Athlon’s 15 Tulane Picks Missed the Title Cast

Athlon Sports put 15 Tulane players on its 2025 preseason All-AAC team, including seven first-teamers, on July 2, 2025. The Green Wave still won the American. Most of those first-team names were not the ones who did it.

Senior editor Steven Lassan built the board as a talent census. A year later it reads like a missed roll call, because the title ran through a kicker, a punter, a fourth-team safety and a running back who barely played.

Fifteen Names on Athlon’s July Board

Tulane athletics posted a league-best 15 Athlon Sports selections, the most in the American. The count is 14 players. Wide receiver Omari Hayes, a Florida Atlantic transfer, landed twice, as the second-team punt returner and a third-team receiver.

The first team mixed holdovers with portal imports. Louisville transfer Maurice Turner was the running back, sold on a 314-yard game in 2022. UTEP edge Mo Westmoreland arrived with eight sacks, 46 tackles and 9.5 tackles for loss. Tackle Derrick Graham and guard Shadre Hurst returned as the line’s veteran pair. Kameron Hamilton, Sam Howard and safety Bailey Despanie filled out the seven.

That list sat at the center of Tulane’s 2025 All-AAC honor roundup when the magazine dropped. Official account @GreenWaveFB posted the graphic a few days later.

Pre-Season All-AAC honors from Athlon Sports ⬇️#UptownFootball pic.twitter.com/fL622NDknq

— Tulane Football (@GreenWaveFB) July 7, 2025

THE 15 ATHLON PICKS

• First team: Turner, Graham, Hurst, Hamilton, Westmoreland, Howard, Despanie.
• Second team: defensive tackle Santana Hopper and Hayes on returns.
• Third team: Hayes at receiver, center Jack Hollifield, lineman John Bock II.
• Fourth team: Tre’Von McAlpine, corner LJ Green, safety Jack Tchienchou.

Hopper, Hayes, Hollifield, Bock, McAlpine and Green were new to Uptown. Tchienchou was the one fourth-teamer who had already been on campus. He would be the one Athlon got most wrong, in the useful direction.

Only Shadre Hurst Kept a First-Team Spot

The league’s coaches voted after the regular season, on Dec. 2, 2025, with Tulane sitting 10-2 and 7-1. The coaches’ all-conference ballot still gave the Green Wave a league-high 13 names plus Special Teams Player of the Year Patrick Durkin. It did not rubber-stamp Lassan’s first team.

ATHLON FIRST TEAM VS THE COACHES

One of the seven Athlon first-teamers, Hurst, stayed on the coaches’ first team. Howard slid to second. Graham, a 2024 first-teamer, landed on third. Turner, Hamilton, Westmoreland and Despanie did not make the ballot at all.

Turner played eight games and ran 28 times for 127 yards and no scores. Hamilton finished 14 games with 29 tackles, four tackles for loss and three sacks. Despanie started the year as the Athlon safety and ended it with 63 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and one interception, while Tchienchou took the first-team spot behind him. Westmoreland, the UTEP sack import, never appeared on the coaches’ teams.

Three of the seven still made some official team. That is a hit rate, not a coronation.

The American Title Went to a Different Cast

None of that stopped the Wave from taking the league. Tulane finished 11-3 and 7-1, then beat North Texas 34-21 in the American Championship Game on Dec. 5 at Yulman Stadium. North Texas and Navy also went 7-1. The Mean Green were 12-2 overall and Navy 11-2, so the regular season did not crown a single bully.

North Texas quarterback Drew Mestemaker won Offensive Player of the Year. Navy’s Landon Robinson won Defensive Player of the Year. Eric Morris, then the Mean Green coach, won Coach of the Year. Tulane’s major individual trophy was Durkin on special teams.

The title game still belonged to Uptown. Jake Retzlaff, who was not on Athlon’s 15, scored twice on short runs. Jamauri McClure, a backup who started three games all year, ran for 121 yards and a touchdown. Linebacker Chris Rodgers, also absent from the July board, returned an interception 35 yards for a score. Tulane picked off three passes and recovered two fumbles. The Wave went 7-0 at home, the first time since 1948.

It’s an incredible opportunity we have in front of us and that’s all you can ask for, frankly in life.

Jake Retzlaff, quarterback, after the American title game

It was Tulane’s second American title in four years, matching Cincinnati (2020, 2021) and UCF (2017, 2018) for the most since the championship game began in 2015. The Wave then drew Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff first round on Dec. 20 and lost 10-41 in Oxford, after a 10-45 loss there on Sept. 20. The final polls had Tulane at No. 18.

THE 2025 HONOR SEASON

1. July 2, 2025: Athlon names 15 Green Wave players to its preseason All-AAC teams, seven on the first team.
2. Dec. 2, 2025: Coaches give Tulane 13 all-conference spots and name Durkin Special Teams Player of the Year.
3. Dec. 5, 2025: Tulane beats North Texas 34-21 for the American title at Yulman Stadium.
4. Dec. 20, 2025: Ole Miss wins the CFP first round 41-10 in Oxford.
5. July 6, 2026: Athlon’s next American board gives Tulane 10 picks and the lead to Navy.

