Tulane survives UAB: 35-23 final

[OGSB]

4-1, 1-0.I was thinking before the game that, given our recent history with them i’d Just be happy with a win and that’s what we got. I can only hope our issues are correctable but we are 5 games in now.

[Wandering Quaker]

After 5 games, yes, we are what we are. But with one caveat: Pratt is still not 100 pct, and the play calls show it. If he can get healthier, his passing will improve.

Glad there is a bye next week.

[tulaneoutlaw]

A lot rests on Pratt getting back to full strength. Defense really can't play like that again. Esp the first half effort. It's all still in front of us but nobody should be resting on their laurels heading into memphis

[QuarterbackU]

Even the 12-0 season was filled with some weird head scratching efforts that resulted in double-digit wins.

Glad the guys figured it out today/kept fighting and got the only result that mattered.

As you all have said, everything is still in front of this team.

[long green]

Eventually the mistakes evened out. Bauman showed up; I don’t think he’s 100%, either. What’s up with Pines?

[FW]

UAB put up 23 points and 400 yards on us.
UAB put up 21 points and 340 yards on Georgia.

The difference was our offense scored 35. Their offense scored 49.

Pratt was off today and we had 2 key fumbles and a missed FG.

Pratt will get better and the other stuff is correctable. We’re not playing as well as we did for most of last year, but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss. Also, we might not be as good as last year, but we honestly should win every game left. Memphis will be the toughest and I’m glad we have a bye now.

[Johnny Mac]

UAB put up 23 points and 400 yards on us.
UAB put up 21 points and 340 yards on Georgia.

The difference was our offense scored 35. Their offense scored 49.

Pratt was off today and we had 2 key fumbles and a missed FG.

Pratt will get better and the other stuff is correctable. We’re not playing as well as we did for most of last year, but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss. Also, we might not be as good as last year, but we honestly should win every game left. Memphis will be the toughest and I’m glad we have a bye now.

UAB has weapons.. and at some point Dilfer is going to click with them, hopefully never against us.. he's still feeling his oats as an NCAA D1 head coach.. they made some play calls today that would have succeeded against any defense... the key today was missing tackles we hadn't been missing up to this point... that too is correctable.. for the most part, our D line was winning the battle on the line of scrimmage

we are near the bottom of D1 with fumbles lost.. this has to stop.. luckily only 1 resulted in points against.

forget how much we were supposed to win by... we adjusted at halftime and really had a chance to put our foot on their necks when Shadie let them back into the game with fumble number 2.. old Tulane teams would have defecated themselves down 20 to 7 in a game we were heavily favored to win

[OGSB]

...but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss.

And we’re (at least I am) still disappointed! How awesome is that?

[waverider]

I thought UAB had some pretty good athletes at spots. Pratt not being 100% not only changes our play calling, but you can see the last two defenses we played also knew he wasn’t 100% and have changed their play calling to be more aggressive.

Memphis down 10-0 to Boise

[WaveProf]

Every single season at every single stop FCS and above Fritz has lost one game he absolutely should not have lost on paper, the only exception being his second year at Sam Houston. One of his clunkers has been against UAB. Let's hope that this was this year's clunker, only we managed to still win. If so, that would make today a good "bottom."

While I'm being green colored glasses about a game I was mostly mad during, I'll also add that scoreboard wise it is better than any of us thought it would turn out most of the day, the final score is going to look bad for us, but not nearly as bad as we all thought most of the game. That last TD really helped, it was a gutsy call to put the game away but also a double mitzvah when you consider the scoreboard watching.

Defense needs to make tackles and Pratt needs to get healthy and get his act together. ESPN puts Memphis as a toss up (the only game we arent at least a 2-1 favorite in), I'd put us at better than a toss up......but it's gonna be a tougher opponent than we've beaten so far. Win it, especially not in nailbiter fashion, and a lot of this will feel better. We've got two weeks to prepare, and so do they.

Oh, and Hughes had a helluva game.

[waverider]

That’s a game we get blown out in 5 years ago.

[Shu40]

Quick brain dump thoughts:

- Keys and Pratt being on separate pages twice was a little confusing. I think it contributed to Pratt appearing "off" but not sure who's fault it was

- I love establishing the run game. we got a little overboard around the time of the Clayton Johnson fumble and the play action to a tight end or quick WR slant was very available. glad we eventually went to Bauman to get the first down

- kicking game - both FG and Punt was not impressive today. really need to shore that up somehow

- Barnes getting the Louis touches was a huge lift (absent the fumble of course, but still progress)

- a pass to a RB!?!? wow that was new

- a little blitz happy since their QB did a good job identifying and getting rid of the ball

- nice catches by their WRs on the long plays. CB need to turn the head around earlier

- first time the DL has allowed some runs up the middle. shows how dominant we've been that a few 8 yarders jump out to us now

- the Pratt runs were so open on the hand offs. i'm very happy we're not actually doing it, but normally that's 2-4 first downs a game. shows how much more limited the offense is. this is a big two weeks of rest

- was Pratt limping with his right knee at some point? is he suddenly 37?

- a win is a win, let's move on. Ultimately if we win out we'll be where we want to be. unlikely Fresno doesn't lose, but our top 25 votes probably weren't helped this week

- good to see Y Brown get a few touches. We need him and Brazell to keep emerging to give us more WR confidence heading into next year.

- onward and upward

[Man in Green]

Don’t ever listen to the idiots on espn when it comes to picking games. Their gem of the day was Florida over Kentucky and Baylor to cover against UCF.

