpepper. Ok, this is when we get to the hard part: toss everything together and refrigerate.

So thank Yahweh for this series win in Austin because it helps make our losses to Nicholls, SLU, and UNO a fainter memory. Shaa! Meaningless Midweek Games. I am seaux seaux seaux glad I skipped SLU and UNO. Because suffering through that loss at Didier Field at Harvard on the Bayou is about as much as I can deal with at this point in time.  I haven't quite licked my bruised ego from the last time we lost there. Them Cajuns went totally out the box with their victory lap after the game. They had fireworks and Hooters girls and everything. I am serious. Peggy and I laughed and laughed about that on our way home from Thibovegas.

So yes, so totally glad for this win! Hullabaloo Ray Ray!!

Clash of the Citronauts

photo credits to Nola Dave of wavefootball.com. And a Citronaut, in case you didn't know, is the original mascot of UCF when it was known as FTU. Citronauts! lulz!

Just in time for the NEXT gameday, I am finally writing about the last game! Think of this as a Wave Chat newsletter. Better late than never, amirite?

So yes! Holy shitballs, we won last week. Even Baby Warren was shocked.

I know, I know. Mrs. Hullabaloo was the worst! Didn't think we had it in us. I owe Fear the Wave a gallon of daiquiries, which I am happy to pay. I hadn't seen that defense since circa 2013. Even Jeff Duncan noticed.

Even wrote an article and everything. Why thank you!

Anyways, aren't wins so much more fun than losses? Especially when we got to lay the wood on UCF. 10 years of karma payback was deeeeelicious!

George O'Leary has run up the score on us with his first team year after year after year. He would go for 2 when he was up by 40 points just because he could. And so now the UCFers all be like "Fire GOL!" all over the interwebbs. I laugh in your general direction!

Coach Hullabaloo and I have rewatched the game now thrice at home. Partly because we missed so much of it trying to get settled at Yulfogelmevlin the day of the game. We just don't appreciate how good we have it, we are terrible. We've decided that when we win the powerball our first order of business is donating The Lewis Family Elevator, because one elevator just does not cut it.

And then we are going to start packing flasks of Hot Chocolate because since whenever it gets cold either at Turchin or in Yulfogelmevlin that is the exact moment in time that Tulane decides it's optimal to hide and banish all of the warm beverages to the most remote and nether recesses of the stadium. So Coach Hullabaloo had to go over the river and through the woods and completely around the stadium to locate me a tiny cup of hot chocolate and then wait in the Elevator line. It took him a whole quarter to locate me some hot chocolate, so he missed Marshall Wadleigh's (who?! lol) fake punt and almost missed the Nickerson-Allen combo strip/return.

At halftime we went back to slum it in our old digs in Section 102 to get out of the wind. Except that with all my complaining about just having a WOW wing stand down there last season, now they punished poor 102 even further and took that Wings stand away entirely. Teach me from complaining. Now in order to get wings or any other sustenance you have to take a slow boat to China for that too. Why God, why?!

Anyways, at the very beginning of the game when the pace and play calling was getting yawn-worthy, Tyronne Power and I were texting each other and he made me laugh, laugh like a clown. The Wave was not showing us anything sexy as far as our offense and UCF was doing even worse. We were stuck at 7-7 and then special teams gaffes started coming, the penalties started happening, we were at 3rd and 26 and Coach Price be calling in UptheMiddleTM and little bitty screen pass small ball into traffic. I was like Oh, Green Pelicans, Here We Geaux Again. At that moment Tyronne texted me "Apparently Maine was horrendous"

LOL. Lawd, I laughed and laughed. I even showed the text to a former letterman I'll call Mickey Mantle that I was sitting with. Mickey Mantle lol'd too.

And then low and behold The Hair (what I'm calling Marshall Wadleigh) faked the punt for a first down.

Pixie Dust got thrown on the field. Where'd this team come from? There was even a 700% improvement in sacks from our last game. Can this team stay a while please?

