It is not clear whether or not Michael Pratt will play against Southern Miss, but he definitely is closer than he was last week, when his past history of playing without practicing at all fooled me into thinking he could do it again (when I posted here I would be surprised if he did not play well, I meant it. I was very wrong in that assessment) and left the coaches hopeful until Thursday and Friday he would be able to play. He took some team drill and individual drill work today--something he never did last week--and Willie Fritz said they would know by Thursday or Friday whether or not he would be ready to play.
If Pratt cannot go, Kai Horton will get his second consecutive start. He had good and bad moments against Ole Miss but should be more comfortable if he gets his second straight start against a less talented team (Southern Miss) than Ole Miss. It's interesting. Horton blames himself for the game-turning interception when he and Lawrence Keys had a miscommunication on a route, with Keys going deep and Horton throwing an out pattern, but someone tweeted at me during the game that Fritz was interviewed by ESPN2 on the sideline and he said it was the receiver's fault. After the game, Fritz said he was not sure, and Horton insists it would have been a touchdown if he had made the right read.
Southern Miss is starting Billy Wiles at quarterback. Wiles, of course, was a Tulane commitment when Will Hall was offensive coordinator, but after Hall took the USM job, he ended up walking on at Clemson in 2021 and earning a scholarship with the Tigers in 2022 (but not playing). He transferred to Southern Miss in the offseason and won a battle for the starting job in preseason camp. Ty Keyes, Hall's other QB commitment for Tulane's 2021 class before he signed with Southern Miss to join Hall, no longer is on the team after playing in two games last year and getting hurt both times, including his sole play as a wildcat QB against Tulane. He now is the starting QB for East Mississippi Community College. To complete the circle, Horton would not be at Tulane if Hall had not left. The Wave pursued him after Keyes and Wiles dropped their commitments.
Strangely, Frank Gore Jr. has not been USM''s featured running back in the first two games. He has 17 carries for 60 yards while Rodriquez Clark, a Memphis transfer whom Tulane held to 28 yards on 11 carries in 2021, has 140 yards on 24 carries. He left Memphis at the beginning of last year before resurfacing at Southern MIss this year for his senior season. I cannot say I remember Clark from the 2021 game, which was Tyjae Spears' 200-yard-plus explosion night to end what otherwise was a miserable season for the Wave, which even lost that game.
Fritz, Horton, Jared Small and Lance Robinson talked after practice today.
FRITZ
"Good workout today. We beat the rain. We were a little worried about that, but everything worked out well. We're playing a real quality opponent this weekend. We've got a lot of respect for coach Hall and what he does and how he runs the program. We know we're going to have to play well this weekend. One of the things in football that's so important is moving on. If you can sit back and look at past successes or past failures, you're not going to be as good as you can possibly be in the present. We just move on to the next deal and we're excited about this opportunity Saturday."
On what he can say about Pratt:
"We're hoping he's going to be able to play this weekend. We'll find out this week if he's going to be able to play or not. He's doing more and more, looking better and better. Time is a good thing."
On what he did in practice today:
"He did a bunch of throwing, ran some unit, did some other things and did all his drill work. We'll just have to see when we get to Thursday, Friday if he can do the things he needs to do to protect himself. if he can, we'll play him. If he can't, we won't."
On not considering simply holding him out until conference play:
"No. If he's healthy to play, we are going to play him. I've heard people say, oh, he can just get rid of the ball quick and hand the ball off, well you're not running. most of your offense and what happens if a guy goes to block a guy to the right instead of the left and you have a guy coming in barreling in on him. He's got to be able to protect himself. That's an important part of it."
On slippery slope when injured player wants to play:
"Yeah, but that's my choice. I'm going to make the decision. He'd love to play. He's a competitive dude. It would have taken me about five seconds to talk him into playing last week. It wouldn't have taken much, but he was not ready to play. We saw that on Thursday and Friday."
