I know this is what every college football fan waits for each year.  Indeed, some say the season hasn't really started until the Tulane preview come out.    Well, wait no longer. 

 

I'm not sure I've ever seen a conferece that was as up in the air as CUSA seems to be (unless, of course, it's this year's MAC, or maybe his year's Big East ).  I follow it fairly closely, as I've had some decent success here recently.  If you go back and look at my posts from last year (no; I don't recommend that you do), you will see I was practially pleading with people on here to fade Tulane down the stretch, as they had like 10 healthy players left, none at the skill positions.  Their game at Memphis was my second GOY, if I recall. 

 

Anyway, they are an intersting story.  They do get back three very skilled players from injury, including the best RB in the league and one of the league's best receivers.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that they lose something like 8 starters, and, thanks to post-Katrina recruiting (or lack thereof), there is virtually no talent depth in the program.  As we saw last year, when TU loses front-line talent, they don't reload, they disintegrate. More than half of the team this year will be sophomores (eligibility-wise) or lower, and I don't think they've picked up a recruit rated higher than 2-stars in three years.  I don't live and die by recruiting,"stars,"  but it probably tells you something about what's waiting in the wings 

 

Tulane was astoundingly bad against the run last year, at least down the stretch.  In fact, they amazingly held their first four opponants under 100 yeards, incliding Alabama (99) and ECU (66).   Tulsa would later eek out 489 yards   on the ground against the Wave.  Memphis ran for nearly 400 a week later, by which time I believe Emeril Lagasse was playing linebacker.

 

What to make of all this?  Who knows.    If TU can stay healthy, they are going to surprise some folks, at least ATS-wise.  I look for them the pay Army back nicely for ruining TU's homecoming last year, a gme in which the Knights covered the spread by 48  at Tad Gormley Stadium (an experiment that TU has abandoned for  this year; all their home games will be in the Empty Dome).  They will also likely catch BYU (post-Sooner mauling), LSU (pre-Bama) and USM (pre-Houston) in good spots.  They end the year with three straight away from home, and, if they're at all beaten up, those could be great spots to fade them against three other crappy-to-be teams - Rice, UCF and SMU.

 

I think, if everything goes to plan, Tulane should be able to keep the ball longer than it did last year, givng it's defense a chance to rest (again, remember how short they are) and keeping the other guy's offense off the field (no small matter in the offense-happy CUSA-West).  This team should score a lot more points than it did last year (16.7).  Indeed, it's total yards per game number would have projected to about 22 points.  The defense should be a hair better, though it might be hard to tell given the style of play in their side of the conference. Might be a good team to look to play on in the first halves of games, before they get worn down. 

 

We're probably looking at 3-9, but it should be an interesting 3-9, and hopefully a profitable one.