Willie Fritz, Tulane not changing up preparation for Ole Miss

The rise of Tulane football under Willie Fritz is definitely a sight to behold, but don’t expect anything different when the Green Wave host Ole Miss.

Tulane opened its season with a 37-17 win over South Alabama, while Ole Miss began with a 73-7 win over Mercer. Not the biggest matchups on paper, but both took care of business ahead of the Week 2 matchup.

That’s exactly what Fritz and Tulane want to do this weekend and the head coach describe the preparation for the Rebels as a “boring answer.”

“You know I’m very consistent in our preparation week after week after week and it’s probably a boring answer, but I make sure that our guys understand,” Fritz said on Sirius XM College Sports Radio. “You’re only guaranteed 12 of these opportunities. We want to play the very best we can while these guys work 355 days a year on a craft and you know, you want to put everything into you possibly can. (We) want to do that week after week after week.” 

Not only hasn’t Fritz changed anything while at Tulane, he hasn’t changed since he began coaching.

“My first year as a head coach at Junior College … same preparation,” Fritz said. “We’re not changing anything. You got to do that each and every week and you know, strive every day to go 1-0 each week. So we’re not doing anything different this week than we did last week, last season and the season before that.”

Fritz is 44-45 in his career at Tulane but really broke through last season with a 12-2 record, won the AAC and beat USC in the Cotton Bowl. With preseason expectations, such as being ranked within the top 25 and being No. 24 going into Week 2, per the AP Poll, there’s reason to believe in Tulane over Ole Miss this weekend.

Fritz knows of Ole Miss based on the matchup from 2021 as the Rebels won 61-21. Former quarterback Matt Corral carved up the defense and the offense totaled 707 yards.

“We had a tough time just getting lined up with the tempo and some things like that,” Fritz said, via OM Spirit. “We’ve worked on that a bunch. There’s a lot of differences. There’s a new signal caller, their head coach’s scheme, a new play caller and a new defensive coordinator and on special teams. It’s a lot of different philosophies they’re doing right now.”

No. 20 Ole Miss hits the road Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET against No. 24 Tulane.