The history of Tulane football since 1949 (a must read)

[WaveProf]

Clemson is public. Was Royal trying a cute way of saying public vs. private?

I know Clemson is public, but it is far from the flagship U of the state (not that USC is much of a flagship haha).

You might be right about what Royal meant, but I don't think so. I think his point was that you need to be one of THE major public faces of the state. That does, typically, mean a public university, but it certainly doesn't mean all public universities. I think his comment would also implicate ULM, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michagan, North-SouthEastern Michigan, and all of the schools of that ilk.

The Ohio State University? Sure. The University of Ohio? Maybe. Toledo? Akron? Bowling Green? Not so much. I think that is his meaning, or at least that is how I took it.

[OGSB]

Clemson is public. Was Royal trying a cute way of saying public vs. private?

I know Clemson is public, but it is far from the flagship U of the state (not that USC is much of a flagship haha).

You might be right about what Royal meant, but I don't think so. I think his point was that you need to be one of THE major public faces of the state. That does, typically, mean a public university, but it certainly doesn't mean all public universities. I think his comment would also implicate ULM, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michagan, North-SouthEastern Michigan, and all of the schools of that ilk.

The Ohio State University? Sure. The University of Ohio? Maybe. Toledo? Akron? Bowling Green? Not so much. I think that is his meaning.

Come to think of it, at the time La. had only 3 "The" univsersities I can think of: Tulane, Xavier & UNO but we know he didn't mean Tulane and probably didn't mean the other 2. He meant lsu.

[WaveProf]

Clemson is public. Was Royal trying a cute way of saying public vs. private?

I know Clemson is public, but it is far from the flagship U of the state (not that USC is much of a flagship haha).

You might be right about what Royal meant, but I don't think so. I think his point was that you need to be one of THE major public faces of the state. That does, typically, mean a public university, but it certainly doesn't mean all public universities. I think his comment would also implicate ULM, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michagan, North-SouthEastern Michigan, and all of the schools of that ilk.

The Ohio State University? Sure. The University of Ohio? Maybe. Toledo? Akron? Bowling Green? Not so much. I think that is his meaning.

Come to think of it, at the time La. had only 3 "The" univsersities I an think of: Tulane, Xavier & UNO but we know he didn't mean Tulane and probably didn't mean the other 2. He meant lsu.

Yep.

[Wandering Quaker]

I had been in a great mood until I read that reminder of the long, long slide. And I can't drink at the office, unfortunately.

No one back then could have envisioned a CFA and a BCS and all that television money.

No one could likely have predicted those specific organizations, no, but football is a money game and has been for eighty years or so. That was already obvious. Funneling money into college football was not new in 1950. There had been pay-for-play scandals during the late 1920's and 1930's, funny business in admissions, all sorts of gaming the system (such as it was). Although there might not have national television audiences, large attendance figures at football games and the appetite for college football news during radio broadcasts, newsreel reports, and newspaper reports, as well as the emergence of football-themed specialty publications, should have demonstrated pretty clearly that there was a huge appetite for college football as entertainment. It wasn't necessary to predict television to see where the herd was headed. National and regional television audiences were effects, not causes, of increased interest in college football.

The herd was composed of the bigger, state-funded institutions. Big institutions with public funding became the big players in college football during the 1930's, even though smaller private schools (and schools with state funding with limited numbers of students) clung to prominence until about 1950. After that, schools like Fordham, Colgate, the Ivies, Santa Clara, Holy Cross, etc., dropped behind one way or another. But watching the herd should have been enough to predict where college football was headed.

Are we watching the herd now or determined to stand apart? And if the latter, is there a really good justification for doing so?

[Big EZ Wave]

Traditionally Louisiana produces the 5th or 6th highest number of Div 1 football students in the nation. There is enough talent in this state to fill the rosters of 2 universities ... . If Tulane continues to concentrate on New Orleans and the River parishes , the school will have a very competitive football team.

JMJ, I think this is one of the best things you've posted, although I do think you need the great talent we could get here with some out of staters too.

The best news is this is the recipe that we are starting to follow too. Last year's class, the incoming FR, is a great start. If we keep signing the Greater New Orleans players like we've done, we are going to start competing for conference titles soon enough.

I think it's really exciting again to follow Tulane football recruiting.

[DCGreenie]

All those mistakes seemed like good ideas at the time. De-emphasis made sense when the university was trying to recover from the 1947 hurricane and college sports were a luxury. Independence made sense when we couldn't compete in the SEC and the NCAA dictated TV appearances based on its own agenda, instead of letting the free market decide.

And I would go to a university that has The in front of it, because that's the only way you're going to make it."

How much did Darrel Royal get paid for this gem? Last I checked we were "The Tulane University of Louisiana".

I don't perceive this take as the pivot point behind the "de-emphasis" of 1949-1950+. One can argue that the Tulane president pursued an unnecessarily harsh, scorched earth policy towards Tulane sports, esp. FB, but the reality was that Tulane, a private university with an academic reputation that was going up in other departments (and has continued its climb), was being leveled by a football factory approach that had the equivalent of "ringers" on the team. Nowadays, most of us resent the football programs in many very large, successful universities that allow students on the FB team who essentially are marking time in college and evading any serious education (I am sure that high-minded rebuttals are already being formed!). Tulane had a lot of the kind of players we still see in droves at Enormous State University. That had to be reformed -- but the method of doing so was unnecessarily draconian and extraordinarily swift. Draconian measures might have been called for, but not in the exceptionally short time frame that was used to implement wholesale slaughter of the program. To coin another metaphor, the football program had the rug simply pulled out from under it all at once. It didn't have to be done this way, so quickly and with such a long-term disheartening effect on Tulane fans, players, and the remainder of the student body. One major result was probably unanticipated -- for most of the succeeding 60 years, the student body and then New Orleans as a whole became apathetic and disengaged from Tulane sports, esp. FB. It is hard to build and sustain enthusiasm when the program had been devastated, with only occasional and unexpected sparks of life -- which were not long enough to restore fan and student support.

Apropos of such apathy is this anecdote: I recall some years ago in a Congressional elevator when I struck up a conversation with an legislative assistant in the House who turned out to be a Tulane graduate with both a B.A. and M.A. received in the late 1980s. Somehow the conversation (almost certainly it was me!) turned to FB, and when I mentioned FB, the LA scoffed that the team was hopeless and that the university was wasting time and money sustaining the football program.

Well, it was late anuary 1999, and so I responded that the team had gone 12-0, won the Liberty Bowl, and, in one poll, was rated No. 7 in the nation. He was dumbfounded and literally had no idea what to say.

Which is how I left him when I got off at my floor in the Rayburn House Office Bldg.......

[GSx]

Traditionally Louisiana produces the 5th or 6th highest number of Div 1 football students in the nation. There is enough talent in this state to fill the rosters of 2 universities without going out of state. If Tulane continues to concentrate on New Orleans and the River parishes , the school will have a very competitive football team.
Lately the University of Tulsa has been grabbing 2 or 3 local players a year. Perhaps now with Coach Rollins this trend will stop.

The loss of Todd Graham is likely to end Tulsa in the River Parishes (they lost their top south La commit to ULL after he resigned); of course now Graham's Pitt Panthers are recruiting the River Parishes.
But I certainly agree; we'll have to go outside to get all the linemen we need, but otherwise, we can field a very competitive team with local players.