Green Wave Will Their Way to Victory over East Carolina
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Wave Take a 26-19 Victory over East Carolina
It was almost as if Tulane's football team and its stadium were on the same page at times. A prime time game in Yulman Stadium, led to a night of oopsies for the Green Wave venue. The scoreboard had a Marie Laveau effect on itself, as yardage would triple and time would literally stand still. A basketball scoreboard was at field level in case extracurricular spells were cast. It was a nice save by the Yulman crew, as the main scoreboard clock and score were not always in sync with reality.
It almost felt that way with Tulane's offense through the first two-and-a-half periods of play. The Green Wave dominated statistically through the first thirty-minutes, piling up 260-yards to ECU's 91, tallying 16 first downs to the Pirates six, and harassing East Carolina quarterback Katin Houser, sacking him three times and putting a goose egg on the scoreboard. Yet, four field goals was all the Wave could show for that half-hour effort.
It took a methodical 12-play, 75-yard drive, taking almost the entire final five-and-a-half minutes of the contest before Tulane could breathe. Wave quarterback Jake Retzlaff hit Javin Gordon out of the backfield for a four-yard touchdown reception for the Greenies to take the lead for good. 35-ticks remained on the this-time-it-was-correct scoreboard clock. Though ECU moved down the field swiftly with no time outs, Pirates QB Houser's final heave into the end zone came up empty.
"Good win, because there are no bad wins," Tulane football coach Jon Sumrall opened his postgame media conference. "I've been a part of no bad wins in my life."
And it wasn't as if the Wave wasn't trying. The first three East Carolina drives of the game produced a total of -1 yard of offense. Meanwhile, Tulane moved up and down the field with precision, getting chunks of yardage on the ground and in the air, but had to settle for field goals four of their five first half drives. One more drive had TU set up for a chip shot for kicker Patrick Durkin, but a slick fake field goal came up short.
"This team is going to give me health issues," Sumrall said after the game came down to a final incomplete Hail Mary by ECU in the Tulane end zone. "We don't play with enough discipline and detail. Yet. We're going to get there. This is a very young group, a very new group. Don't take my frustrations (to make you think) I don't like them. I love them. I just want them to play more complete, better football."
The Tulane defense did its part in the first half, dominating a powerful East Carolina offense. You can only hold that kind of machine out for a while, as the Pirates opened the second half with three consecutive scoring drives to take the lead, 16-12, at the end of three quarters.
But Tulane put together two touchdown drives at game's end, one a deep post route to Zycarl Lewis Jr. that goes 63-yards to paydirt, and the last that milks almost the entire 4th quarter clock to earn the Green Wave the victory.
Part of that is what is starting to look like more syncopation between quarterback Retzlaff and his receivers. The BYU transfer who famously came to Tulane just 38-days before the season began, is finding he and his wide out are finding a rhythm.
"Conference play is the time to be clicking, and that's what we're doing" Retzlaff told us after the contest. He was a crisp 26-of-36 in the passing game, for 347-yards, two touchdowns, and a stellar 171.5 quarterback rating. "We look good, but we've got to score in the red zone, which is (the kind of work) we're going to be doing in our extra day off (with a Thursday game)."
"We played well in spurts on offense," coach Sumrall concurred, "until we just could not get across the goal line. We did not play well on 3rd down (3 of 10 in 3rd down efficiency). I'm gonna pull my hair out, trying to figure out how we can get this thing better, because we've got to overcome ourselves a little bit."
Like the Yulman Stadium crew found a way around the bad Voodoo on its scoreboard, this Tulane team just seems to find a way to win.
The victory puts Tulane at 5-1 for the season, unbeaten in two American Conference games. East Carolina drops to 3-3 on the year, 1-1 in league play.
The Green Wave are back at home on October 18th with an 11:00 a.m. kickoff versus Army.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.