The red zone struggles were new. The pressure on SMU's QB was new. The rest we've seen before in the second half of the season as the Wave lost for the fifth time in five games against a backloaded schedule.
Tulane's six victims this year have a 22-45 record pending Army's result at Hawaii tonight.
The six teams that beat Tulane are 56-15.
There was nothing inconsistent about this year. Tulane beat the teams it was better than and lost to the rest, making the same mistakes along the way in wins and losses. Memphis, UCF and Auburn are more talented than Tulane. I do not think Temple, Navy and SMU are more talented than Tulane, although all three games were on the road. Houston with D'Eriq King I would argue was more talented than Tulane, and the Wave won that one at home.
WILLIE FRITZ
"Hats off to SMU. They did a good job. They have a good squad. We had some chances. We made some turnovers that were really costly and gave them some short fields. They got a couple of touchdowns out of them. There were some times we were driving and doing a good job between the 20s, but when we needed to make a play when we got in the red zone, we just didn't do it a couple of times."
When the fourth quarter started, you went for it instead of kicking a short field goal down 21-17. Was that an easy choice?
"Analytics tells us to go there. There's more value with the touchdown obviously, and it looked like we had a nice throw into Darnell (Mooney). I couldn't tell if the DB broke it up or we just didn't get catch it. I wanted to be aggressive there. Then at the very least they still had a long field to go."
Your defense had gotten off the field until that point, but SMU converted four third downs on its next drive. Was that stage the key?
"Yeah. We got them in some long-yardage situations and we didn't slam the door shut. You gotta do that. One of them was a third-and-8. You gotta get a stop and make them punt."
How much did the two turnovers deep in your territory hurt?
"That's huge. That hurt us. Any time they start inside the red zone it's going to be tough on you."
You'll find out your bowl game in a week. What are your thoughts?
"Well, right now we are just disappointed. We wanted to get that seventh run and that was a big goal for us. We knew it would be tough. SMU's had a great season, but we felt we had some opportunities to do it. We didn't."
You forced a couple of fumbles early and couldn't fall on the ball, making you 4 of 17 on recovering fumbles this year, which is a bizarre stat.
"We just didn't quite it. That's kind of been the story here down the stretch. We just didn't make the plays when we needed to. Normally when you get a forced fumble, it's 50 percent you get a recovery. We haven't had that ball bounce to us."
it was another slow start, although it didn't look as bad as the others.
"We moved again between the 20s, but it's got to equate to points."
What are your thoughts on Justin McMillan today?
"I thought he played well. Obviously you've got to go back and look at it. Keyshawn McLeod got hurt early and we got a little bit of pressure against him (McMillan). I thought coach (Will Hall) did a good job of scheming it up so we hit that a little bit with that mismatch there, but I thought Justin played well overall. I'd have to go back and look at it and check and see."
Are you still planning to redshirt Tyjae Spears?
"Yeah, he had one more game to play, and we thought he'd give us a spark, which he did. He did a really nice job."
Where do you go from here?
"We've got to regroup and we've got to win the bowl game. It will be the first time in the history of the school that Tulane's won back-to-back bowl games, so there's another goal out there for us to accomplish us. We have to regroup."
SMU barely had 200 yards of offense going into the fourth quarter. What do you feel like your defense did well?
"Well, part of it's they had short fields, so they are not going to get a lot of yards on that, too, but we limited their effectiveness running the ball and when they took some shots down the field, most of the time we did a good job of staying over the top and playing it."
Tulane's six victims this year have a 22-45 record pending Army's result at Hawaii tonight.
The six teams that beat Tulane are 56-15.
There was nothing inconsistent about this year. Tulane beat the teams it was better than and lost to the rest, making the same mistakes along the way in wins and losses. Memphis, UCF and Auburn are more talented than Tulane. I do not think Temple, Navy and SMU are more talented than Tulane, although all three games were on the road. Houston with D'Eriq King I would argue was more talented than Tulane, and the Wave won that one at home.
WILLIE FRITZ
"Hats off to SMU. They did a good job. They have a good squad. We had some chances. We made some turnovers that were really costly and gave them some short fields. They got a couple of touchdowns out of them. There were some times we were driving and doing a good job between the 20s, but when we needed to make a play when we got in the red zone, we just didn't do it a couple of times."
When the fourth quarter started, you went for it instead of kicking a short field goal down 21-17. Was that an easy choice?
"Analytics tells us to go there. There's more value with the touchdown obviously, and it looked like we had a nice throw into Darnell (Mooney). I couldn't tell if the DB broke it up or we just didn't get catch it. I wanted to be aggressive there. Then at the very least they still had a long field to go."
Your defense had gotten off the field until that point, but SMU converted four third downs on its next drive. Was that stage the key?
"Yeah. We got them in some long-yardage situations and we didn't slam the door shut. You gotta do that. One of them was a third-and-8. You gotta get a stop and make them punt."
How much did the two turnovers deep in your territory hurt?
"That's huge. That hurt us. Any time they start inside the red zone it's going to be tough on you."
You'll find out your bowl game in a week. What are your thoughts?
"Well, right now we are just disappointed. We wanted to get that seventh run and that was a big goal for us. We knew it would be tough. SMU's had a great season, but we felt we had some opportunities to do it. We didn't."
You forced a couple of fumbles early and couldn't fall on the ball, making you 4 of 17 on recovering fumbles this year, which is a bizarre stat.
"We just didn't quite it. That's kind of been the story here down the stretch. We just didn't make the plays when we needed to. Normally when you get a forced fumble, it's 50 percent you get a recovery. We haven't had that ball bounce to us."
it was another slow start, although it didn't look as bad as the others.
"We moved again between the 20s, but it's got to equate to points."
What are your thoughts on Justin McMillan today?
"I thought he played well. Obviously you've got to go back and look at it. Keyshawn McLeod got hurt early and we got a little bit of pressure against him (McMillan). I thought coach (Will Hall) did a good job of scheming it up so we hit that a little bit with that mismatch there, but I thought Justin played well overall. I'd have to go back and look at it and check and see."
Are you still planning to redshirt Tyjae Spears?
"Yeah, he had one more game to play, and we thought he'd give us a spark, which he did. He did a really nice job."
Where do you go from here?
"We've got to regroup and we've got to win the bowl game. It will be the first time in the history of the school that Tulane's won back-to-back bowl games, so there's another goal out there for us to accomplish us. We have to regroup."
SMU barely had 200 yards of offense going into the fourth quarter. What do you feel like your defense did well?
"Well, part of it's they had short fields, so they are not going to get a lot of yards on that, too, but we limited their effectiveness running the ball and when they took some shots down the field, most of the time we did a good job of staying over the top and playing it."