The Tulane Green Wave have not yet named a starting quarterback for their season opener against Southeastern Louisiana on Thursday.
New head coach Jon Sumrall is perfectly happy with that. But he has a timetable in mind that could give him one. It’s just not a timetable that is conducive to forward planning.
“I’ll probably show up on Thursday, August 29th, and let everyone figure out who takes the first snap,” Sumrall said earlier this week.
Who starts the game may be more important to the person who prints the flip card with the two players on it, or to the public, than it is to Sumrall—at least in this game.
Sumrall believes he has a trio of players he can win with in last year’s backup Kai Horton, transfer Ty Thompson and redshirt freshman Darian Mensah.
“I told all three of them that I believe in them and that they will do their part to help us win games,” Sumrall said.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Yulman Stadium. The Green Wave haven’t played against Southeast Louisiana in a decade, but Tulane has won all previous encounters.
Horton has been waiting for his chance. He sat behind Michael Pratt for three years and even started for him in the Ole Miss game last season when Pratt was injured. But Horton has thrown for just 824 yards in his college career.
That still makes him the most productive quarterback of the three. Thompson threw for 456 yards in three seasons for Oregon, where he was stuck behind future NFL first-round pick Bo Nix. Then, after Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel traded to him, Thompson moved to him.
Mensah was ineligible to play last year and did not throw an official pass.
Interestingly, Mensah has been getting the most reps with the first team in practice over the past few days. But that could be Sumrall trying to catch up to the young player. He pointed out earlier this week that Horton and Thompson have been getting the most reps with the first team in the spring.
Because all three are still relatively untested, Sumrall said there’s a good chance all three quarterbacks will get time in the opener, but he declined to predict how that time might be divided.
Tulane worked on a “mock game” situation on Thursday, and Sumrall said they not only worked through specific game situations, but also began adjusting the game plan to fit all three players.
The intrigue is not intentional. Sumrall sounds like a coach who has three quarterbacks with good qualities and wants to see them in a real game. But a three-headed monster behind center is not the future.
“Going forward, I’m not going to think about how we can play with three quarterbacks in every game all year long,” Sumrall said.
In other words, these three quarterbacks will begin making their case for the full-time job next week.
