I don't believe that any other Tulane fans have posted here, so I'll share my thoughts.

Obviously, our biggest shortcoming in current times has been on-field performance. It's been rough, however; a change in university president, was followed by a change in athletic director, that then resulted in multiple coaching changes and an over 50% turnover in athletic department staff. That, coupled with major facilities upgrades ( even now we're told that fundraising is underway for a football operations facility) makes me believe that a foundation is in place for improvements all around in performance.)

To me, fan support is the next big challenge. Tulane has allowed what once was very strong support in SE Louisiana to erode away. A large part of that is due to the losing, but there are other factors. In the evolution from a more regional institution to a national university, the percentage of students from Louisiana has dropped to ridiculously low levels. I'm one of those Yankees who came to Tulane from far away, but still believe that the drop in 'local' attendance isn't healthy. It's self inflicted though. Almost all of us here in New Orleans know of kids who were qualified and wanted to attend Tulane, but were not admitted. I don't know if that will ever change, but it should, and it would help with local fan support. While there are plenty of locals (mostly fans of the school upriver) who believe Tulane to be elitist and full of trust fund kids, most New Orleanians are pretty loyal to local institutions and would welcome back a winner, if we can produce one.

A couple other things . . .
Last year's, Tulane's student body numbered 13,851 total. Not large by any means, but I wouldn't call it small either.

Someone posted in another thread that Tulane would not have been invited to this conference if Boise and SDSU had not changed their minds about joining here. Tulane was invited before those two bolted.