Cotton Bowl Opponents USC, Tulane Boast Impressive One-Year Turnarounds

Lincoln Riley got an up-close look at Tulane last year when Oklahoma hosted the Green Wave in a season opener that was moved from New Orleans to Norman thanks to Hurricane Ida.

What Riley saw in the Sooners’ opponent impressed him very much. Hence, it does not come as a shock that Tulane has enjoyed much success in 2022.

“It is no surprise to me at all with the kind of season they have had,” he said, after learning his USC Trojans would face the Green Wave in Monday’s Cotton Bowl. “You could tell they are certainly very well coached. To see them make the run this year, win the league and play the way that they have is no surprise to me. I think coach (Willie) Fritz is one of the best coaches that there is.”

USC and Tulane head into Monday’s game, the schools’ first meeting since 1946, with 11-2 records after combining for six wins last season when the Trojans went 4-8 and Green Wave 2-10. The Trojans’ seven-win improvement equals the school mark from John McKay’s 1962 national championship squad. The Green Wave’s nine-win improvement is tops in college football this season and bests a plus-seven from 1948 when they were a member of the SEC.

Following a 40-35 loss to the Sooners to kick off 2021, a game in which Tulane climbed back after falling behind by as many as 23 points, everything went south. Football was the least of the problems early on, though, as the hurricane resulted in uprooted schedules and the relocation (to Birmingham) of the Green Wave’s second game of the season against Morgan State.

A difficult season halted, albeit temporarily, momentum Fritz was building. Before the 62-year-old coach arrived in New Orleans in 2016, Tulane last had consecutive winning seasons in 1997 and 1998. Only once had the Green Wave appeared in a bowl in back-to-back seasons, and that was during the Carter administration more than four decades ago.

Starting in 2018, when Tulane capped a 7-6 season with a Cure Bowl win, Fritz led the program to three straight bowl appearances. That’s what made a 2-10 showing in 2021 all the more disappointing, especially with several key returning starters.

The Green Wave, who are 6-8 all-time in bowls, have more than made up for last season. With many of the same starters back, they won the American and, as the highest-ranked (No. 16) Group of Five team in the final CFP rankings, are in a New Year’s Six Bowl.

“This is huge for our program,” Fritz said of the Cotton Bowl, after his team arrived in the Lone Star State. “We want to play great, but we also want to enjoy this as well. This is a great opportunity for everybody associated with the program. It’s going to be a lot of fun, but we can’t lose sight of what the number one objective is, and that is to play great in the ballgame and win.”

A 3-0 start included a 17-10 win at Kansas State, the fewest points the Wildcats have scored this season. A three-point home loss to Southern Miss the following week put one in the loss column. The Green Wave got back on the winning track with a 27-24 win in the conference opener at Houston. They tied the score in the final minute of the fourth quarter and won it in overtime. That set the table for an 8-1 conference mark, including a championship game win over UCF, which dealt the Green Wave their only conference defeat in the regular season.

A win over the Trojans, who Tulane met in its first bowl game, a 20-12 loss in the 1931 Rose Bowl, would mean a remarkable 10 more wins than last season. A 12-win season would match the undefeated 1998 Green Wave, who were led by quarterback Shaun King.

The Trojans spiraled to 4-8 in 2021 with Clay Helton being let go after a Week 2 loss to Stanford. Defensive assistant Donte Williams, who remained on Riley’s staff, was elevated to interim coach. The win total marked the program’s fewest since an 3-8 mark in 1991 under Larry Smith.

A day after Oklahoma completed its season, and a week before USC’s season-ending setback at Cal, Riley was welcomed to Southern California with open arms. A handful of transfers, including Heisman winner Caleb Williams, who followed his coach from Oklahoma, and Pitt’s Jordan Addison made their way to L.A. (Addison, who has been bothered by an ankle injury, will skip the bowl and prepare for the NFL draft. The Trojans will also be without offensive linemen Andrew Vorhees and Brett Neilon, both nursing injuries ahead of the draft.)

The results were immediate with only a mid-season, last-minute loss at Utah spoiling a perfect regular season. The Utes got in the way again in the Pac-12 championship game when Williams did what he could to fight through a hamstring injury as the Trojans were being knocked out of the CFP picture. Still, USC has had a memorable season. A 12th win would the most since going 12-1 in the Rose Bowl-winning season of 2008 under Pete Carroll.

“From where this program was, to play in a New Year’s Six game is a great accomplishment,” said Riley, whose team is third nationally in scoring (41.1 points) and fifth in total offense (500 yards). “We are certainly disappointed that we did not take care of business (in the Pac-12 championship). We understood when we signed up for this thing that it was going to be a continual process. We’re certainly very proud of the season our football team has had.”

USC is 35-19 in bowl games.