Tulane coach Jon Sumrall said that Northwestern denied his team’s request to wear white jerseys on Saturday to honor the 2005 Green Wave team.
Friday was the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in the city of New Orleans. The hurricane is one of the worst natural disasters in United States history; a majority of New Orleans was flooded and over 1,000 people died as the city dealt with long-term effects from the storm.
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The damage from Katrina forced Tulane to cancel the entire fall semester and the 2005 team ended up playing all 12 of its games on the road because of the damage to the Louisiana Superdome. As stadiums across the state of Louisiana and the surrounding areas were booked for football games, Tulane’s home games ended up being played at six different stadiums.
Tulane players didn’t have the Green Wave logo decals on their helmets on Saturday, like the 2005 team did in its first game of the season against Mississippi State. And after the team’s 23-3 win over Northwestern on Saturday, Sumrall said the team wanted to go further and wear their white road jerseys, but Northwestern didn’t agree to the idea.
Northwestern wore its white road jerseys for the game while Tulane wore its traditional green home uniforms. Per NCAA rules, the road team cannot dictate which color jersey a home team wears.
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Tulane scored 20 points in the first half as Northwestern QB Preston Stone threw four interceptions and averaged fewer than 5 yards a pass attempt. Meanwhile, Tulane QB Jake Retzlaff had two total touchdowns and threw for 152 yards and rushed for 113 more on 10 carries in his first game with the Green Wave.
Saturday was Retzlaff’s first game with Tulane. He arrived on campus over the summer after he transferred from BYU. Retzlaff, the Cougars’ starting QB in 2024, left BYU after a woman filed a civil lawsuit against him accusing him of sexual assault in the fall of 2023.
Retzlaff denied the allegations and the suit was eventually dismissed. However, he admitted to having sex with the woman and, as a result, was facing a seven-game suspension from BYU for an honor code violation. Instead of missing over half the 2025 season, Retzlaff opted to find a new school.