Tulane falls to Wake Forest in OT, 23-17

NEW ORLEANS – The Tulane football fought back to force overtime against Wake Forest, but the Demon Deacons scored a touchdown in the first overtime to escape Yulman Stadium with a 23-17 win in front of 15,478 fans on Thursday night.

Terren Encalade caught Tulane’s two touchdown passes from Jonathan Banks – both longer than 50 yards – and finished the night with a career-high 189 yards receiving. Banks had 281 total yards passing, and Banks and Encalade tied for the team lead in rushing with 38 yards.

Wake Forest outgained Tulane 548-436, putting up 378 yards through the air. But despite being outgained by the Demon Deacons, Merek Glover’s 39-yard field goal with 3:27 tied the game and forced overtime.

In the extra period, Tulane got the ball first and committed a 15-yard penalty on the first play, pushing things back to first-and-25. The Green Wave were unable to convert, turning the ball over on a fourth-down fumble on a hook-and-ladder attempt.

The Deacons made no mistakes in their possession in overtime, marching 25 yards in seven plays and capping their win with a 1-yard run up the middle from Cade Carney.

The Green Wave defense excellent most of the evening, forcing three Wake Forest turnovers and holding the Deacons to just 7 points in the first half. P.J. Hall had a career-high 11 tackles to lead Tulane, and Roderic Teamer Jr., Zachery Harris and Lawrence Graham added eight tackles to each to finish second on the roster. Graham and Donnie Lewis Jr. had interceptions, and Harris recovered a fumble on the final play of the game.

After an Encalade touchdown in the third quarter gave Tulane a 14-10 lead, Wake Forest responded early in the fourth with Alex Bachman’s second touchdown reception of the night to put the visitors back on top 17-14.

Tulane punted on its next drive, and Wake Forest looked like it was going to threaten again. But within the red zone, Tirise Barge put pressure on Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman. While going down, Hartman flung the ball in an attempt to throw an incomplete pass, but it landed right in the arms of Lawrence Graham for an interception.

The Green Wave made the most of that possession, scoring a game-tying 39-yard field goal by Glover, his career long. The key play on the drive was a fourth-down conversion on the legs of Banks. The Green Wave quarterback scrambled on fourth-and-11 for 15 yards, keeping the drive alive. Glover’s field goal came four plays later to set up the overtime period.

After punting on every full drive in the first half, Tulane got on the scoreboard on its first drive of the second half. After Banks was sacked near midfield on second down, Tulane converted on a 3rd-and-15 play for a 52-yard touchdown. Banks scrambled to his right to avoid pressure, and Encalade kept going on his route down that sideline. Banks floated the pass above the Wake Forest defender into Encalade’s arms, and he ran the final 12 yards untouched into the end zone. The touchdown reception was the 11th of Encalade’s career.

Wake Forest was able to retake the lead on its next drive when Nick Sciba put a 34-yard field goal through the uprights.

Two drives later, though, Encalade and Banks hooked up for a long touchdown again. After a shoulder fake from Banks, he found Encalade streaking down the right sideline just a couple steps ahead of his defender. The perfect pass landed softly in Encalade’s arms, and he was home free to give Tulane a 14-10 lead late in the third quarter.

Both teams stalled on their first three possessions, and the closest either team came to scoring was Wake Forest late in the quarter. Taris Shenall stopped that, though, breaking up a pass on the goal line. The Deacons then attempted a field goal with 10 seconds left in the quarter, but their kicker missed the 23-yarder to keep things scoreless entering the second quarter.

Wake Forest was able to break the scoreless drought midway through the second quarter when quarterback Sam Hartman found Alex Bachman with a 10-yard pass into the end zone. The scoring drive went 80 yards over 14 plays.

Tulane, though, could not answer before halftime. In total, the Green Wave punted on every full drive in the first half, with punter Zachary Block racking up 217 yards on six punts.

Tulane is back at Yulman Stadium next weekend when it takes on in-state opponent Nicholls. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. on ESPN3.

WAKE FOREST 23, TULANE 17 (OT) – POSTGAME NOTES

TEAM NOTES
-The Green Wave fell to 65-58-2 all-time in season openers. In home openers, Tulane has posted an all-time mark of 71-50-4.
-With the loss, Tulane drops to 2-2 all-time against Wake Forest.

OFFENSIVE NOTES
-The Green Wave offensive starters were Jonathan Banks, Stephon Huderson, Darnell Mooney, Terren Encalade, Kendall Ardoin, Jabril Clewis, Noah Fisher, Dominique Briggs, Corey Dublin, John Leglue, Keyshawn McLeod.
-Encalade finished with a career-high 189 receiving yards. He has now surpassed 100 yards receiving for three consecutive games.
-Encalade also finished with a pair of touchdowns, hauling in touchdowns from 52 and 74 yards out. He now has now totaled 12 career touchdowns.
-Encalade had the Green Wave’s longest play of the first half with a 38-yard rush in the first quarter.
-Encalade finished the game with a career-high 227 all-purpose yards.
-The Green Wave rushing attack surpassed 100 yards rushing as a team, as they finished with 153. Since 2016, Tulane’s rushing attack has never gained fewer than 100 yards on the ground.
-Banks finished the game by going 18 of 37 through the air for 281 yards and two touchdowns. Banks has now surpassed 250 yards passing in each of his last three games.

