Swept Away By A Golden Hurricane

This morning finds the Tulane Green Wave +28.5 over Tulsa. Ugh. The hook too; couldn't just make it an even four scores? A long way from the heady days when the Wave was three touchdowns over Army.

And that is just it. In just a month, the Wave has moved some three-four touchdowns south in Vegas’ eyes. Sure, there have been some key injuries at the skill positions. But let’s not go to crazy. Despite some obvious upside, Andre Anderson was on pace for a 1300-ish rushing year- pretty okay in our League. Jeremy Williams probably was going to catch around fifty balls- nowhere near good enough for a number one receiver in C-USA.

Something else has clearly soured here. And that 28-point spread moves this game from football contest to psychology experiment.

I mean, Tulane isn’t even in Tulsa’s class right now. But the funny thing is that it is sort of an important game. Scratch that: "important" is wrong- "semi-interesting" is better. It is a referendum on Bob Toledo and the locker room. If the Wave gets beat 70-12 it would lend a lot of credence to "tales" that a goodly number of veteran players have not bought into Toledo.

By spring I suppose most of the miscreants will be gone- so it is a story that is over probably by Christmas. And while I don’t think Toledo is a very good coach- I’m not exactly sure moving veteran players aside for his recruits is exactly uncalled for.

Still, this game is a test of the temperature in the locker room. There is zero to play for except the coach and each other. Toledo has failed every single test so far- I see no reason he passes this one. Tulsa utterly destroys the Wave in this spot. I’ll seek to move my ATS record to 7-3 (with one push) giving Tulane 28.5 and watching Tulsa run to something well north of 40.