Tulane normally closes its Monday practice and does not do interviews, but with the NCAA mandating Tuesday as an off day due to the election, they opened it this time. The Green Wave is dealing with a couple of injuries on defense, Defensive tackle De'Andre Williams, who has not been as productive statistically this year as last and did not start against Temple for the first time since 2018, sat out practice along with linebacker Marvin Moody, who was a late scratch Saturday. Moody has had a good year, but the Wave did not miss him. Replacement Nick Anderson stepped up to make a career-high 14 tackles, eight more than any of his teammates, and with 48 for the year, he is now third on the team in tackles behind leader Dorian Williams (54)and Moody (52). The fourth linebacker who plays a lot, starter Kevin Henry, is fifth with 39 stops, so it easy to see where the strength of the defense has been.
Neither Williams' nor Moody's injuries look long term. Eric Hicks, who made his first career start instead of Williams and had four tackles on Saturday, worked with the first unit today. The second-team defensive line had Angelo Anderson, who did not play against Temple but likely will get his first action of the season at East Carolina, along with Noah Seiden (Alfred Thomas got some reps, too), Adonis Friloux and Darius Hodges. Friloux, who started playing well right after I tweeted he was a non-factor on one particular play in the first quarter against UCF ( l learned he has quite the support system on twitter), was credited with half a sack against Temple, and Hodges had his first career sack. Tulane needs that production from its second unit, similar to what it received in 2018 from Juan Monjares, Carlos Hatcher and Davon Wright. Hatcher and Wright are still on the team but neither is healthy enough to practice at the moment.
Chase Kuerschen remains the starter at free safety, but Cornelius Dyson is getting more and more reps with the first unit. Dyson had two tackles and a pass breakup against Temple. Kuerschen had four tackles and a pass breakup, but the breakup should have been a pick 6 when he jumped a route near the sideline and dropped an easy interception with only green turf in front of him.
Phat Watts was back at practice today after missing the Temple game with a leg injury. His twin brother Duece Watts was named to the AAC weekly honor rolle along with Anderson after catching five passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Sorrell Brown sat out again, though, and appears unable to shake recurring knee soreness stemming from his two ACL surgeries in his first two years. He did not dress against Temple, missing his third game of the season after playing in the previous two.
Josh Remetich was at practice but did not suit up today as he continues to recover from mononucleosis. Caleb Thomas has played pretty well in place of him the last three games, but Thomas left the Temple game with an injury and was replaced by Tim Shafter. It will be interesting to see how that all sorts out later this week.
Tulane should have a good three-man rotation at running back against East Carolina, which allows 205.2 rushing yards per game and 4.8 yards per carry, the second highest figure in the AAC. Amare Jones had the best day of his career running the ball against Temple, gaining 92 yards on 12 carries. Until he fumbled as he crossed the goal line early in the third quarter, almost all of his previous 12 runs had been productive. Incredibly, he had not posted 60 yards from scrimmage in a game since going over 100 yards receiving against Army on Oct. 5, 2019, a string of 14 games. This is a guy who was receiving national recognition as one of the most versatile players in college football entering the season, but his most notable moment in the first six games was a dropped third-down pass that might have given Tulane a 31-0 lead on Navy early in the third quarter of a game the Wave ended up losing 27-24. The decisiveness he showed on his cuts against Temple was much better in the past. Assuming Stephon Huderson is not still in the doghouse after fumbling for the second time in as many weeks--he was put on ice for a long time after that early mistake on Saturday, the three-headed running of him, Jones and Cameron Carroll should be very effective the rest of the way. Carroll had his ninth touchdown of the season Saturday, and the trio combined for 190 yards on 28 attempts. Huderson had 20 of them on a sweet run in garbage time after getting only two touches before then, a sharp contrast to his workload the previous two weeks.
WILLIE FRITZ
"We practiced today a little bit more than we normally do on Monday because of tomorrow. The NCAA's mandated that tomorrow is a day off for all the student-athletes, so we're not doing anything tomorrow. It's good. Guys can go out and vote. I did a straw poll when we were done with practice, not who they were going to vote for, but how many guys had voted. It looked like we've had 75 percent of the guys vote. I'm proud of the fact that we've got 100 percent of the guys registered, all the coaches, support staff, everybody involved in the program. That's our right as a U.S. citizen and we want to take advantage of it.
"It was a good practice. We've got a big test ahead of us with East Carolina on Saturday."
