Possible transfer WR

[Baywave1]

JMac, No DD here. You're just trying to be realistic. Your point that some of our conference mates have hit homeruns on transfers whereas Fritz has only enjoyed mixed success but with no spectacular results yet (although perhaps Anderson or Deuce Watts from the JUCO route could meet that standard eventually.) is a reasonable benchmark to evaluate Fritz, To date, he falls short.

Meanwhile another subtle one I look at is how you do in close games. Good coaches win a majority of close games and bad ones seem to lose a majority over time. You have to be careful that your sample size is large enough, and at five years, Fritz so far seems to be about in the middle to date. So next year if Tulane is say 8-4 but 4-1 or 4-2 in the close games then I would say it's an improvement even if I wish for more total wins. If we have a repeat of this year where Tulane has three walk-off losses and no walk-off wins then at some point, it's more than just bad bounces and breaks. You make your own luck over time.

BTW I think Fritz will succeed at Tulane by any measure but I have no complaint about looking at it with hard cold realism and not just wishing and hoping.

[ml wave]

Meanwhile another subtle one I look at is how you do in close games. Good coaches win a majority of close games and bad ones seem to lose a majority over time. You have to be careful that your sample size is large enough, and at five years, Fritz so far seems to be about in the middle to date. So next year if Tulane is say 8-4 but 4-1 or 4-2 in the close games then I would say it's an improvement even if I wish for more total wins. If we have a repeat of this year where Tulane has three walk-off losses and no walk-off wins then at some point, it's more than just bad bounces and breaks. You make your own luck over time.

Nick Saban is 23-17 in one score games at Alabama. If the best coach in the history of college football is barely over .500, I don't think that's a great metric to judge if a coach is good or not.

[Baywave1]

That's a lot of scoreboard checking. I'll assume your pencil pushing is accurate. Winning about 58% of your close games over a multi-decades career is a material difference in a meaningful population. If you don't think so, go to Vegas. You can retire very rich if you win close to 60% of the time.

I agree Saban is the best coach ever. Your homework now is to tell us how many games Saban has lost by two plus scores and how many he has won by the same measure. We both know that margin ain't close. You can even include the Dolphin games.

I'll stick with my standard. Thanks for proving my point. If Fritz wins 57.5% of his close games over his Tulane career, we will all be sad when he retires.

[windywave]

That's a lot of scoreboard checking. I'll assume your pencil pushing is accurate. Winning about 58% of your close games over a multi-decades career is a material difference in a meaningful population. If you don't think so, go to Vegas. You can retire very rich if you win close to 60% of the time.

I agree Saban is the best coach ever. Your homework now is to tell us how many games Saban has lost by two plus scores and how many he has won by the same measure. We both know that margin ain't close. You can even include the Dolphin games.

I'll stick with my standard. Thanks for proving my point. If Fritz wins 57.5% of his close games over his Tulane career, we will all be sad when he retires.

https://firenicksaban.com/2013/12/the-2 ... ng-career/

Quite a few it seems and this is just up to 2013

[ml wave]

That's a lot of scoreboard checking. I'll assume your pencil pushing is accurate. Winning about 58% of your close games over a multi-decades career is a material difference in a meaningful population. If you don't think so, go to Vegas. You can retire very rich if you win close to 60% of the time.

I agree Saban is the best coach ever. Your homework now is to tell us how many games Saban has lost by two plus scores and how many he has won by the same measure. We both know that margin ain't close. You can even include the Dolphin games.

I'll stick with my standard. Thanks for proving my point. If Fritz wins 57.5% of his close games over his Tulane career, we will all be sad when he retires.

I agree with your last sentence. The larger point is that if winning close games is truly a measure of a good coach (which I doubt but would be open to some sort of evidence), and that's all the best coach ever can manage, then that seems an unreasonable standard by which to judge any other coach.

Winning 57.5% of the time is great in Vegas, because you can make a zillion small bets and come out like a champ because over time that advantage adds up for you. Football doesn't give you that luxury...Saban's had 40 one score games in 13 years...that's only 3/yr...the exact opposite of the meaningful population you reference.

[FW]

I'm pretty sure every school in the country has had mixed results on transfers, but unless you follow those schools, or college football in general that closely, you probably don't hear about the busts.

[TU23]

A couple of opinions.

First, the kid from McNeese can really play. He played at a terrible high school program that won like 2 games his entire time there, and he was small. That's why he went to McNeese. He's extremely quick and has a good burst after the catch. He's also exactly the kind of receiver that Memphis and SMU have murdered us in the past with: 5'10 190, cat quick, plays bigger than his height and can run after the catch. This was a really good pick up and something we needed.

