No More Hurricanes

First, I will admit I did not watch the 52-24 Tulsa debacle with my full attention. The Phillies were beginning their defense of the Pennant in full high def, while Tulane was available only via a grainy, possibly illegal internet feed.

No matter. Hard to draw constructive tactical lessons from yet another rout. On the surface, the game was perplexing. As predicted here, Tulane did possess the ball an awful lot, mostly through the air: QB Ryan Griffin was 36-53, 412 yards, 2 TDs; 35 rushes for a decent 117 yards, 36 minutes ToP. Yet, how can Tulane run 91 plays, score 24 points, 527 yards of offense, simply have the ball that much - and still get decked?

Our collective football frame of reference is the NFL and the proto-NFL (SEC)- and the collective associates a three TD loss into one team being dominated. But that is not C-USA.

You have to think about C-USA a little different. Defenses in the NFL tend to fail in stages- sort of a linear progression from good-to-okay-to-bad. C-USA defenses tend to gap down, a geometric reaction versus arithmetic- like a bridge sagging, sagging, sagging, then utter failure. I tend to think that stems from a talent gap factor. There is an ability step down in the NFL from star to starter to reserve. But that gap is miniscule to the step down in C-USA. You can have a pro prospect one place, and a guy who might not start for Harvard at another. In the NFL you might occassionally have one or two defenders who totally can’t handle their assignments. In C-USA, you routinely have three or four guys who are just over matched.

Thus, Tulane’s defense Saturday is explained. Their improvement over last year is tied to a couple of transfers and Shakiel Smith. They can have extended the sag capacity- but total collapse is still possible. Thus, this Tulane gap downward is understandable- decked for 52 points and 350+ yards rushing. Further proof of collapse: ten Tulsa players had double digit rushing totals. Ten! Five of those ten averaged more than ten yards a pop. I honestly don’t know if I ever seen that- even from an option team.

Tulane’s offense, particularly the quarterback, wasn’t terrible. Certainly, the Tulane offense did not deserve to be on the short end of this kind of rout. Ryan Griffin supporters have won the argument at this point. Yet again, he turned in that 65% completion percentage, low turnover day. The big yardage totals surfaced when faced with the typical challenged C-USA secondary.

But Tulane was not able to engineer that same defensive collapse in Tulsa- where 500 yards of offense becomes 50+ points in 25 minutes versus a mere 24 points in 35 minutes.

Frankly, the skill position players outside of the quarterback just don’t give Tulane much of anything “special” right now. I mean, the Tulane offense can’t complete 60-65% of your pass attempts, generate 500 yards of offense, without passable play. Guys seem to be standing in the right places at the right time, blocking the right guys, organized football plays are run competently.

But none of the receivers put pressure on anyone. Robottom is the best of the lot- and he defines pedestrian, competent C-USA wideout. He just isn’t going to blossom into a perimeter attacker, touchdown maker, second team all C-USA star we had all hoped for four years ago. He is a an okay second wide out being asked to play the top spot- but that dazzle you need in this League to generate free scores, that flip the field position talent is just not there.

DJ Banks is the second guy- and I just don’t see what the buzz is about. Ryan Griffin, for all his faults, is distributing the ball accurately- and Banks can’t get anything big going. Double his season totals and you get 50 catches, 480 yards. Those are “so what?” numbers. Here is another problem: together Banks and Robottom have three TD receptions. How many games can you win in this big score League if your top two receivers project to have six TD catches for the season?

And, to reiterate last week, this three-headed Darkwa, Willaims, Jason rushing “monster” is really either two guys stealing carriers from the best one or three okay-minus backs routinely unable to distinguish themselves from even each other. I will also point out this dynamic trio has a terrible 18 catches combined for the season.

Just not a whole lot of juice from the top five (in terms of total touches) skill options. It is hard to win in offense-friendly C-USA when none of your wide outs, tight ends or running backs are better than mediocre. Who is even a third team all C-USA player on offense?

Cripes!

Rub eyes, shake head...