On East Carolina being hopping mad about being cheated by refs against Tulsa:
"I've got a lot of respect for coach (Mike) Houston. He's a really good guy who does things the right way. I'm probably similar to him in the fact we've gone from Division II to 1-AA and then up to Division I (Houston was head coach at D11 Lenoir-Rhine from 2011 to 2013 before stints at The Ciadel and James Madison and now ECU starting in 2019). I really think they're talented. They moved the ball extremely well against Tulsa. The quarterback's back. He's a dangerous guy. They've got a lot of weapons on offense and play well on defense. They force a bunch of takeaways as well and there was probably one more they would have liked to have had (a clear Tulsa fumble on Tulsa's winning TD drive was called a fumble on the field but then overruled by a clueless replay booth official, leaving Houston apoplectic along with two other controversial calls down the stretch). We're going to have to play great on Saturday. It's a great place to play. We've been up there to play before (an OT win in 2017 that I covered). Nice stadium. Good grass surface. We're looking forward to the challenge."
On Holton Ahlers' improvement at QB after struggling mightily against Tulane as a true freshman two years ago (he went 21 of 67):
"He's really accurate. He can buy time in the pocket. He has a strong arm. He's an excellent quarterback. He's really good. A couple of weeks ago he didn't play (in a 27-23 loss to Navy) and I saw their numbers were down and I kind of wondered why and that was the reason. He's a good player."
On Amare Jones:
"I sure hope so. Other than the fumble he played really well, and that was without practicing all week. One of the things I talked to him about is we've got to get his stamina going to be able to play more. We were wanting to feed the ball to him and you've got to be out there to feed you the ball. He's a darn good player. I thought he had some excellent runs. He's more physical than probably people give him credit for. They had a few times where tacklers kind of bounced off of him a little bit. We want him to have a big end of the season. He's certainly capable of doing that."
On Jones being capable as a pure runner:
"The thing we've done is we kind of have the super back position. When guys got injured in the backfield and then Amare got hurt and missed the game two weeks ago and wasn't able to practice all last week, we kind of limited that package a little bit, but we're going to be back doing some things with that package and taking advantage of his strengths. That positions does both receiver things and running back things."
On using Jones in return game after Jha'Quan Jackson's ascendence as punt returner in his absence:
"We are going to have Amare return kicks and Jha'Quan return punts."
On defense picking up where it left off against Temple:
"We did a much better job tackling. We did a much better job of playing with leverage. That's the key no matter who you play. The thing that ECU does is they really get the ball out on space quickly and then they have the guts on third-and-long to go ahead and run the ball if you're not out-populating them in the box. They have a very potent overall attack with running the ball, throwing the ball, using the field horizontally, using the field vertically, and it all starts with the quarterback. A lot of talented players over there."
Neither Williams' nor Moody's injuries look long term. Eric Hicks, who made his first career start instead of Williams and had four tackles on Saturday, worked with the first unit today. The second-team defensive line had Angelo Anderson, who did not play against Temple but likely will get his first action of the season at East Carolina, along with Noah Seiden (Alfred Thomas got some reps, too), Adonis Friloux and Darius Hodges. Friloux, who started playing well right after I tweeted he was a non-factor on one particular play in the first quarter against UCF ( l learned he has quite the support system on twitter), was credited with half a sack against Temple, and Hodges had his first career sack. Tulane needs that production from its second unit, similar to what it received in 2018 from Juan Monjares, Carlos Hatcher and Davon Wright. Hatcher and Wright are still on the team but neither is healthy enough to practice at the moment.
Chase Kuerschen remains the starter at free safety, but Cornelius Dyson is getting more and more reps with the first unit. Dyson had two tackles and a pass breakup against Temple. Kuerschen had four tackles and a pass breakup, but the breakup should have been a pick 6 when he jumped a route near the sideline and dropped an easy interception with only green turf in front of him.
Phat Watts was back at practice today after missing the Temple game with a leg injury. His twin brother Duece Watts was named to the AAC weekly honor rolle along with Anderson after catching five passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Sorrell Brown sat out again, though, and appears unable to shake recurring knee soreness stemming from his two ACL surgeries in his first two years. He did not dress against Temple, missing his third game of the season after playing in the previous two.
Josh Remetich was at practice but did not suit up today as he continues to recover from mononucleosis. Caleb Thomas has played pretty well in place of him the last three games, but Thomas left the Temple game with an injury and was replaced by Tim Shafter. It will be interesting to see how that all sorts out later this week.
