2019 Football Regular Season Recap

[Aberzombie1892]

The 2020 schedule certainly isn't murders row, but Tulane fans can no longer have the (unreasonable) confidence that Tulane will win more than 6 regular season games under Fritz. Tulane is four years in with 2 6 regular season campaign win seasons, and, while that is certainly better than where Tulane has been over the last 20+ years, it's nowhere nearly enough given the expectations. It's true that Fritz could one day exceed that number, but if he could not do it this year with this roster (i.e. Daughene, McClesky, McMillan, etc.) and this schedule (i.e. 1 P5), when will he?

Next season? The 2020 team will almost certainly not be as good as this team, and the removal of UConn makes the AAC schedule slightly tougher moving forward. That's where Tulane is right now.

[HoustonWave]

D, I care about that as well. But if analytics didn't matter you wouldn't have every pro team in every sport going in that direction. Did we take a quantum leap forward? Absolutely not. Did we collapse like Army did this season? We didn't. But the only two teams we played all year that were similar to us rankings wise were Tulsa #74 and Temple #50. And we did pretty much what you'd expect of a team at #60. We beat Tulsa at home, and lost to Temple on the road. Other than that, it was unlikely to expect we'd lose to a team in the #100s, or that we'd beat a team in the top 30, ESPECIALLY since we played all those top 30 teams on the road except for UCF.

Sorry, but I think people with the intelligence I would expect from a fanbase with a Tulane education would be capable of looking deeper than just the record to see what other factors were in play.

For those old guys. Remember 1974 and 1975? Started 5-0, finished 5-6. Started 4-2, finished 4-7. We're those teams bad teams or was there some other factor that them to slump midseason? Any true Tulane fans knows that in both cases, it was Steve Foley getting injured that cost us two excellent seasons. You can't just say, "oh, they lost the last 6 games in a row. They regressed." No, they didn't regress. They suffered a major injury.

Foley's injury is why we had the collapse in 1974. He graduated in 1975. The collapse in 1975 was actually somewhat similar to this year--no one cause, just a collection of failings--including getting annihilated 42-6 by LSU in the Superdome--the game wasn't as close as the score. It all cost Bennie Ellender his job, despite his 10-year guaranteed contract.

[winwave]

The 2020 schedule certainly isn't murders row, but Tulane fans can no longer have the (unreasonable) confidence that Tulane will win more than 6 regular season games under Fritz. Tulane is four years in with 2 6 regular season campaign win seasons, and, while that is certainly better than where Tulane has been over the last 20+ years, it's nowhere nearly enough given the expectations. It's true that Fritz could one day exceed that number, but if he could not do it this year with this roster (i.e. Daughene, McClesky, McMillan, etc.) and this schedule (i.e. 1 P5), when will he?

Next season? The 2020 team will almost certainly not be as good as this team, and the removal of UConn makes the AAC schedule slightly tougher moving forward. That's where Tulane is right now.

It was not unreasonable to expect more than 6 wins this year. That wasn't about confidence in WF it was about expectations based on what we had returning and the new offense being brought in. We should certainly expect more than 6 wins next season. While it's too early to assess that team right now as we will lose some we may expect back and may get some quality transfers we don't know how about yet. For now though we have a QB who has prior starting experience and and will have been in the system for a year. We have a good stable of backs and a good TE in James. OL and WR are question marks. The D will have the line back and hopefully healthy and more importantly use of them that maximizes their ability. We have experience returning in the back 7 with some of the younger players, like Clark and Joyce, stepping up with a lot of ability. So no reason to expect regression iIF we are well coached.

[DfromCT]

Until we have a QB that's at minimum average for FBS, we will not win more than 6 games. McM has given us his best...and shown why he never got the job at LSU. He wasn't even average for the AAC. Too many turnovers, poor on-field decisions, and inconsistent throwing. He flashed signs of being a decent QB, but for the most part was a game manager at best. I wish him the best, but hope to see a whole lot of Keon Howard in the bowl game. McM won't be here next year, his days are done.

[RobertM320]

Until we have a QB that's at minimum average for FBS, we will not win more than 6 games. McM has given us his best...and shown why he never got the job at LSU. He wasn't even average for the AAC. Too many turnovers, poor on-field decisions, and inconsistent throwing. He flashed signs of being a decent QB, but for the most part was a game manager at best. I wish him the best, but hope to see a whole lot of Keon Howard in the bowl game. McM won't be here next year, his days are done.

I will first say, I did get this from the other board. Here's the breakdowns of the QBs for the entire AAC. McMillan looks pretty average for the AAC, in spite of what you say. And if he's not minimum average for FBS, then 90% of AAC QBs weren't either. I think we underrate McMillan because, even though he's only average, we saw him every week, so we saw every mistake, every play, good and bad. All we saw from the others were their highlights.

McMillan didn't throw as many TDs as the top guys, because we don't pass as much. However, he had double the number of rushing TDs of any QB in the conf except for Perry at Navy. If you look at total yards and total TDs he's right in the mix once you get past the top 3.