I have zero tactical points. The Tulane offense was down three scores after running only twenty plays- not exactly advantageous for analysis. Army exploited our back-up inside guy(s) on defense. But honestly, what could one take from any of it? Is there a coach out there reviewing the game film saying wow, the way to beat Tulane is to have them fumble and fumble and fumble?

It was a stinker. Maybe Tulane was simply unlucky? Maybe the grind of the BCS level schedule caught up to them? Maybe after pitching the A-game three weeks in a row, the Green Wave was due for a letdown? The last chance Tulane had to handle prosperity was last year versus Marshall- they laid down there on Homecoming too. Teams lay eggs: Alabama, Michigan, Miami. It happens. Handling prosperity, playing big again after a big win, is hard. Fans can rail about it, but it seemingly happens to everyone. And Army has that sort of attitude and culture that is going to exploit and embarrass your C-level effort.

My problem stems more from the strategic. This loss brought to the forefront some of the worst game-day aspects of this regime.

For example, for crying out loud, pick a quarterback and play him. Piled on year after year of indecision, this Griffin/whomever occassional duopoly isn’t good coaching, it is just tiresome. Except in a pinch, no one else has a culture of rotating quarterbacks, so stop trying to reinvent the position.

For the umpteenth time, Griffin has turned in the 60+% completion percentage, low turnover game, this offense demands. Be it from way behind, under duress, good competition and bad, every single situation thrown at Griffin this year results in "60+% completion, low interception ratio". When you respond to every stimuli, every situational wrangle, with “60+% completion, low interception ratio”, maybe your quarterback is a “60+% completion, low interception ratio” player.

So let him play. Griffin has shown enough to deserve an uninterrupted shot. He isn’t perfect or real good right now- but he is a sophomore, with obvious upside (who doubts he understands the offense?). He is clearly the best option for position growth right now. I won’t even go in to the fact that Tulane has both a real talent and raw numbers issue at wideout. Putting Joe Kemp at QB, subtracting him as a target, exacerbates that talent situation further.

Do you ever get this impression? Army comes in here and looks like they know how to run this option. Houston looks like they know how to run the spread. Key players get lots of touches, handle the ball a lot. They are not tricky- but execute the given program. Then, Tulane looks like they spend an awful lot of time brainstorming methods to get the third tailback touches, formulating Kemp an interesting package as the second quarterback and a few new end around plays. Five guys have thrown multiple forward passes for Tulane this year- way too much brainpower and limited practice time being spent here.

This emphasis on getting secondary players involved in the offense: the back-up quarterback, the third running back, a crazy DJ Banks play, is suspect to me. I mean, maybe these down roster guys are ready to contribute at a plus level in C-USA. But considering Tulane hasn’t had but one sort of good C-USA skill player since Matt Forte left, I’m doubtful. Darkwa, Williams and Jason probably isn’t a three-headed monster- but rather a couple of guys stealing carries from the best one.

It is problematic introducing these guys. Not to pick on anyone- but take Tyler Helm: fifth year senior, okay-to-good blocker, second TE. Tulane runs him out there as a situational substitution- help block the red zone offense early in the game. He isn’t in the flow of the game like the rest of the blockers (the o-line), it is a big spot, he is amped up- and the fifth year senior jumps off-side. This is not an argument against situational role players per se. But constant exposure to back-ups, third options, etc. leads to this culture: guys asked to do too much, guys taking emotional penalties, guys simply not as good as the vanilla first string alternative. Who is really at fault, what is the real blame ratio, for him taking that penalty?

Coaching is about exposing your best options, not trying to find creative ways to explore your second best players. Case in point- where is Tulane most consistently exposing their third best option? Think...

Kick returns! Were those guys laying the ball on the carpet the best ball-handlers, playmakers Tulane has? Why not? What is Coach Toledo saving them for? Guys like Sullen and Van Hooser cannot have such a large say in the outcome on Saturdays. Tulane does not have surplus offensive assets. So stop pretending Tulane does. Experiment and rest guys down thirty points- put the pedal down now with Army.

College football is not like the NFL. There isn’t endless practice time. Tulane is developing QBs and RBs- and these diversions not only aren’t assisting that process, but in the return game they're helping lose winnable games. Pick a quarterback and play him. Pick two RBs- a main and blocking/scat/ whatever secondary- and play them. Then stop. Have confidence in your talent evaluation and emphasize playing the best players. Trust me, Tulane is not losing much leaving these down roster machinations until spring.

