Jon Sumrall emphasized this week the importance of minimizing mistakes and executing cleanly to open the season — particularly against a Power-Four opponent.
His Tulane team not only took care of those details the bulk of Saturday — with no turnovers and just five penalties — but also received a dominant defensive performance and an eye-catching debut from new quarterback Jake Retzlaff to highlight a 23-3 stifling of Big Ten foe Northwestern.
“Really good win by our team,” Sumrall said. “That’s a quality opponent, a Big Ten team who has some really good players and a really good coaching staff, and I thought our guys really handled situational football well today for a Game 1. I talked a lot this week to ’em about most Game 1’s aren’t won, they’re actually lost by some team maybe kinda giving it away, and what we needed to do was be ourselves today. We played clean football, plus-5 in the turnover margin, out-rushed ’em significantly and situationally did some really good things.”
The Green Wave allowed the Wildcats just 237 total yards — 161 passing and 76 rushing — and snatched five takeaways.
Former Hammond High star Jahiem “Joker” Johnson kickstarted the opportunistic efforts with an interception of Northwestern’s third play from scrimmage that set up an early goal-line touchdown pass from Reztlaff to junior tight end Justyn Reid.
Another pair of Louisiana natives, sophomores Kevin Adams III (Destrehan) and Javion White (Franklin Parish), added first-half picks of their own, each of which set up additional Tulane scores — the latter a 69-yard dash by Retzlaff through the Wildcats’ defense to blow open a 20-3 lead just before halftime.
“This defense, we go off momentum,” Johnson said. “And from the first drive, we got a turnover, and it was a domino effect. We ended up with five turnovers. And we play with an edge. We try to play with an edge. That’s what gives us an advantage over a lot of teams. We play with an edge all the time, practice with an edge, do everything with an edge.”
Retzlaff finished 18-for-31 (58%) for 152 yards and a touchdown through the air and rushed 10 times for a career-high 113 yards and the highlight-reel score.
The showing was a notably intriguing start in olive and blue for the BYU transfer, who didn’t arrive uptown until late in the summer, just 38 days earlier.
“It started from the first drive of the game,” Retzlaff said. “Coach Sumrall is always preaching set the tone. The defense set the tone, and then we followed suit scoring on that first possession. It’s awesome to have a defense like that. You can always rely on them to get a stop. And, I mean, they played an unbelievable, unbelievable game today. It’s great. I mean, every other possession it feels like we’re jumping off the bench for a Javion White pick, so it was pretty awesome to be able to play with those guys.”
White added a second interception early in the fourth quarter to give the team its first four-pick game since 2023 and become the first Tulane defender with a multi-pick game since Destrehan product Macon Clark on Oct. 8, 2020, vs. Houston.
“I played wide receiver in high school, so I really thought I was gonna be a receiver when I came to college,” White smiled. “So, I mean, I would say I’ve got 10-out-of-10 hands, for sure for sure.”
And junior defensive lineman Tre’Von McAlpine recovered a late fumble to help further tie the bow on the Green Wave’s stingy afternoon.
Sophomore safety Jack Tchienchou wrapped up a team-high eight tackles, including one of their three sacks.
Three players added five stops a piece, including senior safety Bailey Despanie (Carencro) and sophomore linebacker Dickson Agu (Dutchtown).
Defensive linemen Kameron Hamilton (Zachary), a senior, and Santana Hopper, a junior, each had a sack, and Johnson added four pass breakups to his early interception.
“When we could win on first downs and create second- and third-and-long situations and things that became more obvious pass, that was gonna be advantageous for us,” Sumrall said. “And so it did a lot today. We got the tables turned the right direction and were able to kind pin our ears back up front and affect the passer. You know, that quarterback (Preston Stone) is a really good player. I’ve got a lot of respect for him. We tried to recruit him here. He’s got talent. He can make all the throws. But I thought our guys up front really competed at a high level. The depth of that D-line room, rotating so many guys into the game, and on the back end, I thought we really did a good job of tracking ball, playing the ball.”
Tulane meanwhile finished with 420 total yards — 268 rushing and 152 passing — with 6.5 yards per rush and 5.8 yards per play.
Junior running back Maurice Turner complemented Retzlaff with 13 carries for 85 yards, and sophomore running back Omari Hayes led the receivers with nine catches on nine targets for 74 yards.
Redshirt freshman kicker Patrick Durkin made all three of his field-goal attempts from 22 and 41 yards in the second quarter and 31 yards in the third and both of his extra-point opportunities.
The Green Wave heads to Mobile next Saturday to face South Alabama before returning home Sept. 13 for another Power-Four visitor in Duke and former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah.
“You’ve got until Sunday basically mid-afternoon to enjoy it, work through it, evaluate what went right or what went wrong,” Sumrall said. “And whether you win or lose, Sunday at about 3 or 4 o’clock, it’s like, ‘Alright, flip the script and go to the next one.’ And so, the challenge is we’ve got young guys in the locker room that everybody’s gonna pat their back and tell ’em how good they are right now, and we’ve gotta make sure they understand that every seven days in our world you can either be promoted or exposed. And the only way you can be promoted is by really working your tail off to be prepared to play at a high level every time you take the field. We’ll be fine. I have a pretty good talent on humbling ’em real quick. I mean, we’ll show ’em the tape of where we weren’t good, too.”