Tulane football fans may never look at Thanksgiving the same way again. The No. 17 Green Wave entered the holiday with an actual chance to leap past the Big 12 Conference champion and charge into the expanded playoff field. They will no longer earn consideration of any kind following their 34-24 home loss to the Memphis Tigers.

Three turnovers and a leaky defense sunk Tulane's would-be landmark campaign. The popular opinion among social media users is that the team was woefully exposed as a “fraud” on their own field.

“Alright we can stop pretending the freaking AAC should sniff the playoff,” one individual emphatically posted on X. “When I complained about it, Tulane fans and others were trying to tell me that they would win games in the Big12, miss me with that garbage.”

This surprising loss now opens the door for another group of five program to sneak into the 12-team College Football Playoff. “Memphis sends Tulane to the gulag, and the MWC Title Game {Boise State vs. UNLV} might just be a CFB Playoff play-in game,” Unnecessary Roughness said.

Tulane football blew opportunities to get back in the game

Freshman quarterback Darian Mensah surpassed 300 passing yards and threw two touchdowns in the game, but he also recorded an interception that eventually led to a Memphis touchdown in the fourth quarter. Wide receiver Yulkieth Brown made a costly fumble deep in Tigers territory in the third that denied the Green Wave a shot to even up the score. He posted 93 receiving yards, which were actually second to the 130 accumulated by star Marlo Williams, but the squad was still unable to catch Memphis in the second half.

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The offense's miscues notwithstanding, the defense certainly could have mounted more resistance against the Tigers' best weapon. Marlo Anderson Jr. ran for 177 yards and his 18th rushing touchdown of the year, which all but ended the game and Tulane's chances of making the CFP. Jon Sumrall's group is now a cautionary tale to all fan bases that might be resting easy.

“Let this Tulane result be a warning,” one fan posted. “The CFP talk is fun, but there is still a mountain to climb.” During the next two weeks, other teams will see their dreams meet a crushing demise as well. Perhaps the Green Wave's high-profile stumble in New Orleans, Louisiana's Yulman Stadium will brace people for the impending chaos.

Tulane football cannot sulk, though. They have to stay focused on the task at hand.

HC Jon Sumrall can still lead his team to a conference title

The Green Wave is not going to engulf the Big 12, Boise State or the rest of the country, but that does not mean 2024 cannot end with a positive result. They will square off against Army in the American Athletic Conference Championship game at a venue still to be determined on Friday, Dec. 6.

If Tulane can seize its second league title in three years and earn double-digit wins for a third straight season, fans will still have a reason to be proud in year one of the Sumrall era. This humbling outcome could be the fuel the program did not know it needed. The locker room is surely not going to forget how it felt on Nov. 28, 2024.