SMU Buechele 63.2% 3626 yds 33 TDs 9 INTs 105 yards rushing for 2TDs 3731 total yards and 35 total TDs
Mem White 66.4% 3307 yds 32 TDs 8 INTs (32) yards rushing for 2TDs 3275 total yards and 34 total TDs
UCF Gabriel 59.4% 3393 yds 27 TDs 7 INTs 77 yards rushing for 3 TDs 3470 total yards and 30 total TDs
NAV Perry 54.4% 1027 yds 6 TDs 3 INTs 1500 yds rushing for 19 TDs 2527 total yards and 25 total TDs
TUL McMillan 57.4% 2229 yds 14 TDs 10 INTs 704 yds rushing for 12 TDs 2933 total yards and 26 total TDs
ECU Ahlers 59.7% 3387 yds 21 TDs 10 INTs 359 yds rushing for 6 TDs 3746 total yards and 27 total TDs
TEM Russo 58.6% 2733 yds 21 TDs 11 INTs (59) yds rushing for 2 TDs 2674 total yards and 23 total TDs
CIN Ridder 56.2% 1836 yds 17 TDs 8 INTs 432 yards rushing for 1 TDs 2268 total yards and 18 total TDs
TLSA Smith 57.3% 3273 yds 19 TDs 9 INTs (96) yds rushing for 0 TDS 3183 total yards and 19 total TDs
USF McCloud 55.4% 1429 yds 12 TDS 8 INTs 283 yds rushing for 4 TDS 1712 total yards and 16 total TDs - started 10 games
HOU Tune 59.2% 1533 yds 11 TDs 9 INTs 244 yds rushing for 2 TDs 1777 total yards and 13 total TDs - started 7 games
CONN Zergiotis57.5% 1782 yds 9 TDs 11 INTs (46) yds rushing for 0 TDs 1736 total yards and 9 total TDs - started 8 games

[winwave]

R- one problem is that one of the main reasons we didn't pass more is because he's not a good passer. It's a big reason we became predictable. Our staff lost faith in him passing wise and rightfully so and opponents knew we were limited there with him.

[anEngineer]

To me the biggest problem was the lack of a reliable passing game. As stated by many, McMillen was not a good passer in accuracy or touch. There was also a lack of good pass catchers. Maybe that's on the coaches for not getting better receivers, but if kids decide to sign somewhere else, there's not much else that can be done. The second half of the season was largely on the road against teams that were better than or equal to us. It's tough winning on the road. That's a level of program development and we are not there yet. Is that the coaches' responsibility? Absolutely. Is it their fault? It depends on the players.

I also don't think we can discount the injuries to Bradwell, Dauphine and Jones for the second half of the season. We are deep there but that really is the three horses we were relying on. It's really kind of amazing that we were able to run the ball as well as we did. I think the coaches imagined the offense to revolve around Amare Jones (much like the Saints do with Kamara). Once they lost that, they were more limited. With Jones' injury, we also lost our punt returner (that SMU muff probably doesn't happen). Those 3 being injured was downplayed but it really was a BIG deal. Hopefully they will all be 100% for the bowl game.

The defense wasn't great but it was adequate. When we needed big stops, we got some and lost some (most notably at Navy). Special teams was more positive than negative. Punting was 50-50. Punt return was better with Jones. Kickoffs were mostly touch backs and kick return was a big plus. Field goal range was extended and you at least felt like every kick had a chance to be made.

[winwave]

Sorry but not buying the road issue. Memphis was just better than us and whipped us. The listed attendance was 30,000 which means not even that many were there. Other than that there were no deafening places that we played in.. We were just poorly coached on the back end. The RB issue is real but again Spears is actually even better than Jones and that's no knock on Jones because he's really good at what he does. We should have burned the redshirt on Spears. It would have helped a lot.

[DfromCT]

The old saying goes "the rock doesn't weigh much". We will find more RB's that can contribute significantly. We need an O-Line (though I will admit our O-line was better at the point of attack this year) and most importantly a QB that's accurate with a strong arm. McM might have statistics that weakly make an argument for him being average, but we all saw he was extremely inconsistent, and made poor decisions at critical times during games. He also put the ball on the ground about a dozen times. Watching teams in and out of the AAC, he was not your average FBS QB.

[Bicoastalwave]

His total TD #’s are fine, but stats can lie. As was said above, he was forced to run far too much. If he was just slightly more accurate and slightly fewer drops that would have led to a more balanced attack. We were extremely predictable.

I don’t buy the “we will be worse next year” argument. Wasn’t our DL supposed to be better this year ? Wasn’t our receiving core ? You never know who makes the jump, who our grad transfer will be, which freshman contribute etc. I think we’re in good position for next year, especially with a new QB

[golfnut69]

regarding 2020... I will quote an Old Coach..."Gentleman, we will strive for Perfection, and in doing so, achieve Excellence " ....have that attitude, and we may win a few games

[Aberzombie1892]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.underd ... uphine-aac

Yep