On Horton's performance against Ole Miss:
"Kai did some really good things. It's always hard. It's kind of similar to his first start as a college football player, playing the No. 3 or 4-ranked team in the country when he had to come out here and play against Cincinnati. He did a lot of good things. Games are different than practice. We try to simulate game-like experiences in practice as much as you can, but it's not the same. You're not tackling. The speed of the game is that much faster, but Kai did some very good things."
On thoughts about Ole Miss game after reviewing the video:
"There were just some plays, some dropped balls, some missed tackles that were easy plays. We missed some receivers at times, missed some cuts at times, missed some assignments. It seemed like everybody had about one or maybe two, so we just have to clean that up. We didn't play our best game Saturday, but we were still in position to win the game if we had executed down the stretch. We've got to do a better job coming out of halftime. We didn't do a good job of that week 1 or week 2. We need to do a much better job coming out in the third quarter."
On second guessing onside kick:
"Oh yeah, if if it doesn't work, I second guess the crap out of it. With three minutes (the analytics chart said) it was kick deep, 2:50, it was onside kick, and we had 2:56 on the clock with two timeouts, so I went ahead and did it, and if we would have executed it, on outside guy thought he was going to get blocked and he didn't. If he had just sprinted, I think the ball would have hit him the chest. Yeah, it didn't work. I wish we hadn't done it."
On what he remembers the most from USM loss last year:
"We were minus-3 in turnover/takeaway. Hard to win at minus-3. That was a big part of the game. There was a pick-six in there. We started off well, but didn't play very good in the second half. You have a tough time winning with a minus-3 turnover/takeway."
On Frank Gore Jr.:
They've got two really good backs. I think another guy's actually their leading rusher right now, but Frank Gore Jr. has had an unbelievable career there at Southern Miss. A big part of their offense is running the ball. We just have to play with leverage and we have to tackle. We did a nice job of it last week. That was a back who's had a lot of jobs, and we did a good job of not letting the ball cross our face. Our missed tackles seemed to be more on receivers than it did on running backs."
On USM celebration after win last year and if he has conveyed to players how important Golden Eagles think this game is:
"Well, we think it's important, too. There's a lot of history involved in this game between Tulane and Southern Mississippi. I want to win every one of them, so this one is the next one. We want to play great this weekend. I don't think we've played great so far, and I'm always chasing that elusive perfect game. It's out there someplace and some day we're going to get it."
If Pratt cannot go, Kai Horton will get his second consecutive start. He had good and bad moments against Ole Miss but should be more comfortable if he gets his second straight start against a less talented team (Southern Miss) than Ole Miss. It's interesting. Horton blames himself for the game-turning interception when he and Lawrence Keys had a miscommunication on a route, with Keys going deep and Horton throwing an out pattern, but someone tweeted at me during the game that Fritz was interviewed by ESPN2 on the sideline and he said it was the receiver's fault. After the game, Fritz said he was not sure, and Horton insists it would have been a touchdown if he had made the right read.
Southern Miss is starting Billy Wiles at quarterback. Wiles, of course, was a Tulane commitment when Will Hall was offensive coordinator, but after Hall took the USM job, he ended up walking on at Clemson in 2021 and earning a scholarship with the Tigers in 2022 (but not playing). He transferred to Southern Miss in the offseason and won a battle for the starting job in preseason camp. Ty Keyes, Hall's other QB commitment for Tulane's 2021 class before he signed with Southern Miss to join Hall, no longer is on the team after playing in two games last year and getting hurt both times, including his sole play as a wildcat QB against Tulane. He now is the starting QB for East Mississippi Community College. To complete the circle, Horton would not be at Tulane if Hall had not left. The Wave pursued him after Keyes and Wiles dropped their commitments.
Strangely, Frank Gore Jr. has not been USM''s featured running back in the first two games. He has 17 carries for 60 yards while Rodriquez Clark, a Memphis transfer whom Tulane held to 28 yards on 11 carries in 2021, has 140 yards on 24 carries. He left Memphis at the beginning of last year before resurfacing at Southern MIss this year for his senior season. I cannot say I remember Clark from the 2021 game, which was Tyjae Spears' 200-yard-plus explosion night to end what otherwise was a miserable season for the Wave, which even lost that game.