Later When Nickerson stripped the ball, Tyronne texted me to share that he was sitting next to the UCF section. One of their obnoxious fans was recording their Citronaut running towards the endzone with what UCF fans thought was going to be a score. And when it turned out not to be, another Tulane fan nearby asked obnoxious UCF guy if he could have a copy of the video. ha ha! Obnoxious UCF fan told Tulane fan to F himself. Yes! Those Citronaut fans are like that, very crude and can't take a joke.

I screen captured the strip in slow motion for posterity. I just need Graff's audio to make the memory complete.

Anyways, despite that we still had yet another Picarelli punt blocked in the 4th quarter, I very much enjoyed the following moments of the game:

Corey Redwine recovered a fumble, way to go big guy!

Rae Jean Marbley getting in a takeaway

Royce LaFrance with a huge game!

And of course, the aforementioned highway robbery by Nickerson and Allen captured above which was the highlight of the game.

But not to be missed in mentioning, was our early morning tailgate which I enjoyed for a nice change of pace.

Our theme was Carnival/Disney which we had to adjust for it being a breakfast thing, but I did make these cute donut hole/oreo cookie Mickey Mouse ears and put these cute cut outs in our centerpiece.

Tequila and Perry Mason brought homemade bloody mary fixings and quiche which were delish. Peggy brought Mimosa fixings. We had a potluck breakfast feast of bagels, lox, yogurt, asparagus, hashbrown casserole, and conecuh sausage. I made a pretty tasty Spiked Coffee. Recipes are below.

Perry Mason would like it noted that Zing Zang simply has ruined, just ruined, the state of Bloody Marys in New Orleans. He is outraged about this and preaches about it to anybody who will listen. So despite the fact that he is completely offended that I love Zing Zang, I managed to talk him into sharing with us his personal Bloody Mary recipe, which I actually enjoy very much.

Perry's Proper Bloody Mary Mix
1/2 Clamato Tomato Juice (clam broth+tomato)
1/2 V8 juice
Your choice of garnishes and vodka

And this was the star of the show - Gailicious' Hashbrowns
2 Lb. freezer bag of "Southern Style" hash brown taters or tater tots
½ C Butter
smidge salt n peppa
dash of nutmeg
1 can cream o' chicken soup
2 C. Grated cheese (2/3 pepper jack, 1 1/3 plain colby jack)
½ C. chopped onion
2 c sour cream
1 cup crushed pork rinds (!)

Pour out hash browns in a 9 x 13 pan to thaw. Preheat your oven to 350. Separately sautee onions in butter in a pot with salt n pepper. Then add sour cream, soup, and cheeses all together in the pot until melted and mixed together. Spread on top of potatoes, which have been thawing and sprinkle a dusting of nutmeg over the potatoes. Toss the crushed pork rinds on top and bake for 45 mins. Garnish with parsley flakes or chopped green onions. Or keep mixture in the fridge overnight and bake before taking to tailgating. And then serve yourself the yummy crispy edges in the pan first before everyone else gets to them. and OMG the pork rinds! Who knew? delicious.

Spiked Coffee
6 shots of Butterscotch Schnaaps
12 cups of Brewed Coffee
1/2 cup of Creamer
Can of ReadiWhip

Ok, this is really hard. Brew your coffee (I just used regular ole folgers) and pour into a thermos to keep warm. You could be fancy and use good coffee. Add half a cup of plain creamer. Add the shots. When you serve a cup, top with ReadiWhip. If you want to be way fancy you could put some chocolate shavings on top. I added one of my cute pompom stirrers.

Stay Hungry for Wins Greenwave Nation! Let's go out and get more of these!

"Give Me Just One Night"

Give me just one game where we do not get at least 10 holding and/or offsides penalties.....

But seriously. How about that UConn Coach Bob Diaco? mmmmmmmm...MMM!

photos by John Wioke and Parker Waters

and here's one more for good measure....

Anyways, Coach Hullabaloo laughed at me and said he looks like Nick Lachey. Which I vehemently disagree with. But that's how come I chose my title for today's blog post. It's a 98 Degrees song.

