It was a long shot, but the No. 17 Tulane Green Wave still had a somewhat realistic path to the College Football Playoff entering Thursday’s game against Memphis.
That path is now pretty much gone following an ugly 34-24 defeat that handed them a third loss on the season and will almost certainly drop them down the rankings in the next College Football Playoff rankings that gets released on Tuesday.
Tulane was already facing a tough path given the strength of the AAC and the fact it already had two losses on the season and lost its only two games against ranked opponents. But if it beat Memphis on Saturday and then won the AAC Championship Game against Army next week, it would have had a chance, depending on what happened with the Big 12 conference.
The way the expanded playoff field works is the five highest-ranked conference champions all earn automatic bids into the playoffs. Tulane had a chance to steal one of those automatic bids from the Big 12. Tulane was just one spot behind the highest-ranked Big 12 team (No. 16 Arizona State) in the latest rankings.
Given how the Big 12 championship game is still up for grabs with nine teams in the running, it would not have been hard to imagine Tulane winning out and sneaking into one of those automatic playoff spots.
But now that idea is completely gone.
It was also not a particularly close game.
Tulane was statistically dominated across the board, being outgained 454-374, allowing 26 first downs while recording just 15 of its own and turning the football over three times while getting zero takeaways of its own.
That does not mean Tulane has nothing to play for in next week’s AAC Championship Game or a postseason game.
The conference title is still up for grabs, and if Tulane can win it, that would be two AAC titles in a three-year span. Beating Army and winning a bowl game would also give Tulane its third consecutive 11-win season. Prior to the 2022 season, when this run started, the program had won 11 games just three total times in its existence, and two of those were all the way back in the 1930s. It is not a stretch to say this is the most successful era of Tulane football ever.
A playoff spot would have been an incredible accomplishment, but there is still a lot to play for, even without that.