Second, Fritz hasn't hit any home runs with grad transfers, but that shouldn't stop us from continuing to look. We've done a decent job of plugging holes with some of these guys but we did not have much success this year. Here's a run down of the grad transfers:

Mykel Jones- did not meet expectations.
Ben Knutson- did not meet expectations year 1, was a solid contributor year 2.
Ajani Kerr- did not meet expectations.
Kyle Meyers- did not meet expectations.
Kevin Henry- performed better than I expected
Jaylen Miller- did not meet expectations
Jalen McCleskey- had high expectations for Jalen. Mixed results. Not all of which were on him.
Justin McMillan- exceeded expectations. While we can debate whether he was a good QB or not, he was better than what we had.
Malik Lawal- played well for us.
Mike Hinton- didn't play as much I thought he would, but he was serviceable.
Christian Montano- did very well for us.
Hunter Knighton- did not perform up to expectations.

I'd say Fritz was like 7 of 12 here. Of the 5 that didn't pan out, 4 were on this team and there were high expectations for all of them. I think that kind of skews our view of things. I think it's also important to note that if we didn't sign these 5 grad transfers this year, we'd have had several unused scholarships in a year where we needed everyone. We had to give 3-4 scholarships to walk-ons to ensure they were used. I'm not aware of us passing on any high school player or other transfer to take these guys, either. We may never get a D'Eriq King, but we'll take a Jalen McCleskey, a Christian Montano and a Kevin Henry if we can find them.

Here are the JUCO guys:

Dominique Briggs- Good player, 2 year starter
Jabril Clewis- did not play that well for us, but had a big game against Navy to get us in first bowl game
Nick Anderson- great player.
Duece Watts- very good player.
Phat Watts- inconsistent but has talent. Could turn into a good player
Jonathon Banks- up and down but gave us a lift at QB in year 1.

I think we hit on 3 of the 6, had mixed results with one and the jury is still out on 1.

Here are the college transfers (there may be more but these are the two that I remember):

Corey Dauphine- very good player.
Keon Howard- did not pan out.

For me, I always want to know why a kid is transferring. If they've been at a big school and sitting on the bench for 4 years, is it because they had an All-American in front of them? Kevin Henry did at OSU. Or is it because they just couldn't put it all together like some of the ones we took? I always like the kids who performed really well at a smaller school and want to challenge themselves at a higher level. Christian Montano was able to step up his game. Michael Hinton did pretty well albeit in a limited role behind Cam Sample and De'Andre Williams. Or is it someone who has had success at a bigger school and just wants to play in front of the home crowd like Jalen McCleskey? The motivation for the transfer is extremely important as is the work we do in vetting these kids.

The way college football is moving, we're going to see more kids at 4 year schools transferring earlier in their careers. You're seeing the transfer portal explode this year with the one-time free transfer. That is a double edged sword for these kids. Some of them are going to find a better opportunity while other are going to end their careers. It's also going to hurt high school kids because schools are saving spots for transfers in each class. Many recruiting analysts and gurus are telling high school kids that if they have an offer for the Class of 2022, they need to jump on it now because offers are going to disappear quickly. I think the NCAA is going to have to adjust for this transfer rule change and the free COVID year by upping the number of players a school is allowed to take in a year from 25 or by providing exemptions for transfers when you have someone transfer out of your program (i.e.- we lose Amare Jones, we're allowed to replace him with a transfer without taking up a spot in the 25).

Going to be an interesting year or two in recruiting, that's for sure.

[wavedom]

Good run down on the transfers. I'd note you left off Fisher who played tackle for us. Arguably the best one of the bunch as our line play was a lot better with him then when he missed some games with his ankle injury.

[Yankeewave]

If TU23 could post thoughtfully about submarines, he’d be my all time favorite poster.

[TUPF]

If TU23 could post thoughtfully about submarines, he’d be my all time favorite poster.

[Baywave1]

TU23, Great dispassionate analysis. Thanks for the effort.

Obviously some of our opponents (say SMU) have enjoyed great success by going all in by bringing in experienced college players. So it's a little frustrating when we as fans see that. However balance here is everything and no one wants Tulane to become a rent-a-player program. It didn't work in MBB last year. I don't fault Hunter but you see he immediately retreated from the some-and-done recruits preferring all-and-done.*

I'd say if Fritz signs five or so a year of the transfer types that with good HS recruiting should allow you to reload continuously and not rebuild every few years.

Great idea on the net zero exchange proposal or whatever you want to call it. The down side of it is some coaches would use it to aggressively run off players even more than now. So it may not be approved.

*ON EDIT: To be precise, Hunter this year is migrating with most-and-done. At least the transfers are younger. He didn't go cold turkey on HS recruiting only. This season would be ugly without Watson, Forbes and Cross. So glad he is transitioning gracefully. But point as he has acknowledged is one-and-done be it freshman or grad level is a hard (but not impossible) path to success.

