2024: Tulane Preview

Homecoming

AI + a little homecooking

October 26, 2024・11am・ESPN2・MGRN・Denton, TX・DATCU (30K)

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Every week following a loss is less enjoyable. The readers are more critical. The boards want to fire everyone. The twitter/X is more quick to pile on. Squint and you can see that we aren’t much different from our forebears, who would make offerings to the gods for relief after a particularly difficult time. Football isn’t life or death, but it sometimes doesn’t feel like that is true.

So it goes.

This week we have homecoming in Denton. The Mean Green host Tulane, the class of the conference. They are smart like Rice, but actually win at football. They enter this game at 5-2, 3-0. NT is also 5-2, but after last week’s heartbreaker in Memphis we sit at just 2-1. I won’t spend your precious moments staring at the AAC conference standings. Just know that NT will need a little help with Memphis’s record and also to win out the rest of the schedule to earn a spot in a bonus game for the league title.

Eric Morris now sits at 10-9 in two years at NT, 34-27 overall (six years). His opposition is John Sumrall, who is 5-2 in his first year at Tulane and 28-7 overall (three seasons). Sumrall was born in Huntsville, AL, played linebacker at Kentucky in the early 2000s and then coached various areas of the defense at San Diego, Tulane, Troy, Ole Miss, Kentucky, and then finally took the head job at Troy in 2022. He went 23-4 there, including 14-1 in the Sun Belt and took home back-to-back conference title. Oh, and he won a bowl game, also (but left before they lost in the Birmingham Bowl after last season). He’s a winner. He didn’t beat NT last year, but did in 2013, when NT played Tulane in the Superdome and lost 24-21.

This week he gave NT the requisite praise, including for DT Sheffield “That 10 is good. Explosive. I don’t know that they have been stopped. Good defense against them is 35 points, and that’s enough to win most times so yeah it’s going to be difficult.”

He likened the North Texas tempo to USF’s, “but USF is more QB run, this team can run and pass. QB is good. He’s no Johnny-come-lately. He was at TCU when they went to the national title game.”

All in all he sounds like a good guy, and his resume shows a good coach. Tulane has had a good defense for a while, and has been one of the league’s best squad for a while as well. This is a deep team, coached by a good staff. The line is something like 8-points in their favor.

CFI

The advanced numbers say “Tulane, bud.” They run well, they block well. They have a mobile QB with good decision-making ability, and their defense will stop you. As always, we have to consider that NT is one of the best offenses in the nation, and even Memphis’ vaunted defense was smacked up by Eric Morris’ group. The question will be if North Texas can get stops — like they did vs Memphis — but also turnovers.

Tulane played with poor defensive eye discipline vs Rice, and allowed some big yards. Sumrall said that will be key against North Texas, who “like to do things with motion and stuff to bother guys” and they have worked this week to address that.

North Texas will be looking to get “more consistent”, says Morris. The third downs saw “bad eyes, busted coverages” and they will be working to address that. NT was down a couple of starting safeties, a pass rushing end, and more against Memphis and it showed late. “I’m not a moral victory guy” says Morris. So it doesn’t matter.

NT will look to win their fifth straight at home. Tulane has won 12 of their last 13 on the road.

North Texas Attacking Tulane