Herd'em Up!

Don’t laugh when I write this- but from a pure “competitiveness of the program” standpoint- this game is the biggest one Tulane has played since Louisville in 2004. (photo credit)

Tulane spends most of its time in that real bad bottom quartile of college football programs: Troy, Rice, Army, etc. But a win here brings them to 4-3 in the competitive part of their schedule (ex-LSU and ex-Auburn)- and you know?- that isn’t terrible. Not good- but not too bad either. Move the Green Wave closer to quality second tier outfits (Air Force) and bottom BCS schools (North Carolina State and Iowa State)- and away from Temple.

Vegas thinks the Green Wave is in it to win it: Marshall -4.5 over Tulane (a very near toss up at a neutral venue).

This game has sort of an odd feeling about it too. It isn’t often you get two indifferent C-USA teams, playing pretty well for multiple weeks, then facing each other. Marshall has a good win over UAB- and hammered a weak Memphis outfit. Tulane played decent versus Rice, then a respectable outing at Auburn, and further hammered a weak Army team. Hard to like one path over the other.

Consequently, you’d be querulous about both these teams- as asking a bad C-USA team to present an effort that can win three weeks in a row (or four in the case of Tulane) is problematic. But both teams are auditioning to move past real bad to mediocre this week- so maybe some bias toward consistency can be forgiven?

I really want to pick Tulane here. It would be a real, tangible program booster to get this game- put some real meaning in the last quarter of the schedule. And you get 4.5 points in a game where you figure Tulane ought to be able to score. If Memphis can get 27, Tulane can get there too.

But unfortunately, this will take sixty minutes of solid road football- and even the road win at Mississippi State shows, that sort of thing is not Ricard or the Tulane special teams’ strength. I can see Tulane fight its guts out here- but have Ricard be only good for 35-40 minutes of the game and the kicking game allow Marshall an undeserved 10-14 points on fumbles or poor coverages.

Marshall has proved they can play 60 good minutes at home. Tulane hasn’t done sixty good minutes on the road versus competence since they beat TCU in 2004. Irvin that day was 22-37 for 282 yards with one interception against a decent TCU team.

To win this game, they need that sort of four quarter effort from Ricard- an enterprise where every single throw is valuable. And on the road, outside in raw weather, getting some pressure from Marshall adequate defensive front, well, that is categorically not Lester. Add in the requisite disastrous special teams' day... well, the fact that we lack the depth to play quality special teams and the key player on the roster, the star quarterback, is inconsistent goes a long way to explaining why Tulane is a bottom quartile football team- rather than a semi-okay one.

So I gotta take the Thundering Herd here, give Tulane 4.5, and try and run the record to 7-2 ATS.