Where Does Tulane Football Stand at the 2026 Midpoint?

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Tulane 2026 Football Schedule

The Tulane football team finds itself even-Stephen across the board as it heads into the final half of 2026. The Green Wave is 3-3 on the year, 1-1 in American Conference play after Friday night's convincing 31-17 victory over former league leader Memphis in a wind-whipped Yulman Stadium. With an unbeaten in conference play Texas-San Antonio coming to Uptown this weekend, On SI Tulane takes a look where the Wave have been in their first six games and where they could be headed.

Quarterback

The First Six Games

The Green Wave have been through four quarterbacks this season: three different starters and a situational QB. It started with Houston transfer Zeon Chriss-Gremillion, who lasted 30-minutes of play. He was replaced with another transfer, Kadin Semonza, who lasted a little over four games before true freshman Trace Johnson took his spot. Sprinkle in Dagan Bruno for some runs and a pass, and you have your quartet of QBs.

Tulane head coach Will Hall told anyone who would listen there was a future Michael Pratt / Darian Mensah already on the roster. Anyone with eyes could tell he was referring to Johnson. The kid graduated early from high school, joining the program for Spring ball. He had a cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor about him, letting few things rattle him. He could scan the field quickly, taking in what was before him and making decisions on a dime. However, he was young. So young.

Hall and his coaches wanted to bring Johnson along slowly, hoping the combination of Chriss-Gremillion and Semonza would give their future star time to develop. It didn't happen that way. Starting at Army was a possible solution, His coaches were hoping for the best and an offense that could spark in New York. It didn't

Johnson learned he would be the starter first thing the next day, and there would be no turning back.

There could be an argument made for having the freshman start at West Point. Instead, Johnson started against the top team in the conference, known for their ferocious pass rush. As outlined below, he was rarely touched much less pressured.

Johnson is the current and future quarterback for Hall. If only he can stick around like Pratt and not jump ship like Mensah.

The Last Six

Unless he gets hurt or there is a large lead by either team, Johnson should be your quarterback going forward with some healthy sprinkling in of Bruno for good measure.

Something to note: neither Zeon nor Kadin had the chance to play for a winning college program (at least not while they played heavily):

• Chriss-Gremillion played & started two years at ULL, which went 6-7 both seasons. When he started for Houston in 2024, the Cougars went 4-7. He subbed in in 2025, rarely playing, while Houston went 10-3.
• Semonza won Freshman of the Year in the MAAC, but played for a Ball State team that went 4-8 his true freshman year, 3-9 with him as a redshirt freshman.

Meanwhile both Dagan and Johnson have experienced nothing but winning football programs.

• Bruno was at John Curtis, then came to Tulane with Sumrall. That covers the winning football part.
• Johnson was 23-5 in his sophomore & junior years, starting for both seasons in his high school in Florida, He played in California his senior year at Santa Margarita Catholic High School. His team went 11-3 and won the California State open football championship over powerhouse De La Salle by 34 points.

Line Play

The First Six Games

Since before the season began, Hall warned that his team needed time to grow, for example the offensive and defensive lines that needed some seasoning.

True to Hall's word, the defensive line, made up of a couple of veterans but mostly raw youngsters, showed slow improvement over the first four games. They've given up a 100-yard rusher in four of their six games, including their victory over Memphis on Friday. However, that same defensive line has piled up 15-sacks on opposing quarterbacks for 113-yards in losses. Almost half of those came against Memphis, a Memphis team that had given up only nine sacks in their previous six games.

We said over the first four games, because things started to mesh better in the Army game, then blossomed versus the Tigers Friday night.

For the offensive line, it has been like a shuffle rather than a glide into the season. New people next to Tulane first-timers made for an interesting mix. We've seen a redshirt senior replaced at center (because of injury) by a sophomore who was playing in Macon, Georgia last season. The rearranging across the front continued at more than just the center spot, too. These moves led to a lack of cohesiveness across the all-important front five. There are bright spots in the O-line:

• Two, 200-yard rushers in Yulman Stadium, setting school records to boot.
• Better and better pass protection, as proven against a stout Memphis front Friday when they had to protect their freshman quarterback, and did, only allowing one sack and not one quarterback pressure.

The Last Six

Hall told us the line play would get better as they got deeper into the season. We've seen that on both sides of the line. There is no doubt that these are still works in progress.

On offense, we would like to see more wide runs to utilize the speed of the running backs. That means more containment within the line, the ability for linemen to pull, make, and finish their blocks on more than one level, and better blocking by the tight ends and wide receivers. Start going wide, and you'll see even more runs up the gut like the one we saw from Johnnie Daniels Friday.

Running Backs, Wide Receivers, Tight Ends

The First Six Games

Since the Spring, we have blown the horn about this running back corps. If one gets hurt, someone else just fills in the slot and the Tulane running game doesn't miss a beat. Jamauri McClure, Mo Turner, Jaylin Lucas, Daniels, and DJ Dugar have been the stalwarts, when the above-mentioned offensive line gives them the running room they need.

In the dozen years of Yulman Stadium on the Tulane campus no running back had ever run for 200 or more yards in a game. It has happened twice now, in one season, with Lucas and Turner doing the honors in non-conference games.

