Twelve Lessons

Frank Helps You Think It All Out is all about accountability- so a real quick look at the seasons’ selections and a dozen lessons learned.

Tulane pick’em over Southeastern Louisiana: Tulane is just better than an FCS team- Darkwa simply could run over them in “need to” spots. WIN

Tulane +21 over Mississippi: Easiest pick of the season. Carrying an FCS loss, a bad Mississippi team should not have been favored by three scores over anyone- and Tulane’s improved defense was still a secret. WIN

Houston -18.5 over Tulane: Lucky cover- Tulane did not play that badly here. It took Tulane’s improved defense a quarter to find its footing. WIN

Tulane +15 over Rutgers: Again, a dumb line that did not reflect the fact that Tulane’s defense had improved enough to keep them in games versus mediocre offenses. WIN

Tulane -1 over Army: Excusable miss- every team has its worst game of the season mentally wise, hard to guess when it is. Still with the defensive respectability theme, I thought the DTs would control the interior much as they had the previous season. Instead, Ponce de Leon was lame- and Army ran wild. Tulane was plain terrible. LOSS

Tulane +18.5 over Tulsa: Tulane’s first real test against a League offensive machine. I thought they could defend a little (like Rutgers) and score some. But Tulane just can’t keep the League’s real talented quarterbacks to a legit number. LOSS

UTEP -10 over Tulane: Complete miss. UTEP played the “worst” opponent game of the season: turnovers, too much rushing via passing. Like all mediocre C-USA teams, UTEP cannot overcome self-inflicted wounds too readily. And I didn’t know that UTEP would pick this game to play like dopes and hand a win to Tulane. LOSS

Tulane +7.5 over SMU: The slump continued, fourth straight loss. Toledo handed SMU this game, watching Darkwa pile up the carries and yards, but as always, few points. A great day on offense totaled only seventeen- and the Wave could not keep up with a quality SMU outfit. LOSS

Southern Mississippi -9.5 over Tulane: The ATS run to 4-0 was based on a theme: Tulane’s defense was better than folks thought. The slump was busted by another theme: Evidenced by the SMU game,Tulane is starting to wear down. USM starts the big point totals (46 here) that dominate the last third of the schedule. WIN

Tulane -4.5 over Rice: Dumb pick that worked out. True toss up game that went Tulane’s way on a game-ending interception return. WIN

UCF -17 over Tulane: After the Rice and USM defensive debacles, I wasn’t taking Tulane anymore short of -30. UCF did not disappoint, hammering the Wave defense, scoring 61- and covering six TDs. WIN

Marshall -9 over Tulane: Easy. Tulane’s defense continued its free fall. WIN

The 8-4 mark runs the blog’s all-time mark to 58-28 (with two pushes).