On SI Tulane Picks: Tulane vs Army

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Tulane 2026 Football Schedule

In a battle of colors Saturday morning in West Point, the Tulane Green Wave open the defense of their American Conference 2025 championship by visiting the Army Black Knights. Both teams enter the contest at 2-2 on the season.

Team Schedules

The Wave has lost its road contests against ACC defending champion Duke to open the season, then versus Big-12 opponent Kansas State two weeks later. Sandwiched between and after the two trips were home contests against Sun Belt teams, which Tulane claimed victories in both: South Alabama in the home opener and Southern Miss two weeks ago. The Green Wave had an open date last Saturday before its conference opener this weekend.

Army opened the season at home with a 56-point shellacking of Bryant University out of the Coastal Athletic. The Black Knights followed with an American Conference loss at Michie Stadium versus South Florida, an early open date, then a league victory at Temple before falling at Louisiana Tech last weekend.

See the PFF comparisons between Army and Tulane here.

The Black Knights opened a 3.5-point favorite over the Green Wave earlier this week. That number has dropped to 3-point Army advantage since Monday. As of this writing, 81% of the money bet is on Army, giving the points to Tulane.

Tulane Has Something to Prove: Our On SI Tulane Prognostication

This 2026 version of Green Wave football has, if anything, been consistently inconsistent.

• Open the season with your new starting quarterback, who is replaced after 30-minutes, whose replacement is replaced a little over two-and-half games later, and whose replacement of the replacement is replaced for one play.
• Show an erratic rushing offense that can slash opponents with gigantic games from various running backs, but have nothing on a regular basis.
• Big passing plays to big players, but with drops and throws that sometimes don't come close, showing communication and concentration issues.
• Offensive and defensive fronts that are growing and progressing, but is their growth rate fast enough?
• Stop an opponent with three-and-outs on defense on consecutive drives, then have huge rushing gaps open in the defensive front seven or wide open receivers in the secondary.

To have this much variety in results is confusing and awkward.

There is plenty of talent on this team. With 60-returnees from the 2025 playoff team and some solid additions, think Jaylin Lucas, Fat Hill, Macho Stephenson, Ed Smith IV, this team should be hitting stride.

But it's not. Instead, it is showing how consistently inconsistent it can be, which you cannot do against a team like Army. The Black Knights are the least penalized team in the American Conference only getting 16-flags on the season. They are the 5th least in all the NCAA. They do not make mistakes.

If you are inconsistent, the discipline of Army will expose that, and expose it quickly. No matter how much coaches and players talk about defending the Black Knights option, it's another thing to actually do it. To defend it will take that word we keep on bringing up: consistency. We have not seen that from this Tulane team this year. They have to prove that they can be a team that does things well and does them on a regular basis. They have yet to do so.

We think the big play will be open for Tulane, as the Black Knights give up more yards per play than any other team in the American, almost 7-yards a pop. If the Wave offensive front is able to open the holes for the running back and protect the quarterback, whoever that may be (we believe it should be Trace Johnson, but we've been wrong before), there will be big chunks available. However, we also believe Army's multiple option attack will be the undoing of the Green Wave defense.

On SI Tulane Pick: Army 35 - Tulane 28

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