Tulane experiences long road trip

Before he could see his team execute the game plan for Saturday’s season opener in Bryant-Denny Stadium, Tulane coach Bob Toledo had to execute a different kind of game plan.

The Green Wave, in the path of Hurricane Gustav, moved the football team to Birmingham last Saturday for its final week of preparation.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, school officials had developed emergency evacuation plans. Athletics director Rick Dickson oversaw his department’s logistics.

“Once we realized the time frame of the upcoming storm, the evacuation plans for both the university and the city needed to trigger,” Dickson said. “The accommodations for this weekend were already set. We first made the changes to extend our stay. It made the most sense and fit within the flexibility of our evacuation plan to send teams out to their competition sites early, if available.

“Once we secured lodging and the other logistics necessary for moving a team, then we began covering the workout and practice facilities, meeting places and those type of things.”

Dickson said Tulane contacted both Samford and UAB. Both universities were eager to help, but UAB was preparing for its home game Tulsa. Plus, Samford’s campus was close to Tulane’s hotel. So the Green Wave practiced at Samford all week.

Football was the least of Toledo’s concerns, particularly when the damage to New Orleans wasn’t known early in the week.

“When you’re together for 24 hours a day, you’ve got to find other things to do besides just football,” Toledo said this week.

The team went bowling — offense vs. defense — and visited the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. The team took in a movie Thursday.

“We’re trying to occupy as much of their time as we can so they don’t think about bad things back home right now,” Toledo said.

But practice is still practice. It’s an extended trip, but it’s still a business trip.

“When we’re on the practice field and practicing, or in the meeting rooms and meeting, we’re trying to tell them that they have to give us a total focus to that time, so that we can get something done,” Toledo said. “Because we are still here to play football, and against a very good opponent.”

Even without the drama of the past week, Tulane was going to be a mystery team. The Green Wave was 4-8 a year ago, but returns seven starters on offense and seven more on defense. They trailed LSU by one point at halftime last year before fading in the final 30 minutes.

Still, they must replace their 2,000-yard running back, Matt Forte.

Sophomore Kevin Moore seems to have won a close battle for the starting quarterback job over freshman Joe Kemp.
Defensively, both ends are back, senior Reggie Scott and junior Adam Kwentua. The Green Wave must replace their interior defensive tackles, however.

But Toledo said he doesn’t know how his team will play Saturday.

“We’ll find out more on Saturday,” he said. “Anytime you have to get up and move your entire football operations to a hotel several hundred miles away, it affects you.

“We’ve had to move all our video equipment, which we didn’t get in early. Our weight workouts, we had to go back to Samford and get workouts in. Meeting room-wise, we’ve struggled a little bit because we can’t have the whole team meet at once because there’s no room big enough.”

Still, Toledo has heard it could be much worse. Twenty-four players on this team were there when Katrina struck. He credited their leadership with keeping the team together.

“Our situation now is so much better back in 2005 because we had a plan,” Toledo said. “We’re not sleeping on a gymnasium floor and not eating food. We’re sleeping in a nice hotel. Good food at our access.

“The kids have done a good job of giving leadership to the younger players on our football team. There’s no question that having gone through it, and having the experience of that situation has been very helpful for our kids.”

Tulane’s Moore, the quarterback, said he was thankful that plan was executed properly.

“Our whole staff and our coaching staff were so prepared,” he said. “We had a plan and it went through without a hitch. We got out of New Orleans, got here and everyone in the city of Birmingham, and the staff at the Marriott has been great. This coaching staff and athletic department here at Samford, opening up their facilities, have been tremendous.

“We’re trying to simulate a normal week. We know it’s not normal, but everyone I’ve been around has done as good of a job as you could ask for.”

Moore said he knows its sounds odd, but it has seemed like a normal week for Tulane.

“Nothing extraordinary is happening here,” he said. “Of course, we’re all worried about our homes and families back in New Orleans. But we’ve done a good job.”

The football team was joined in Birmingham by the women’s golf and women’s tennis teams. The women’s volleyball team is in San Luis Obispo, Calif., competing in a tournament this weekend.

Tulane University, closed since last Friday, has planned a Sunday check-in for all students. Classes are scheduled to resume Monday.