Even More Progress

It took forty games and more than three years, but Bob Toledo has a big win.

It has been clear from the get go that this is Tulane’s best team of the Toledo era. Finally, Tulane was able to turn the good showings, the moral victories, of Mississippi and Houston into a tangible win. Frankly, if you play enough one score games late, it will be someone else’s turn to mess up a trick play, get their quarterback hurt and make a dumb throw in a big spot.

Of course, when the “rent-a-win” refuses to lie down, there will be some unhappiness:

I thought that last year's defeat to a vastly inferior Syracuse team would stand for a while as the worst post-rebuilding loss of Greg Schiano's tenure at Rutgers. Yesterday's defeat shattered that assumption, and stands alone as a crushing reality check that there is something uniquely and inherently wrong and flawed about this year's Scarlet Knight team. That is the inescapable conclusion when you lose at home to an opponent who has looked rather bad up to this point, and did nothing yesterday to indicate otherwise.

The Tulane game did not have the caveats that Syracuse provided. It was at home, and Tulane does not have a bizarre and inexplicable obsession with demonizing Rutgers as a propaganda ploy. More importantly, Syracuse actively won their victory through superior game planning and execution that day. While I normally would never try to disparage or diminish the other team's contributions in a loss (or to the contrary, solely credit internal factors in a victory), Tulane clearly did nothing of note all game beyond not being a complete and utter train wreck.

Gosh. Is Tulane better than Rutgers? I don’t know. Did Tulane play well enough to win one of the last three games? Yeah. Yeah, Tulane did. We’re not apologizing.

It also isn’t fair. Tulane is increasingly “respectable”, to use a characterization I used last week- particularly the defense. I don’t think it is even arguable anymore. It has four guys, up from zero the previous two campaigns, who could be all C-USA defensive selections: Moses (this week's C-USA player of the week), Ponce de Leon, Mackey, Smith*. It is quite possible for the Green Wave to hold a bad BCS offense, with further quarterback issues, to a pair of touchdowns.

QB Ryan Griffin played well too. It is hard to label Tulane as a passive participant when the most important player on a spread offense has a solid day- out-playing his Rutgers counterparts. I mean, this is what spread quarterbacking looks like when faced with a defense that arguably has better players: keep the completion percentage high, no turnovers. Griffin did not win the game, but he did not lose it either. He isn't going to throw for 300 yards against Rutgers. When faced with playing a game in the teens, winner being the team with the fewest errors- and your quarterback doesn’t make any... he has done his job. Ask Rutgers if they'd like that last throw back? It was a game where one bad throw makes a difference. Tulane's did not make it. They win. Fair is fair.

Plus, you know, even as a rent-a-win, Tulane is allowed to make plays too. The trick pass Tulane rolled out there was a slick play utilizing team strengths. Tulane has surplus quarterback recruits. To get these athletes on the field, the Wave has found new skill positions for them. Further, Tulane used these surplus quarterback assets in a creative matter- getting the ball to wide out/reserve quarterback and having him execute a good throw. That is good coaching at a tactical level (play execution) and the strategic level (trickeration with an underlying agenda: finding a way to use hidden, secondary assets in a surprise manner).

That was a good play, one of the the game’s two turning points. The other was the Rutgers quarterback being knocked out of the game. Both those plays were about Tulane as the active actor, winning tactical battles and achieving strategic success.Ultimately, they were indicative of "superior game-planning and execution". Certainly, not an absence of such.

Tulane simply has better players now- as the recruiting rebounds from the barrenness of the post-Katrina landscape. Things are getting back to normal in New Orleans- which simply isn’t the poor quality of the second half of Scelfo’s tenure. Prior to the program macro-disasters, Scelfo could beat teams in the top fifty on occasion: Hawai’i, Southern Miss, Mississippi State. I imagine, as the Review and Katrina recedes, Tulane is back on that sort of path.

* plus two more who don't play defense: Ginsburgh and Santos