Fare Thee Well, Chris

Well, goes to show what I know.

I had a feeling that Tulane would give Scelfo one more season to produce, but at the end of it all, they went ahead and let him go. Am I surprised? Mildly. Do I understand? Absolutely.

After eight seasons, Scelfo could never seem to build on the momentum of the 2002 Hawaii Bowl season. You could blame it on the subsequent review, the rash of devastating injuries the next two seasons and, of course, the bitch Katrina. Believe me, there are few coaches who could overcome those obstacles and expect to win much of anything. Just look at the differences in records during the first half of his career compared to the second half:

First four seasons: 20-27, two winning seasons, Hawaii Bowl win.

Last four seasons (post review, Katrina): 16-30, no winning seasons; take away 2005, and it's 14-21.

Clearly, the Tulane program reached a steady state...not really improving, not really gaining any kind of momentum. And if you look closely at that 2005 season, one could argue that, again, given Scelfo's track record against winning teams and on the road, that Tulane could just as easily had a losing record even if Katrina never hit. They played six eventual bowl teams and Mississippi State.

It seems to me that Scelfo, especially after Losman and Moore graduated, tried to protect against getting blown out rather than operating the normal offense. Tulane tried to run more, tried to burn more clock, tried to keep his defense off the field. The offense suffered, and the defense couldn't stop anyone anyway, so Tulane still lost. Gone was the exciting, no-huddle, productive offense, and in was the staid, predictable, run-pass-run offense that got nobody excited.

Also, the last four seasons, Tulane lost each season opener...killing rare, precious momentum. And this season featured one cock-block after another; the home opener loss to SMU, which destroyed student interest; the loss to UTEP, which would have gone a long way in helping Tulane get to a bowl berth; the loss to Marshall.

Frankly, Scelfo couldn't be successful in his own conference, and it didn't improve even after Louisville, USF and Cincy left for the Big East. The average margin of victory by conference foes in the six losses Tulane suffered this season was by 24 points. 24 POINTS!

I thank Scelfo for being such a stand up guy, an obvious player's coach, someone many football players looked up to. But it seems though, in the end, he was never ready to take on a head football coaching job, and he never learned how to survive a job at Tulane.