[nolasilver]

It wasn’t just the turnovers we had to overcome but also the officials. I would love to see an exhaustive list, but there was the phantom holding call on the 40 yard+ dump off (I believe to Hughes), there were at least two egregious no call PI’s (one was committed on brazzell), there was personal foul on the late hit when the uab guy was still on bounds and fighting for yards, and I know there were more.

[WaveProf]

there was personal foul on the late hit when the uab guy was still on blinds and fighting for yards, and I know there were more.

That was one of the worst late hit flags I've ever seen. It happened RIGHT in front of me and I think he was still in bounds. If he had stepped out, it was barely, tehre was no whistle, and the UAB player himself didn't even realize it, and I couldn't see it as a passive watcher, so how would you expect our player to see it in real time? Meanwhile, I don't think he'd stepped out.

I saw what got called the hold on the other play you mention, but I don't think it should have been called.

[nolasilver]

The ESPN announcers called out everyone and thought they were nonsense and the officials were “having a tough day”

[AO Sig]

I noted that there seemed to be a lot of missed tackles, and instances when they were hit and should have been stopped, only to make a gain (often converting the stop to a first down. I hope that with the bye weekend the coaches can go back and reinforce the tackling fundamentals and get them to stop them when the make contact with them.

I also get tired of the plethora of "up the middle" rushes. I realize that these took their their toll on UAB's defense and led to longer gains later; however, I wish that there were more rushes and quick passes outside to make them run east and west more, thus tiring them out a bit more quickly.

[PeteRasche]

I watch Keys and JJ and Yulkeith and even Brazzell, both on plays and returns, and I have to wonder why we took Louis. He seems a step slower than the others. He was supposed to be a superstar kick returner and when he took the first kickoff return today he ran straight ahead and it was clear his top gear was nowhere near the others. I also don't recall him getting the corner on any sweeps, whereas it seems like the others repeatedly do. And with being smaller, the first hit seems to take him down every time.

That said, I'm consistently impressed by the speed of the others. We used it more today than we have this year so far but I feel like we still don't take enough advantage of it. I feel like if we send 2 or 3 WR deep and give Pratt time, at least one of the them would be wide open every time (whichever the safeties don't double ). See the USA game, I suppose.

On the penalty note, Guerry tweeted right at halftime that Keith Cooper had to be restrained from going at the refs due to being held constantly.

[waverider]

UAB put up 23 points and 400 yards on us.
UAB put up 21 points and 340 yards on Georgia.

The difference was our offense scored 35. Their offense scored 49.

Pratt was off today and we had 2 key fumbles and a missed FG.

Pratt will get better and the other stuff is correctable. We’re not playing as well as we did for most of last year, but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss. Also, we might not be as good as last year, but we honestly should win every game left. Memphis will be the toughest and I’m glad we have a bye now.

Don’t forget, we did this with our two best LBs out.

[waverider]

On the penalty note, Guerry tweeted right at halftime that Keith Cooper had to be restrained from going at the refs due to being held constantly.

He did. Monroe was trying keep him and the ref separated. These guys were awful and missed a lot of holding. There was a USF fan tweeting during the game saying we were getting bad calls while UAB wasn’t getting called for anything.

[PeteRasche]

Don’t forget, we did this with our two best LBs out.

Who besides Platt? If you're talking about Grubbs, he played today...

[long green]

UAB put up 23 points and 400 yards on us.
UAB put up 21 points and 340 yards on Georgia.

The difference was our offense scored 35. Their offense scored 49.

Pratt was off today and we had 2 key fumbles and a missed FG.

Pratt will get better and the other stuff is correctable. We’re not playing as well as we did for most of last year, but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss. Also, we might not be as good as last year, but we honestly should win every game left. Memphis will be the toughest and I’m glad we have a bye now.

Don’t forget, we did this with our two best LBs out.

I don’t think Grubbs is better than Machado.

[wavedom]

Well the good news is the coaches finally know that Hughes is RB1. This team was known to be weak against the run and it took us till late in the first half to realize that and we put Hughes in. Great time for the bye week. Pines was out with an elbow injury. Grubbs didn't come back in after the first series. Fortunately Small was a good pick up. Remetich did come back in. Pratt did keep flexing his right knee for most of the second half. Hopefully in 2 weeks he's heeled up along with the others. As said already in this thread a game like this happens every year under Willie. We came out this time with a win. Now let's rest up and finish this season on fire!

[PeteRasche]

Agreed, a win is a win. Even teams like Alabama have stinkers (see USF), the key is to still win. Honest truth is, we're probably not getting any votes from pollsters based on win margins, we'll just start getting them once our record gets gaudy. At some point there won't be a lot of teams left with one loss so pollsters will start looking at who has one loss and we'll get the benefit of last year and start getting more votes. Just keep winning.

[waverider]

UAB put up 23 points and 400 yards on us.
UAB put up 21 points and 340 yards on Georgia.

The difference was our offense scored 35. Their offense scored 49.

Pratt was off today and we had 2 key fumbles and a missed FG.

Pratt will get better and the other stuff is correctable. We’re not playing as well as we did for most of last year, but we’re 4-1 and would be 5-0 if Pratt played against Ole Miss. Also, we might not be as good as last year, but we honestly should win every game left. Memphis will be the toughest and I’m glad we have a bye now.

Don’t forget, we did this with our two best LBs out.

I don’t think Grubbs is better than Machado.

Yeah that’s probably true.