Fritz, Horton, Jared Small and Lance Robinson talked after practice today.
FRITZ
"Good workout today. We beat the rain. We were a little worried about that, but everything worked out well. We're playing a real quality opponent this weekend. We've got a lot of respect for coach Hall and what he does and how he runs the program. We know we're going to have to play well this weekend. One of the things in football that's so important is moving on. If you can sit back and look at past successes or past failures, you're not going to be as good as you can possibly be in the present. We just move on to the next deal and we're excited about this opportunity Saturday."
On what he can say about Pratt:
"We're hoping he's going to be able to play this weekend. We'll find out this week if he's going to be able to play or not. He's doing more and more, looking better and better. Time is a good thing."
On what he did in practice today:
"He did a bunch of throwing, ran some unit, did some other things and did all his drill work. We'll just have to see when we get to Thursday, Friday if he can do the things he needs to do to protect himself. if he can, we'll play him. If he can't, we won't."
On not considering simply holding him out until conference play:
"No. If he's healthy to play, we are going to play him. I've heard people say, oh, he can just get rid of the ball quick and hand the ball off, well you're not running. most of your offense and what happens if a guy goes to block a guy to the right instead of the left and you have a guy coming in barreling in on him. He's got to be able to protect himself. That's an important part of it."
On slippery slope when injured player wants to play:
"Yeah, but that's my choice. I'm going to make the decision. He'd love to play. He's a competitive dude. It would have taken me about five seconds to talk him into playing last week. It wouldn't have taken much, but he was not ready to play. We saw that on Thursday and Friday."
On Horton's performance against Ole Miss:
"Kai did some really good things. It's always hard. It's kind of similar to his first start as a college football player, playing the No. 3 or 4-ranked team in the country when he had to come out here and play against Cincinnati. He did a lot of good things. Games are different than practice. We try to simulate game-like experiences in practice as much as you can, but it's not the same. You're not tackling. The speed of the game is that much faster, but Kai did some very good things."
On thoughts about Ole Miss game after reviewing the video:
"There were just some plays, some dropped balls, some missed tackles that were easy plays. We missed some receivers at times, missed some cuts at times, missed some assignments. It seemed like everybody had about one or maybe two, so we just have to clean that up. We didn't play our best game Saturday, but we were still in position to win the game if we had executed down the stretch. We've got to do a better job coming out of halftime. We didn't do a good job of that week 1 or week 2. We need to do a much better job coming out in the third quarter."
On second guessing onside kick:
"Oh yeah, if if it doesn't work, I second guess the crap out of it. With three minutes (the analytics chart said) it was kick deep, 2:50, it was onside kick, and we had 2:56 on the clock with two timeouts, so I went ahead and did it, and if we would have executed it, on outside guy thought he was going to get blocked and he didn't. If he had just sprinted, I think the ball would have hit him the chest. Yeah, it didn't work. I wish we hadn't done it."
On what he remembers the most from USM loss last year:
"We were minus-3 in turnover/takeaway. Hard to win at minus-3. That was a big part of the game. There was a pick-six in there. We started off well, but didn't play very good in the second half. You have a tough time winning with a minus-3 turnover/takeway."
On Frank Gore Jr.:
They've got two really good backs. I think another guy's actually their leading rusher right now, but Frank Gore Jr. has had an unbelievable career there at Southern Miss. A big part of their offense is running the ball. We just have to play with leverage and we have to tackle. We did a nice job of it last week. That was a back who's had a lot of jobs, and we did a good job of not letting the ball cross our face. Our missed tackles seemed to be more on receivers than it did on running backs."
On USM celebration after win last year and if he has conveyed to players how important Golden Eagles think this game is:
"Well, we think it's important, too. There's a lot of history involved in this game between Tulane and Southern Mississippi. I want to win every one of them, so this one is the next one. We want to play great this weekend. I don't think we've played great so far, and I'm always chasing that elusive perfect game. It's out there someplace and some day we're going to get it."
