Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall provides update on crowded QB battle

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Tulane has spent the entire season throwing hats in the ring.

The Green Wave are on a months-long quest to determine their 2025 starting quarterback. The quest commenced in December when starter Darian Mensah entered the transfer portal and quickly found a new home at Duke. Backups Kai Horton and Ty Thompson also tested the portal, and Horton relocated to Washington while Thompson returned to Tulane but transitioned to tight end.

That forced Tulane to utilize the portal in the opposite direction and

find an entirely new quarterback room. The Green Wave landed TJ Finley, Kadin Semonza, and Donovan Leary in December. Finley had previous stops of LSU, Auburn, Texas State, and WKU but left the team in April after a suspension stemming from an arrest.

Semonza hails from Ball State where he won the MAC Freshman of the Year last season while serving as the full-time starter. Meanwhile, Leary operated as a backup at Illinois, throwing five passes in the Fighting Illini’s season-opener blowout against FCS competition.

Spring ball passed and the quarterback room continued to grow. Former Northwestern and Iowa starter Brendan Sullivan (11 career starts) joined the mix in April after the departure of Finley. Then in late July, former BYU starter Jake Retzlaff was added — turning Tulane’s quarterback competition into a four-man race.

“I liked the room before adding Jake,” Sumrall said. “It wasn’t like we were adding Jake because I didn’t like who we had. We’ve got a good room.”

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Kadin Semonza won MAC Freshman of the Year honors at Ball State in 2024.

Prior to Jake, Sumrall was testing a three-man competition between Semonza, Leary, and Sullivan. He lauded Semonza’s vast experience at Ball State, where he threw for 2,904 yards and 25 touchdowns in 2024. The head coach also praised Leary for his phenomenal arm talent and Sullivan for an impressive degree of athleticism.

“All three of those guys, I could see us winning games with as our starter,” Sumrall said. “Having to tailor the system around them obviously in different ways, but I could see any of them being capable of winning games for us.”

But if determining a No. 1 option out of those three wasn’t difficult enough, Retzlaff only complicates the picture. Retzlaff guided an 11-2 campaign at BYU behind 2,947 passing yards, 417 rushing yards, and 26 total touchdowns. His transfer wasn’t originally planned, but he faced a 7-game suspension at BYU due to a violation of university honor code. Although late to the party, Retzlaff receives a fresh start under Sumrall — a coach he nearly played for at Troy.

“There was history with Jake. I’ve known Jake for a long time,” Sumrall said. “We were his only offer at Troy for several months before BYU swooped in on us. There was a prior relationship which made it a little more natural.”

The problem Sumrall acknowledges, albeit a good one to have, is that Tulane has four capable starting quarterbacks. One must be a backup and the others must take third and fourth-string roles, despite being better than a majority of the country’s third and fourth-string options. However, Sumrall previously encountered a conundrum at Kentucky where he ran out of quarterbacks and transitioned a wide receiver to the position midseason — acknowledging you can never have too much depth.

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Brendan Sullivan started three games at Iowa last year and eight combined at Northwestern in 2022 and 2023.

“I look back on my career and there’s been times where we had to play the game like at Kentucky in 2019 where we played Lynn Bowden at quarterback because all our quarterbacks were injured,” Sumrall said. “So I don’t prescribe to the theory that less is more because I want more good players. More is more. How can we get more good players?”

The offensive first teamers have watched a revolving glass door of quarterbacks take reps with them all offseason. While the players won’t endorse a specific candidate, they are impressed with each candidate’s ability to embody Tulane’s culture — a culture which has brought the Green Wave to three-straight American Conference Championship Games.

“I wouldn’t say it’s too much of chaos,” guard Shadre Hurst said. “The guys we brought in, they’re good guys. We bring in guys who can assimilate to the culture, who have the same type of standards. They’re really good guys. They know how to compete and friendly-compete — actually have relationships while they compete. It hasn’t been too chaotic. It’s been a good competition. It’s been fun to watch.”

Sumrall understands that it’s not an even playing field, considering Semonza and Leary have been digging through the playbook since December and took valuable reps all spring. Sullivan and Retzlaff are later additions, but they’ll get a fair shake when fall camp commences.

“We’re going to go into training camp wide open,” Sumrall said. “For Donovan and Kadin, they both were in the system starting in January. Brendan got in the system starting late May or early June. Then Jake just this week. So their timeline may give them an edge over the other, but we haven’t made any decision.”

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Jake Retzlaff led BYU to 11 wins in his first season as a full-fledged starter.

Sumrall is no stranger to handling complex quarterback battles. Last fall, in year one at the helm, he observed Kai Horton, Ty Thompson, and Darian Mensah competing for the starting role. Although Horton and Thompson seemed like the top candidates to outsiders, Mensah won the gig and held it down all season — accumulating 2,723 yards, 22 touchdowns, and six interceptions on a 65.9 completion rate.

“A year ago at this time, Darian was our third quarterback,” Sumrall said. “I didn’t make a decision on him being the starter until the week of game one. It surprised everybody. Most people questioned my thinking. A lot of people thought I lost my mind.”

Sumrall succeeded with his decision last year and hopes to do the same in 2025. Except, he believes it isn’t his decision. Instead of picking one, he’ll just let one of the four candidates rise to another level in practice to usurp the role for himself.

“I tell them all the time, they actually make the decision on who the starter is by how they practice. I don’t. We’ll see who it is. The best man will take snap one in game one, whoever does the best in training camp. You get what you earn in our program and that’s no different at quarterback.”

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