Tulane coach Willie Fritz says he plans to stay with Green Wave

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Tulane University provided its football fans reason to celebrate Tuesday (Nov. 29), announcing that Willie Fritz has decided to remain as the Green Wave’s head coach.

The announcement followed days of reports that Fritz was being seriously wooed to leave for the head coaching job at Georgia Tech.

Fritz preempted Tulane’s afternoon announcement, saying earlier in the day that he intended to stay Uptown.

“Yes, I do,” Fritz said. ”Yes, I do. We talked about that yesterday a little bit, right? I had four or five different (media) deals yesterday, and it always came up each time. But we’re locked in, focused on going 1-0 and winning this ballgame. This is a big game this week.”

Quarterback Michael Pratt said Tulane players met Monday. He credits the veteran leadership for how this team has been able to stay focused this week despite the Georgia Tech buzz.

“We just talked about it,” Pratt said. “We were like, ‘You know what? Regardless of any situation, we’ve put in the work, got us to this situation. Regardless of anything, we’ve just got to come out and work hard all week and give us the best opportunity to win on Saturday and make history.’”

Senior linebacker Nick Anderson said, “Nobody can control the future. Nobody can control anything besides what we do in preparation for this game and in preparation for Saturday. Just locking in and do nothing different than what we’ve been doing these last 12-13 weeks.”

Fritz’s 18th-ranked team will take on No. 22 University of Central Florida in the AAC championship game Saturday at 3 p.m. at Yulman Stadium. It’s a rematch of a Nov. 12 game at Tulane that UCF won, 38-31.

There are now multiple reports that Georgia Tech is promoting interim coach Brent Key to head coach.

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