Tulane on the right track despite dreary loss to Navy

NEW ORLEANS – It was a rainy and dreary Saturday at Yulman Stadium.

There was no tailgating, very few fans and no student section for Tulane’s home opener.

The stands were empty except for scattered spectators, consisting exclusively of family and friends of the Green Wave team and staff, capped at 250 by the city’s COVID-19 restrictions. The spectators were nearly matched in numbers by cardboard cut-outs in the stands behind the Navy bench.

But neither the weather nor the contrived atmosphere was as dreary as the outcome: Navy 27, Tulane 24.

The outcome itself wasn’t as dreary as the manner in which it occurred. Navy had won four of the five meetings since it became an American Athletic Conference rival of the Green Wave and the last three meetings had been decided by a total of six points.

So close losses to Navy are nothing new.

But this shouldn’t have been close and it wasn’t close well into the third quarter.

Tulane was dominant and appeared headed to an easy victory and a 2-0 start to the season in its conference opener.

The Green Wave rolled to a 24-0 halftime lead that didn’t fully reflect just how dominant the home team had been. They were balanced on offense, gained 232 more yards than the Midshipmen and produced 15 first downs while yielding a mere three.

Then everything changed, in a virtually complete reversal of the season opener seven days earlier and with eerie evocation of the game against Navy last season.

Tulane trailed at South Alabama 24-6 in the third quarter last week and was teetering. But the Green Wave turned things around, started shutting down the Jaguars, the running game found a rhythm and passing game chipped in a few complementary plays.

Lo and behold Tulane scored the final 21 points and left Mobile with a 27-24 victory, its first-season opening victory on the road the 1998 team finished 12-0 and ranked No. 7.

The 2020 team is not going to match the 1998 team, but it did make history with its appearance on ABC on Saturday, its first such exposure in 40 years. At halftime the Green Wave was showing a national television audience that it was a team, in fact a program, to keep an eye on.

But in the second half it showed the television audience, which included thousands who normally would have been in the stands, that it’s a program inching its way forward – despite periodic backward steps.

Midway through the third quarter the Midshipmen turned things around as dramatically as the Green Wave had done in Mobile. A long pass set up a pair of 1-yard touchdown runs by Nelson Smith and Navy dropped Cameron Carroll, who had his second straight two-touchdown game, in his own end zone for a safety.

So Tulane led 24-16 heading into the fourth quarter, but everything was trending in the Middies’ direction.

Navy got another touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie and Tulane twice drove to the cusp of scoring territory only to turn the ball over on downs with incomplete passes.

The Middies drove to Bijan Nichols’ decisive 33-yard field goal as time expired to complete the 27-point comeback.

It was the second consecutive season that Nichols kicked a game-winning kick against Tulane as time expired. Last year it was a 48-yard kick that produced a 41-38 victory after the Green Wave had scored 24 unanswered points to tie.

So it was another close loss to Navy as time expired.

Perhaps that was what was most dreary about this day – not the weather, not the atmosphere – just the familiarity.

Coach Willie Fritz is in his fifth season. He talks often about achieving “sustainable success.”

The Green Wave have finished 7-6 each of the last two seasons, both of which ended with bowl victories. That’s a Tulane first – bowl victories in consecutive seasons.

Fritz appears to be the right man for the job. Athletic director Troy Dannen and the university administration demonstrated that they feel that way by recently agreeing to a contract extension with Fritz that carries through the 2027 season.

Even five years into Fritz’s tenure it still seems too early to make a confident estimation of just how bright Tulane’s future might be.

As dreary as Saturday was, let’s still say the forecast seems to be partly sunny.

[contentcards url=”https://crescentcitysports.com/tulane-spits-the-bit-to-navy-in-one-of-worst-losses-in-recent-memory/” target=”_blank”]