A Night to Remember: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

“When we win on Friday night, I’ll be flying out and enjoying your party.” –Memphis Coach Ryan Silverfield in Nov. 5 interview with Barstool Sports

“PARTY’S CANCELLED, @$*&!!”—Shouted in Tulane locker room around midnight, Nov. 7.

Years ago in the Buddy Teevens era we played Alabama one year in the Superdome.  This was pre-Saban Bama, but they were still a formidable opponent under Gene Stallings and they would go on to win the national title that year.

They came out of the locker room looking a little disinterested and flat before kickoff.  But we had a 195 pound linebacker named Wilbert Gilmore, an undersized but tough kid from the city, and he picked that pregame moment to run up and down the Alabama sideline gesturing and pointing.  My dad went nuts.  “For God’s sake don’t get them all fired up!” he yelled.

It was an acknowledgement that we were in big trouble if Alabama decided they wanted to play and teach young Wilbert a lesson, and why give them the extra fuel?  Of course that was a different time in the sports culture (and the culture at large) than we are in today. 

Still, the term “bulletin board material” retains currency long after actual bulletin boards have gone away.  Coaches don’t want their players providing any extra ammunition during the week, and at the same time always have their antenna tuned to any real or perceived slight from the other side.  Coach Sumrall has been on both the receiving end and the giving end of this the past two weeks, and it seems barely a week goes by in our league where some coach somewhere isn’t feeling disrespected.

Last year Memphis’s coach felt slighted by the point spread in our game.  But there he was on a national podcast Wednesday, talking about partying Friday night after Memphis won. No doubt he was just trying to banter with the podcast host, but it reminded me of the old Greek proverb: “Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.”  Those stones Silverfield threw, whatever his intention, were real in our locker room and gave us some extra juice.

Some additional scenes played out in Memphis Friday night that raised the temperature even higher before the game.  The visiting locker room is small and we had a table set up outside of it where some players were being taped or getting snacks or drinks.  The Memphis band gathered in the tunnel near the entrance to our locker room to line up for their pregame performance.  Any player or coach who emerged was taunted and greeted with various hand gestures (I’ll leave it at that). 

When the band is talking smack before the game, you know it’s going to be an interesting night.  There was even a guy (there’s always this guy, wherever and whoever we play) leaning over the railing wearing purple and gold and chanting “L-S-U” at our team as they prepared to take the field.

This was about as hostile a non-Baton Rouge environment as I’ve been to on the road with Tulane, and for the same reason.  A lot of these people—certainly not all, and not even most, but a significant enough chunk—just don’t like us.   Maybe familiarity breeds contempt, or maybe they knew they had a challenge.  The fact is that if an opponent isn’t at least a little scared of you, they tend to treat you very well.  The fangs come out when they feel threatened.

The band set the tone for a lot more berating during the game from behind our bench.  It was a big time, alcohol-fueled college football atmosphere Friday night in Memphis.

But when Jake Retzlaff hit Shazz Preston for a long touchdown on our first offensive play from scrimmage, whatever jitters we had left the building.  From that point on our players seemed to relish their role as gladiators on enemy soil and gave to the Memphis crowd as well as they got.  When Retzlaff ran for the clinching first down and victory was at hand, the players on the sideline decided it was time to rub it in a little with the ruffians behind the bench, and it was hard to blame them.  They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but it’s pretty good served hot too, and this was scalding.  Sam Howard raced up and down the field in a state of euphoria on his broken leg, running to the end zone corner to salute the Green Wave fans who made the trip.  Jake Retzlaff, he of the transcendent first half and the game-sealing keeper on the last series, clutched the football he carried for that last first down.  Coaches and players, all spent, celebrated with each other emotionally.

Considering what just happened in San Antonio last week and considering the opponent Friday night, this was as satisfying a victory as this team has had since Coach Sumrall got here.  Jake Retzlaff and the offense had a performance for the ages in the first half, and we built enough of a cushion to survive our patented fingernail-chewing late game struggles to hang on and win.

There were lots of game day heroes but this battle was won during the week.  Our quarterback, humbled by his struggles the game before, put in a lot of extra study time this week in the film room.  It was a testament to the fact that you can SAY it’s easier to make corrections after a win than a loss, but the reality is that nothing gets a young man’s attention like getting humiliated and beaten and benched when he knows he didn’t give his best effort.  Some lessons, the most worthwhile lessons, have to be learned the hard way through failure.

And my God, was he magnificent in that first half.  He completed every pass except one that was dropped, averaged an astonishing 26 yards per attempt, and accounted for four touchdowns.  All this on the road against a ranked opponent, after getting hurt in the first quarter and having to wear a big brace on his leg. 

We weren’t as sharp in the second half but that was a very good, prideful football team we were playing, and you knew they wouldn’t go away.  At the end when plays had to be made, we made enough of them on both sides of the ball to win.

The game was also a reminder of how far we still need to go as a program and who we are competing against.  A gargantuan, multi-level stadium renovation is ongoing at the Liberty Bowl on the home sideline, a $200 million-plus project funded by the City of Memphis and various business and private donors.  It sure meets the eye test, and it’s a tangible sign of the investment Memphis is making and the alignment of their supporters and their city on the goal of winning and moving up the ladder. 

If we don’t want to get left behind by these guys and USF, we have to find a way to stay competitive.  That’s a 24/7/365 challenge--and opportunity-- that isn’t going away.  Many in our fan base probably don’t think we have the ability to keep pace financially over the long haul, but many also figured we didn’t have much of a chance to go in there Friday night and win. You just have to compete as hard as you can every day, do your level best with the gifts that you have, and work and pray for a bigger and brighter tomorrow.  That’s when good things, often unexpected good things, happen in life and in football.

Jake Weinstock and I stopped for a celebratory beer on the walk back to the car. I marveled at the fact that Tulane has won the last five road games I’ve attended, two of them against ranked opponents.  My first column in this space in August 2024 was about going out to Provo in 2001 and getting smoked 70-35 by BYU.  My, how times have changed. 

(Editor's Note: In response, I reminded Tim that I attended eleven consecutive Tulane road losses over a nine-year span, following the 2013 victory in Monroe over ULM, until the 2022 victory in Tampa over USF. Agreed, times have changed. -Jake).

  “My bar would have been full if the Tigers had won,” the bartender told us. “But other than you the only people in here are those four guys at the end of the bar, and they’re only drinking because they’re heartbroken.”

We understood, because we’ve been there.  We had just ruined their playoff chances, and we did it in front of a big and excited crowd on national television. It had to be really painful for them to have everything right there, so close they could taste it, only to be ripped away cruelly.  Now the team that just beat them might take their place in the title game and maybe even in the Playoff.  And this was TULANE, a team they beat 11 times in a row between 2002 and 2017, the last by a score of 56-26.  Drunk or sober, it was a lot for them to process.

You hate to see it.  Bless their hearts.