Tulane rally falls short against UCF in home finale

NEW ORLEANS – The Tulane University football team fell to UCF, 34-31, on Saturday at Yulman Stadium.

Tulane (6-5, 3-4) out-gained UCF (8-3, 5-2) 221-165 on the ground, but the Knights took a 319-181 advantage in the passing game. Senior quarterback Justin McMillan led the Olive and Blue with 102 yards rushing and 181 yards and one touchdown passing. Senior Corey Dauphine added 11 rushes for 58 yards and two touchdowns, while senior Jalen McCleskey was tops on the team receiving with three catches for 77 yards and a touchdown. Junior Chase Kuerschen led Tulane with eight tackles.

The Green Wave got the ball with 1:49 left in the fourth quarter at their own 25-yard line. Tulane marched 75 yards in nine plays for a seven-yard McCleskey receiving touchdown to cut the UCF lead to 34-31 with 26 seconds remaining. On the ensuing kickoff, it appeared the Olive and Blue recovered the onside kick, but after a review the ball was awarded to the Knights. UCF knelt out the clock to finalize the win.

In the first quarter, the Knights opened the scoring with a 35-yard field goal at the 8:04 mark to take a 3-0 lead. UCF made it 10-0 with a touchdown with 3:58 left in the opening quarter.

Senior Corey Dauphine cut the score to 10-7 with a 14-yard touchdown run to cap off an eight-play, 42-yard dive with 9:53 left in the second quarter. The Knights responded with a 44-yard touchdown run with 6:19 left in the first half to stretch the lead to 17-7, which they held going into halftime.

The Knights scored on the opening possession of the second half to take a 24-7 lead. Junior Stephon Huderson took the ensuing kickoff 98 yards to the endzone to cut the score to 24-14. This was Tulane’s first kickoff return for a touchdown since Sherman Badie returned one 86 yards for a score on Sept. 10, 2016 against Southern.

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The Green Wave cut the score to 24-17 as junior Merek Glover knocked down a 29-yard field goal to cap off a nine-play, 44-yard drive with 4:50 left in the third quarter. UCF scored a touchdown on its next possession to stretch the lead to 31 -17 with two minutes left in the third quarter.

The Knights knocked down a 26-yard field goal with 10:43 left in the fourth quarter to stretch their lead to 34-17. Dauphine scored his second touchdown of the game with a seven-yard run to cut the Knights’ lead to 34-24 with seven minutes remaining in the game. The touchdown ended a 10-play, 75-yard drive for Tulane.

With a three-yard carry in the third quarter, senior Darius Bradwell became the 13th running back to rush for 2,000 or more yards in a career.

Up next, the Green Wave will travel to play SMU in Dallas to close the regular season on Saturday, Nov. 30.

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UCF 34, TULANE 31 – POSTGAME NOTES (21,032 – Attendance)

TEAM NOTES
• With the loss to UCF, the Green Wave moved to 6-5 on the year.
• The Green Wave suffered their first loss at home. Tulane’s 5-1 record at home marks the team’s best record at home since moving into Yulman Stadium in 2014.
• Tulane fell to 11-6 in its last 17 games dating back to last season.
• Tulane dropped to 2-9 all-time against UCF.
• The Green Wave have lost two of the last three meetings to UCF.
• The Green Wave were outgained by UCF, 484-402.
• Tulane’s last three losses have come by 14 points combined (4.6 points per game). Since 2016, the Green Wave have lost by eight points or fewer 13 times.
• Team captains for today’s game were QB Justin McMillan, WR Darnell Mooney, LB Lawrence Graham, S P.J. Hall, and DL De’Andre Williams.
• Senior DB Larry Bryant carried the New Orleans flag. Redshirt sophomore TE Will Wallace carried the American Athletic Conference Power 6 flag.
• Senior CB Thakarius Keyes carried the No. 18 flag in honor of Devon Walker.
• With the loss, head coach Willie Fritz fell to 215-100-1 all-time. Fritz owns a 41-26 mark in the month of November.

OFFENSIVE NOTES
• The Green Wave offensive starters were QB Justin McMillan, RB Stephon Huderson, RB Amare Jones, TE Tyrick James, WR Darnell Mooney, WR Jalen McCleskey, OL Sincere Haynesworth, OL Keyshawn McLeod, OL Corey Dublin, OL Christian Montano and OL Joey Claybrook.
• Mooney made his 39th consecutive start, while Dublin made his 36th straight start.
• With its two rushing scores, Tulane now has 31 touchdowns on the ground this year, which is tied for second all-time in a single season.
• Tulane has now scored points in 35 of 43 quarters this season.
• Tulane finished the game with 221 rushing yards. The Green Wave have now surpassed 200 yards rushing in nine of their 11 games this season.
• The Green Wave have now rushed for 2,775 yards on the year, which ranks fourth all-time.
• The Green Wave have now surpassed 100 yards rushing in 51 straight games.
• McMillan dropped to 11-6 all-time as a starter.
• McMillan finished with a game and career-high 102 yards rushing.
• Redshirt senior Corey Dauphine rushed for two touchdowns.
• Mooney extended his consecutive catch streak to 30 games, as he hauled in a team-high four receptions. He finished the game with 43 yards.
• Graduate transfer Jalen McCleskey finished the game with a team-high 77 yards. He also collected his third touchdown reception of the year.