Tulane should have a good three-man rotation at running back against East Carolina, which allows 205.2 rushing yards per game and 4.8 yards per carry, the second highest figure in the AAC. Amare Jones had the best day of his career running the ball against Temple, gaining 92 yards on 12 carries. Until he fumbled as he crossed the goal line early in the third quarter, almost all of his previous 12 runs had been productive. Incredibly, he had not posted 60 yards from scrimmage in a game since going over 100 yards receiving against Army on Oct. 5, 2019, a string of 14 games. This is a guy who was receiving national recognition as one of the most versatile players in college football entering the season, but his most notable moment in the first six games was a dropped third-down pass that might have given Tulane a 31-0 lead on Navy early in the third quarter of a game the Wave ended up losing 27-24. The decisiveness he showed on his cuts against Temple was much better in the past. Assuming Stephon Huderson is not still in the doghouse after fumbling for the second time in as many weeks--he was put on ice for a long time after that early mistake on Saturday, the three-headed running of him, Jones and Cameron Carroll should be very effective the rest of the way. Carroll had his ninth touchdown of the season Saturday, and the trio combined for 190 yards on 28 attempts. Huderson had 20 of them on a sweet run in garbage time after getting only two touches before then, a sharp contrast to his workload the previous two weeks.
WILLIE FRITZ
"We practiced today a little bit more than we normally do on Monday because of tomorrow. The NCAA's mandated that tomorrow is a day off for all the student-athletes, so we're not doing anything tomorrow. It's good. Guys can go out and vote. I did a straw poll when we were done with practice, not who they were going to vote for, but how many guys had voted. It looked like we've had 75 percent of the guys vote. I'm proud of the fact that we've got 100 percent of the guys registered, all the coaches, support staff, everybody involved in the program. That's our right as a U.S. citizen and we want to take advantage of it.
"It was a good practice. We've got a big test ahead of us with East Carolina on Saturday."
On East Carolina being hopping mad about being cheated by refs against Tulsa:
"I've got a lot of respect for coach (Mike) Houston. He's a really good guy who does things the right way. I'm probably similar to him in the fact we've gone from Division II to 1-AA and then up to Division I (Houston was head coach at D11 Lenoir-Rhine from 2011 to 2013 before stints at The Ciadel and James Madison and now ECU starting in 2019). I really think they're talented. They moved the ball extremely well against Tulsa. The quarterback's back. He's a dangerous guy. They've got a lot of weapons on offense and play well on defense. They force a bunch of takeaways as well and there was probably one more they would have liked to have had (a clear Tulsa fumble on Tulsa's winning TD drive was called a fumble on the field but then overruled by a clueless replay booth official, leaving Houston apoplectic along with two other controversial calls down the stretch). We're going to have to play great on Saturday. It's a great place to play. We've been up there to play before (an OT win in 2017 that I covered). Nice stadium. Good grass surface. We're looking forward to the challenge."
On Holton Ahlers' improvement at QB after struggling mightily against Tulane as a true freshman two years ago (he went 21 of 67):
"He's really accurate. He can buy time in the pocket. He has a strong arm. He's an excellent quarterback. He's really good. A couple of weeks ago he didn't play (in a 27-23 loss to Navy) and I saw their numbers were down and I kind of wondered why and that was the reason. He's a good player."
On Amare Jones:
"I sure hope so. Other than the fumble he played really well, and that was without practicing all week. One of the things I talked to him about is we've got to get his stamina going to be able to play more. We were wanting to feed the ball to him and you've got to be out there to feed you the ball. He's a darn good player. I thought he had some excellent runs. He's more physical than probably people give him credit for. They had a few times where tacklers kind of bounced off of him a little bit. We want him to have a big end of the season. He's certainly capable of doing that."
On Jones being capable as a pure runner:
"The thing we've done is we kind of have the super back position. When guys got injured in the backfield and then Amare got hurt and missed the game two weeks ago and wasn't able to practice all last week, we kind of limited that package a little bit, but we're going to be back doing some things with that package and taking advantage of his strengths. That positions does both receiver things and running back things."
On using Jones in return game after Jha'Quan Jackson's ascendence as punt returner in his absence:
"We are going to have Amare return kicks and Jha'Quan return punts."
On defense picking up where it left off against Temple:
"We did a much better job tackling. We did a much better job of playing with leverage. That's the key no matter who you play. The thing that ECU does is they really get the ball out on space quickly and then they have the guts on third-and-long to go ahead and run the ball if you're not out-populating them in the box. They have a very potent overall attack with running the ball, throwing the ball, using the field horizontally, using the field vertically, and it all starts with the quarterback. A lot of talented players over there."