Wide receivers were having issues finding openings and holding on to the ball for games earlier this season. The speed of Fat Hill, the scatback ability of Anthony Brown-Stephens, the route-running and hands of Garrett Mmahat seemed to be more hiccups than regularity. Each had their share of drops in the first five games, until Memphis, when they found their rhythm with Johnson at quarterback, not dropping a single ball thrown to them and making some incredible catches on the way.

The tight ends, a mainstay of a Will Hall offense, have been racked by the injury bug with oft-injured Ty Thompson and the solid Gabe Lovorn hardly showing up on the stat sheet because of various hurts. The weight has fallen on a pair of transfers, Dawson Johnson and Vance Bolyard and a redshirt freshman Cameron Roberts to pick up where Thompson and Lovorn left off. Among the three, they have nine total receptions, Johnson leading the way with seven, a third of what receiver Hill has.

The Last Six

There is no doubt about the talent at running back. The Wave needs to use it to its advantage, especially, as we mentioned earlier, with more outside runs to set up those inside gut runs. Now that a permanent quarterback has been established, this wide receiver group should flourish. As for tight ends, we see the Johnson-to-Johnson connection already working, but there is plenty of talent in young Roberts, who we would like to see more involved in the passing game.

Linebackers & Defensive Backs

The First Six Games

It's rough when your All-Everything, outstanding linebacker, and probably your best defender gets hurt just minutes into the second game of the season.

When linebacker Chris Rodgers went down in the first series in the home opener against South Alabama, there was worry. When he disappeared into the locker room and reappeared late in the first quarter with a boot on his left foot, worry turned into despair. The talented senior is probably out for the year with what sources tell us is a Lisfranc injury, damage to the bones or supporting ligaments in the middle part of the foot. Senior Dickson Agu, himself returning from a 2025 season-ending injury, stalwart Makai Williams, and transfer Dalton Hughes have had to fill the huge hole left behind by a player who has NFL potential written all over his resume.

The defensive backfield was returning American Conference Championship MVP Jack Tchienchou, sticky corners E'zaiah Shine and LJ Green along with safety Kevin Adams III, while adding Texas Tech transfer Macho Stevenson. This group, though, has allowed gaps in coverage and has seen starters sitting when not performing up to task, as what happened against Memphis.

The Last Six

Seeing Agu, Williams, and Hughes, picking up the slack after the absence of Rodgers, along with some young linebacker playing more frequently, better play has been front and center over the last two games. With the maturation of the defensive front, we see this group making more and more stops instead of relying on their safeties as much.

The defensive backfield needs to be more like an extra coat of paint on opponents rather than a tent. With pressure increasing on the defensive front, as we have seen over the last two games, a tighter coverage can be allowed for these DBs.

Kicking Game

The First Six Games

Early competition between seasoned transfer Jackson Courville and redshirt freshman Cooper Helmke saw the two settling into their own categories: Courville being accurate from 40-yards in and Helmke anywhere past that. Courville made 1-of-2 kicks against Duke, then missed a 45-yarder versus South Alabama. Helmke came on to nail a school record 58-yarder at Kansas State, almost matching that with a 56-yard field goal versus Memphis. He has made 7-of-his-8 field goal attempts and no kick seems too far for Leg.

Hall said it best when he alluded to how people "overlooked" William Hudlow as the starting punter for Tulane. The walk-on from Jesuit, New Orleans, was seen by some, including us at On SI Tulane, as a place holder in the Spring until the highly recruited freshmen came on campus in the Fall.

Instead, when long, lanky John Allen and Georgia's Brooks Moore arrived, Hudlow showed consistency and range. Now he is on the Ray Guy Award watch list, the recognition given to the top punter in collegiate football. Out of his 32-punts on the year 15 of them have cleared the 50-yard mark, averaging 46.94-yards per punt. Hudlow's longest is 72-yards, but, most importantly, almost a third of his rockets have been downed inside the opponents' 20-yard line.

No one really notices the long snapper until they have to. Having one of the best in the country means you might not know Jason Arredondo too well because he just does his job.

When Jon Sumrall left for Florida, he took with him both Tulane's place kicker and punter, but left behind the deep snapper. We don't know if Arredondo felt slighted, but we would. The sophomore from Las Vegas is so reliable when he snaps it, no one says anything. It just gets done. Then he screams downfield to make sure the guy on the other end of the punt doesn't get anywhere. To wit, after a Hudlow punt versus Memphis sailed to inside the 5 and took a Tulane bounce, the guy downing the ball wasn't one of the gunners. It was Arredondo.

He's as good as there is in the South and one of the top in the nation.

We have seen a glimpse of where the return game can go, when TJ Smith brought back a 58-yard kickoff against Army. Dynamic returner Jaylin Lucas has yet to spring one, but you can feel the tension rise when he's back to receive a punt or kick. The longest punt return for Lucas was 25-yards in his eight.

Coverage on punts and kickoffs has been spectacular. This can be credited to Hall's emphasis on this third of football. He puts starters on special teams to make sure it is done right. And it has been.

The Last Six

This is an easy one: most of y'all just keep on keepin' on. We'd like to see the special teams players get an extra block for Smith or Lucas to pop one. The return part of special teams is the one that needs the most work.