[Johnny Mac]

I forgot about Lawal and Fisher, and yes they were both very good... but 7 out of 12? I think you meant 4 out of 12

and ABSOLUTELY, we need to keep swinging the bat and bring guys in every year

[Private Joker]

We were 7-6 in 2018. What would our record have been without transfer McMillan. I'll go with 4-8. Big difference

[ml wave]

We were 7-6 in 2018. What would our record have been without transfer McMillan. I'll go with 4-8. Big difference

He wasn't perfect, but he came in and beat out an incumbent starter...if they're improving the talent level on the team then it's a hit to me.

[TU23]

I did forget about Noah Fisher. If I recall, he played through some injuries during his time at Tulane and was "ok."

A quick update on one of our former players. Keshon Williams has transferred to Stephen F. Austin.

Amare Jones obviously signed with Georgia Southern after also receiving an offer from Stephen F. Austin. Our two other players in the portal (Tonquez Ball and Brandon Brown) are still without a home although I'd expect both of them to land on their feet at either an FCS school or JUCO or possibly a CUSA school (like MTSU for Ball or North Texas for Brown).

[PeteRasche]

Amare Jones obviously signed with Georgia Southern after also receiving an offer from Stephen F. Austin.

With how high we were on him and how some here even feared he'd leave for a major P5 after his freshman year, this sure makes one wonder what is up behind the scenes, doesn't it?

[ml wave]

Amare Jones obviously signed with Georgia Southern after also receiving an offer from Stephen F. Austin.

With how high we were on him and how some here even feared he'd leave for a major P5 after his freshman year, this sure makes one wonder what is up behind the scenes, doesn't it?

RBs are a dime a dozen?

[wavedom]

I did forget about Noah Fisher. If I recall, he played through some injuries during his time at Tulane and was "ok."

A quick update on one of our former players. Keshon Williams has transferred to Stephen F. Austin.

Amare Jones obviously signed with Georgia Southern after also receiving an offer from Stephen F. Austin. Our two other players in the portal (Tonquez Ball and Brandon Brown) are still without a home although I'd expect both of them to land on their feet at either an FCS school or JUCO or possibly a CUSA school (like MTSU for Ball or North Texas for Brown).

He was a lot better than ok. He suffered an ankle injury late in camp and he tried to play through it. They finally sat him out so he could heal. He came back the same game McMillan took over the QB spot. His play was the best at LT that we have seen in a long time.

[randymc]

Looks like Tulane is getting Tyler Lamm, ex-Holy Cross HS, grad transfer from ULM Warhawks. He is 6-5, 245 pounds and has averaged 10 catches per year over past two seasons.

[purplehaz3]

Looks like Tulane is getting Tyler Lamm, ex-Holy Cross HS, grad transfer from ULM Warhawks. He is 6-5, 245 pounds and has averaged 10 catches per year over past two seasons.

Not the greatest statistics. Had good size though which we are lacking. We have solid TE’s in James and Will Wallace but I guess this adds depth. I wish we could attract some bigger names with better statistics...it’s a wide open market now. We need more weapons

[Baywave1]

Looks like Tulane is getting Tyler Lamm, ex-Holy Cross HS, grad transfer from ULM Warhawks. He is 6-5, 245 pounds and has averaged 10 catches per year over past two seasons.

Not the greatest statistics. Had good size though which we are lacking. We have solid TE’s in James and Will Wallace but I guess this adds depth. I wish we could attract some bigger names with better statistics...it’s a wide open market now. We need more weapons

Lamm may be a PWO. If so, this transfer makes a lot of sense and is an easy decision by Fritz.

[ml wave]

Looks like Tulane is getting Tyler Lamm, ex-Holy Cross HS, grad transfer from ULM Warhawks. He is 6-5, 245 pounds and has averaged 10 catches per year over past two seasons.

Not the greatest statistics. Had good size though which we are lacking. We have solid TE’s in James and Will Wallace but I guess this adds depth. I wish we could attract some bigger names with better statistics...it’s a wide open market now. We need more weapons

Lamm may be a PWO. If so, this transfer makes a lot of sense and is an easy decision by Fritz.

A PWO grad transfer? That's a new one. Are you basing that on anything other than his statistics? Grad transfers make a lot of sense because they're a 1yr scholarship commitment and, given that we may be in a position where we won't have a "normal" allotment of scholarships next year, it's beneficial to us to have that scholarship open again next year.

[TU23]

Lamm is going to be a PWO, Baywave is right.

[long green]

Really? Score!

[ml wave]

Lamm is going to be a PWO, Baywave is right.

First time for everything, lol. That's good news.