One of my pet peeves concerning Tulane fans is the total lack of respect many carry for CUSA, or lack of knowledge of the level of competition in CUSA. We constantly hear mantras such as, "if we can't win 9 games in CUSA...." It boggles my mind that these people can not see that CUSA has fine very good football teams and a winning season is quite an accomplishment, much less 9 games.

This comment retrieved from the YOGWF is a very good example of what I am talking about.

"And I would say enough of the low expectation.

If we can't win 8+ this year and next, when we have a deep and experienced team, it's extremely doubtful that we will win "7 a year". And "7 a year" is pretty much what we need to do and can do, especially in this league. And it's true this year in particular because the schedule is so "manageable" - very similar to the 1998 schedule. And then I think that many people believe that we've somewhat "underachieved" (fell asleep for 1/2 of the 2003 season, e.g.; the first 1/2 of last year) resulting in 10K crowds in October and November. And indeed, through all of it WERE EXCUSES (some legitimate; but spare me the excuses when we need a lucky break to beat Northwestern State). It's time for excuses to end and winning to begin.

Yea, 8 bowl games and all that - to some it means this is a lousy job. To me, it means that it CAN be done with the proper leadership. Just off the top of my head, we wasted 9 years from 1988-1996 with substandard coaching. Teevens not winning here is less than dispositive proof that winning is difficult - it just proves that he can't win here. We virtually didn't try from the early 1950s to late 1960s. English's failures weren't probative of Tulane's problems. We made some bad choices.

I don't see the word "fire" anywhere in this thread re expecations. Nowhere. That's ridiculous.

But it's time to win."


The writer of those comments is obviously unaware of how deep and experienced other teams in CUSA are, leaving him with a low level of respect for our competition. The truth is Tulane is in a tough mix. As for experience and depth, this is how the teams stack up:

(Deepest in experience and depth)

1) UTEP
2) UAB
3) ECU (Here's a team that might have a rigth to complain)
4) USM
5) Memphis
6) SMU
7) Tulane
8) Marshall
9) Houston
10) UCF
11) Rice
12) Tulsa