DEFENSIVE NOTES
-The Green Wave defensive starters were Patrick Johnson, Cameron Sample, Jeffery Johnson, Robert Kennedy, Lawrence Graham, Zachery Harris, Donnie Lewis Jr., Jaylon Monroe, P.J. Hall, Roderic Teamer Jr. and Will Harper
-Lewis hauled in his sixth career interception in the second quarter.
-Hall led the way with 11 tackles (nine solo).
-Harris led the Green Wave with seven first-half tackles. He finished the game with eight total stops.
-Graham earned his first career interception in the fourth quarter.

SPECIAL TEAMS NOTES
-Senior punter Zachary Block had six first quarter punts and placed a pair of punts inside the 20-yard line. He finished the game with nine punts for 337 yards.
-Merek Glover’s 39-yard field goal was a career long.

TULANE HEAD COACH WILLIE FRITZ WAKE FOREST POSTGAME QUOTES
Opening Statement:
“We’ve got to improve and continue to keep working hard. We were close on a few plays and you know there’s a few RPOs in my head. You can simulate all that in practice, but it’s a lot different in a real ball game. A couple times we might have wanted to throw and ran it and vice versa. I really thought that Jonathan (Banks) did a good job in the second half. He made some big plays and unfortunately you get in that situation where you have a tough time running the ball and you have to have better pass protection against a couple busts. That hurt as well.

On strategy going into overtime:
“We take a shot. The runner was open, but unfortunately, we didn’t protect long enough.

On pass protection struggles:
“I think a bunch of them are correctable. One thing, and again I’ve got to watch the tape to see exactly what you did right and what you did wrong, unfortunately with the offensive line sometimes when you stay with that group for a long period of time and like everybody else they get a little tired, depending how long you stay in on a play. They probably had 75 snaps, so late in the game when you’re pass protecting, it takes a little while longer to get under the play and start moving your feet. We had a tough time a few times with that. They’re all correctable. Everything is correctable. We just have to play better and smarter. We had a couple things we could have done in the kicking game as well. I saw three or four times where we just didn’t cover what we were supposed to cover.

On Terren Encalade:
“Yeah, he played great. I think Terren (Encalade) played, for a guy who hadn’t practiced really the past two weeks, he made some big-time plays.
I thought it got a little bit, when it got late, and they were doing twists and loops up front and got off guys. Again, unfortunately on the sideline we don’t get the best seat in the house. I’ve got to look at a few of them, but I know there was a couple where we were reaching for guys and just didn’t set properly.

On second half adjustments to the defense:
“We started playing a lot of man coverage and just getting bodies on bodies, and not giving a lot of space. We played some zone and they did a good job with the three vertical and two curls and finding that pocket.
We got in there and I thought it was an opportunity to go for it. There really wasn’t a huge advantage of punting. It may have gone 90+ but we only would’ve gained a few yards out of it.

On the defense in general:
“There were a couple times in the first half, and again, we’ve been working on the fast-paced offense all camp, but it’s different when you get out there in the game. I thought there were a couple drives we had in the first half – I think one was 12 and the play dragged and another was a 13-play drive. We got wore out a little bit when they went fast paced, which was smart because they kept the same personnel group. They didn’t try to substitute unless they were near the sideline. There were a lot of plays that just kept seeming to happen on their side of the field. We couldn’t run guys in and out like we wanted to and that’s why I burned a time out to give our guys a rest.

On Jonathan Banks:
“Well, he’s a dynamic football player, and he did a good job. When he’s decisive on scrambling he can make some big plays.

On finishing the game:
“We need to finish these out. We didn’t do it. We put ourselves in a position to win and they’re a good ball club probably one of the better teams to come into Yulman Stadium in a while. We just didn’t finish it like we needed to.”

TULANE QUARTERBACK JONATHON BANKS WAKE FOREST POSTGAME QUOTES
On offensive struggles:
“We couldn’t just get a steady rhythm.

On 4th and 11 scramble play:
“I just know we needed the first down, so I knew I could probably make it with my eyes down the field and my feet because I got some early pressure. I just scrambled and made the play.

On the Terren Encalade connection:
“We work a lot after practice, me, him and Mooney, so we have a lot of chemistry. At times, I know where he’s going to be and where I’m going to be. Today, we weren’t on the same page though, so we just have to come back on Monday and just work at it.

On penalties:
“It’s correctable mistakes. It’s first-game jitters. Those are simple things and we just have to get back to the basics. Even from my half just throwing and catching. I missed a lot of throws that I should have made. We just have to come back next week and that is that.

On Terren:
“You know Terren is a playmaker. I expected that from him.

On comfort outside the pocket:
“Yeah, I feel like I can make plays outside the pocket just keeping my eyes downfield. Sometimes I got out of there a little early due to pressure. I was able to make a couple scrambles.

On overtime:
“Yeah, that was frustrating just being able to give them the ball back in overtime. We needed it, they had 25 yards to drive the ball and they did a good job.