DEFENSIVE NOTES
• The Green Wave defensive starters were DL Patrick Johnson, DL De’Andre Williams, DL Cameron Sample, DL Jeffery Johnson, DB Will Harper, LB Lawrence Graham, LB Marvin Moody, CB Jaylon Monroe, S P.J. Hall, S Chase Kuerschen and CB Thakarius Keyes.
• Junior safety Chase Kuerschen finished the afternoon with a team-high eight tackles.
• Senior cornerback Thakarius Keyes tied a career-high with seven tackles.
• Senior linebacker Lawrence Graham tied a career-high with two tackles for loss.
• Tulane became just the fifth team this season to hold UCF under 500 yards of total offense. UCF came into the game averaging 530 yards of offense and finished with 484 yards.

SPECIAL TEAMS NOTES
• Junior Stephon Huderson had a 98-yard kickoff return for touchdown. Huderson’s kickoff return was the longest kickoff return since 2003 (Fred Smith) and is tied for the eighth longest return in program history.
• Huderson’s return was the first of his career and the first Tulane kickoff return for touchdown since Sept. 10, 2016.
• Redshirt junior Merek Glover connected on all four of his extra point tries. Glover is a perfect 46-of-46 in extra points this season.
• Glover also connected on a 29-yard field goal, but missed from 38 yards out.
• Sophomore Ryan Wright had a career-long 66-yard punt in the second half.

QUOTES

Tulane Head Coach Willie Fritz
Opening Statement…
“Disappointing loss. I wish I knew the reason why we do not start very well. We switched around a few things at practice and that did not seem to do the trick. They are an excellent ball club, seven points away from being undefeated. They would probably be a top 12 or 13 team in the country if that were the case. They have lots of weapons. Everyone thinks that we lost with the onside kick at the end of the game, but it was plays throughout the game that had a lot to do with the outcome of the game. We did a good job early driving the ball, but not great when we needed to get in there and get points. They had a few third and longs that they were able to convert, that hurt us as well. Disappointing, I like the fact that our guys fought back, we have done that all season. For us to become a major player in this league, we have to win games like that. That is something we talked about down in the locker room.”

On QB Justin McMillan’s plays…
“Some of his running plays were our best plays. They had our guys covered. You have to look at the film, but sometimes it’s offensive linemen, the receiver running the route, or sometimes it’s the quarterback. That is what we have to get better at, not making those mental mistakes.”

On Tulane’s talent…
“We are close. That does not make it feel any better. We are not to the point, talent level, where we can just roll the ball out and beat people. We have to be on point and I did not feel like we were today. There were some mistakes that were self-inflicted and we have to do better.”

On offensive plays…
“I thought we had some nice drives for 40, 50 yards, but when it came to crunch time and we needed to get points out of it, we missed the field goal early in the game. There were a couple times we were in that fringe area and we went for it and we were out of field goal range, but we could not get a conversion.”

On special teams…
“Big play by StephonHuderson. Big punt by Ryan Wright early in the game. It gave the defense a good starting position, six-yard line, something like that.”
Senior S P.J. Hall
On the tough loss and a chance to go undefeated at home…
“Tough loss for Tulane to go undefeated at home. I don’t really have too much to say about it, losing any time is hard.”

On how the defense played…
“Not good enough. I mean, even if they did score 30 every game, we let them score too many points today. The big thing was explosive plays. We gave up too many explosive plays.”

On being one play away in the loss…
“I mean, it might look like that on the scoreboard — one play, two plays here but it’s the whole game. It’s a sequence of plays. We got to cut out the penalties, we got to quit making mistakes, we got to be more assignment sound.”

On keeping up with UCF’sin-game speed…
“I think our coaches did a good job of trying to simulate it throughout practice, so I think we were ready. We just gave up too many big plays. It was kind of that simple. We lined up, we just gave up too many big plays.”

On not letting today’s loss carry over into next week…
“I think the big thing is, you can’t let this loss keep us down. We need to go into next week with the same energy that we had all season. Practicing hard, still hitting the film room hard and basically, just don’t get down. You need to flush it down the drain there and just start back up next week.”

RS Senior RB Corey Dauphine
On what was holding the offense back…
“Just us not executing. Just like Jalen[McCleskey] said, we’d have a big play and then we would have a holding call or a penalty. Plays like that really hurt us because we need the yards.”

