Takeaways from Tulane's 41-10 Unraveling vs Ole Miss
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Tulane participated in its first ever College Football Playoff matchup and did not put its best foot forward, as the 11th seeded Green Wave were slapped by 6th seed Ole Miss 41-10 Saturday night before 68,251 fans in Oxford. Here are our takeaways from the game.
Statistics lie.
In Tulane's 1st round College Football Playoff game against Ole Miss, the Green Wave were only outgained by 76-yards. Tulane had a better third-down conversion rate than the Rebels. The Wave averaged 15.3 yards per completion, while Ole Miss completion rate was 12.8-yards per catch. The Green Wave even owned the Time of Possession category by a minute.
Ole Miss owned the statistic that counted, the scoreboard.
Too Much Time in the Pocket & Too Many Wide Open Receivers
The Tulane defense did not give up 45-points this time around. True. What this game came down to was lack of coverage on the athletic Ole Miss wide receivers and even more of a lack of pressure on Rebel quarterback Trinidad Chambliss.
Rebel wideouts were finding wide open seams between linebackers and among defensive backs. As Chambliss calmly and methodically surveyed the field, the four-man rush by the Green Wave could never seem to get any pressure on the Ole Miss QB. Meanwhile, Rebel wideouts were able to find wide open slots in the TU defense. And when Green Wave defenders closed in after a reception, Ole Miss receivers would wiggle out of attempted tackles and wind up with 25, 26, 30, and 35 yards of turf.
A Sputtering Green Wave Offense
Quarterback Jake Retzlaff was able to accumulate over 300-yards through the passing game. Running back Jamauri McClure piled up 84-yards on 15-carries. But too often, a wide receiver dropped a pass or a pass went behind or over the head of a receiver who had broken away from a defender.
Tulane's offensive performance could be summed up in one play: Retzlaff was near midfield, dropping back to pass with excellent protection, and Anthony Brown-Stephens had busted wide open on a deep post. Retzlaff's throw was at least 10-yards past the TU wideout, bouncing incomplete around the five.
The Green Wave Tried to Get Cute
As we said in Saturday morning's Keys to the Game, you cannot get too cute on offense against an SEC team. The Green Wave ran the ball relatively successfully, so the attempted end around (that lost yardage) and the "four players meet in the backfield and guess who has the ball" play that resulted in a lost fumble by Retzlaff didn't make the difference the Tulane hierarchy thought it would. That "sort of like a Notre Dame box play but not" play immediately followed the Retzlaff overthrow that could have been a touchdown.
Playing Ugly and Winning is Not the Same as Playing Ugly and Losing
Game-in and game-out this Tulane football team found ways to win despite themselves this season. Never putting together a full 60-minute game, the Green Wave found ways to win: via some wild, juggling catch in the end zone, or Patrick Durkin piling up way too many field goals, or a crazy, bounce of a punt that traverses off the return team into your hands, this Tulane team played just well enough to win eleven times, sometimes in some downright ugly ways. It caught up with the Green Wave in both its games this year in Oxford.
With the loss, Tulane finishes the season at 11-3, wrapping up what some would say was the most widely successful year in football history. Ole Miss will be in the Superdome on January 1st to play Georgia.
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.