Another cutie pie that stole my heart was this puppy!

be still my heart!

....but fer real enough about puppies and hot coaches, back to the topic of this blog: football.

If I were Nick Montana or Sherman Badie I would organize a blanket party for those same players who keep piling up penalties like they were prizes. Dang all that effort to get first downs and then bam! There strike the penalty twins.

But to be completely straight up honest, I can't just blame the serial penalty-makers all on their own. The fact is that they are just part of the machine that is Tulane. And that's the bottom line. It just would not be us if we didn't include a signature something something into the mix to remind the world who we are. It's what makes Tulane special.

I mean, remember when we had that monster 2nd and 3rd quarter against Houston in 2010. We started ramming it down their throat and we're knocking at their door again, we had a first down at their 30 and could just TASTE the lead. Except that 1st & 10 ended up a 4th & 43 because of our never-ending addiction to penalties. Oy! Tulane!

Well, I am happy for the team tho. Especially getting a safety - that's two seasons in a row with a safety, y'all. Photos by Glen Andrews and Parker Waters.

Although didn't we surrender a safety to Duke? Anyways whatever, just look at the players celebrating with the students after the game ♥ (photo by Parker Waters)

Also, I just loved seeing the band go out of the tunnel. First picture is the band members doing the Hullabaloo in a circle before going out.

lol Peggy, so cute

My favorite part of the team running out on to the field is the team going over to the student section. Look at the sunset, how pretty.

And Devon Walker was our lucky charm!

And y'all the most important news of all from the game: DiRocco actually made a field goal! If I wasn't there to witness it, I would have said: noooo...you lyin'!



You haven't seen a crowd as thrilled with a field goal since Garrett Hartley split the uprights to win the NFC championship game in 2010.

So now, you can all put your suspicions away that an imposter is writing this post, because there actually were LOTS of things I couldn't resist to nitpick on. Like the broken jumbotron - umm,hello! and the Cleveland Cavs exhibition game going overtime and bleeding over into our first quarter....and omg the toilet trailers all of a sudden parked in our tailgating spot...and LAWD, the UConn fan who got picked for the dance cam prize?!! And don't even go read the @tulanealumni gameday tweets about how gamedays are like cemetaries (like what?!).

If I didn't nitpick and complain then you wouldn't know it was me LOL.

Anyways, our tailgating was still fun and I love seeing my tailgating peeps. Our theme this week was "Mystic Pizza" in honor of the movie and the actual town in Connecticut that actually has an eponymous pizza joint.

My girl Chardonnay and her man brought us some Mo's Pizza which I simply just loooooove. All yous pretentious Eastbankers who feel so self-righteous and superior that you wouldn't ever do anything so lowly as to cross a bridge, would probably faint that Westwego is the home to some mighty fine pizza. It was Patrick Ramsey's favorite pizza here in New Orleans, so there.

After you pick yourself up off the ground about the pedigree of Westbank pizza, you'll need to grab a chair for this next piece of news: I baked a cake. AND I made icing. see.

in honor of the Nutmeg State, I made a nutmeg cake with grated fresh nutmeg, and apple butter filing. The icing was like a praline royal icing and topped with chopped roasted pecans. I didn't burn anything. Although I was shocked when it came out of the oven OK, because I messed up all of the mixing instructions and my lumpy batter looked nothing like the pretty creamy version from the photos on the recipe.

We also had stuffed peppadews, hoagies, clam chowder dip, Domenica-style roasted cauliflower, Johnny Appleseed bars, and due to a funny mix up we ended up with a platter of sushi instead of lobster rolls. I loved it though, an interpretation of lobster rolls!

I also found this beer and had my girl Julie ship it to me. Two Roads Brewery for a Tu-lane game, get it? Their logo is also a VW bus. It was a good omen

Ok, so next week we are off to Florida for the UCF game. I shall be taking copious notes to see if the UCFers learned themselves some manners since our last trip to Orlando and my run in with their "Town and Gowns." Because lawd, they are something else down there.

Take care my chamudis and this one belongs to the Wave!