On not letting today’s loss carry over into next week…
“Just have this motivate us. And understand that we need to win that last game. Just keep going.”

Graduate WR JalenMcCleskey
On what’s going wrong with the passing game…
“Just the offense as a whole. We got to be better. We can’t get explosive plays and then always have a penalty. We got to execute, do our assignments. As an offense as a whole, we need to start the game better. We can’t wait until the second half to start scoring with the ball, that puts our defense in a tough situation and so, we just need to be better at the beginning of the game.”

On the penalties…
“I mean yeah, it’s frustrating, but we don’t point fingers. It’s everybody as an offense — not one position or one person. It’s everybody as an offense. We all need to be better to move the ball down the field and score points.”

On the inconsistency on offense…
“If 10 people do their jobs right and one person doesn’t, that can mess up the whole play. We just need to have 11 people do their jobs right and we just have to execute. Know our assignments.”

On being 6-5 after starting 5-1…
“Just keep pushing. This week, we’re going to watch the film and make our corrections, get ready for SMU. We’re going to be 1-0 against SMU, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

On not letting today’s loss carry over into next week…
“Just keeping everybody accountable in practice. If you see somebody have a penalty or something in practice, nobody’s calling penalties in practice but see it, address it, because we can’t have penalties how we usually do where we get big gains, have the defense on their heels and then it’s holding — first and 20, first and 15, so we can’t do that. We have to keep everybody accountable and just keep pushing through the week, watch film and get ready for the game.”

UCF Head Coach Josh Heupel
On the game…
“I’m proud of the way the kids competed today, man. Competed for 60 minutes. Obviously, some things we did in the fourth quarter made it a one-possession game there at the end, but I thought our kids were resilient all day long and handled the ups and downs really well. Huge turnout from ‘Knight Nation,’ they supported and brought a lot of energy to our sidelines as well.”

On Ottis Anderson…
“Ottis was huge in the punt return game today. He did a great job of fielding it and then creating some big plays with the runs. Did a great job in the backfield. Did a fantastic job of catching the ball out in the slot a little bit when we motioned him out and got some matchups that were favorable for us. Huge play early in the third quarter and then a fourth down play later in the game. He did a fantastic job.”

Junior RB Ottis Anderson
On what is going through his mind on kick returns…
“Just being able to make a play. Create our own energy. I think that’s something big. That’s something I talked about Monday, being able to cut back-and-forth. It’s fun, but I couldn’t do it without my teammates. So a lot of the plays I make is off of their energy and off of what they do on the field.”

On his 58-yard catch and run…
“It was just basically shifting to empty, motioning out to empty, and getting the one-on-one matchup with the linebacker. We like to say bad athletes, but everyone is a good athlete in college. Just testing their skills to see what they got and where they can stop. The middle of the field was wide open, so I took it. Then I had a great pass, I was able to catch it and break a tackle and the rest of it was downfield blocking from my teammates.”

Freshman QB Dillon Gabriel
On UCF’s fan presence at the game…
“For sure. I never expected that much to travel, but that means a lot, not only to the players but the coaches as well.”

On sliding after runs…
“Just getting what I can and then getting down. Not taking an unnecessary hit. I think it’s good getting first downs, moving the chains, that was the main thing.”

American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco
Opening Statement on Tulane…
“Thank you to everyone at Tulane for your wonderful hospitality. I have looked forward to being here, obviously. I want to congratulate and commend Mike Fittsand Troy Dannenfor what they have done with the program, and obviously Willie Fritz has gotten things rolling here at Tulane. The only thing that has probably held Tulane back this year is that the conference is so good. It gets better and better, otherwise who knows what Tulane’s record would be. They lost real tough games, real heartbreakers on the road. Also, you are in great shape in basketball as well. I want to congratulate again what Mike Fittsand Troy Dannenhave built here. I always love coming to New Orleans. I have been to a lot of Final Fours over the years. It is always a pleasure to be here. I look forward to the game today. These are two teams that can beat anyone in our league. That is true for a lot of teams in our league this year. We have seven or eight, maybe even nine teams, maybe ten, UConnhas struggled a little. I am not sure anyone could not beat anyone else, look at what USF has done the last weeks, giving people fits, same thing with ECU. What is impressive about Tulane, is the steady progressive. When Willie [Fritz] came, I thought it was a great hire. Troy [Dannen] is one of the premiere Athletic Directors in the country. He is the chair of our AD group. The program has been built the right way. Steadily, one piece at a time until now, when you have the level of talent and depth that you need to compete in a league like this. As you know, I have been very outspoken recently about the strength of this league. I am not ashamed at all about it. I am going to continue to do it. It is true and when you have facts on your side, it makes it a lot easier.”