Jon Sumrall coached the title game and the playoff after Florida hired him on Nov. 30, 2025. The program he left had just become the first Louisiana team in the 12-team playoff field.

Who Played Like All-Conference in 2025?

The coaches’ first team from Tulane was a specialist-heavy group Athlon had barely touched. Durkin, Clark and Tchienchou were not among the seven July first-teamers. Hopper had been a second-team defensive lineman.

THE PLAYERS THE MAGAZINE UNDERWEIGHT

• Patrick Durkin: 22-for-24 on field goals and 36-for-37 on extra points for 102 points, with four makes from 50-plus and 63 touchbacks on 71 kickoffs (88.7 percent). Three times special teams player of the week.
• Alec Clark: 47.7 yards a punt on 42 kicks, 16 of 50-plus, 13 inside the 20, a long of 70.
• Jack Tchienchou: 83 tackles, two interceptions, first-team safety, Most Outstanding Player of the title game after Athlon had him on the fourth team.
• Santana Hopper: 9.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks as a first-team defensive lineman, up from Athlon’s second team.

McAlpine, Athlon’s fourth-team lineman, made the coaches’ second team. Howard, the one returning linebacker on the July first team, held on as a second-teamer with 50 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss and four sacks in 11 games. Retzlaff ran for 16 touchdowns. McClure added 540 yards on 6.5 yards per carry and two scores in three starts.

Hayes, Hollifield, Bock, Green and Turner did not make the coaches’ teams. The 2024 official ballot had given Tulane 18 all-conference names. The 2025 coaches still led the league at 13, with North Texas at 12 and South Florida at 11. The preseason magazine lead of 15 did not map onto the people who earned the December votes.

Navy Inherited the 2026 Athlon Board

Sumrall’s move to Florida, and the portal cycle that always follows a Group of Five title, showed up on the next magazine. On July 6, 2026, Tulane athletics announced 10 Athlon picks a year later, down five from 2025, with three first-teamers instead of seven.

The first team was McClure, Tchienchou and kick returner Jaylin Lucas, a Florida State transfer. Anthony Brown-Stephens, Rodgers and Dickson Agu made the second team. Reese Baker, Ed Smith IV and E’zaiah Shine made the third. Derrick Shepard Jr. made the fourth. Hurst, Graham, Turner, Hamilton, Westmoreland, Howard and Despanie were gone from the board.

Navy led Athlon’s 2026 American team with 13 selections. UTSA, Memphis and Temple had 12 each. The magazine that had treated Tulane as a class apart in 2025 spread the 2026 wealth across the league, and the Midshipmen sat on top of a board the Wave had owned 12 months earlier.

Will Hall took over as first-year head coach. By Oct. 2, 2026, Tulane was 2-2 and 0-0 in American play, with conference games still ahead, including Army on Oct. 10. Sumrall’s Florida team was 4-0. The coach Athlon’s 2025 talent pile helped advertise was already winning in the SEC.

Maurice Turner’s Burst Showed Up a Season Late

The running back on the 2025 first team did not vanish. He waited. Through four games in 2026 he had 26 carries for 277 yards and two touchdowns, 10.7 yards a pop, after 127 yards on 28 carries the year he was supposed to be the featured back.

On Sept. 26, 2026, Turner ran for 200 yards on 12 carries with two scores in a 24-21 win over Southern Miss, Hall’s former program. He had a 43-yard touchdown and a 74-yard go-ahead run. The American named him offensive player of the week. Jaylin Lucas had already posted a 200-yard rushing night at Yulman in the previous home game, so two backs Athlon split across two different years both finally looked like magazine copy in the same September.

That is the joke inside the 15-pick haul. The 2025 Green Wave were good enough to win the American and reach the playoff with a rebuilt roster, a transfer quarterback and a fourth-team safety who became the title-game MVP. The magazine had the right program and the wrong depth chart. When Turner finally ran like a first-teamer, it was for a different coach, on a board Navy had taken, a full season after Athlon printed his name in bold.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Tulane Players Made Athlon’s 2025 Preseason All-AAC Team?

Athlon listed 15 selections and 14 players, because Omari Hayes appeared as both the second-team punt returner and a third-team wide receiver. No other American program matched that total on the July 2025 board.

Who From Tulane Made Athlon’s 2025 First Team?

The seven were running back Maurice Turner, tackle Derrick Graham, guard Shadre Hurst, linemen Kameron Hamilton and Mo Westmoreland, linebacker Sam Howard and safety Bailey Despanie. Only Hurst later made the coaches’ first team.

Did Tulane Win the 2025 American Conference Championship?

Yes. The Wave beat North Texas 34-21 on Dec. 5, 2025, at Yulman Stadium for a second league title in four years, then lost 10-41 at Ole Miss in the CFP first round and finished No. 18 in the AP poll.

How Many Tulane Players Made the Official 2025 All-AAC Teams?

Coaches named 13 Green Wave players, plus Patrick Durkin as Special Teams Player of the Year, with North Texas next at 12. The five first-teamers were Hurst, Santana Hopper, Jack Tchienchou, Durkin and punter Alec Clark.