AAC Championship Game Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends."

Tonight, Tulane (9-3, 7-1) will look to win their second American Athletic Conference Championship in 734 days, which would be just their third conference championship in football since winning the SEC in 1949 (Tulane was crowned C-USA Champions in 1998, and obviously won the AAC just two seasons ago, in 2022). To do so, and to win their 33rd game since the start of 2022, they'll need to beat No. 24 Army (10-1, 8-0), at Michie Stadium in West Point, NY, where the "feels like" temperature at kickoff is expected to be 19 degrees. Curiously, Tulane has not beaten a ranked opponent since defeating Southern California in Cotton Bowl, less than 2 years ago. They fell to ranked Ole Miss and SMU in 2023 and again to ranked Kansas State and Oklahoma, this September.

In order to prepare for the cold, Tulane took a slightly different approach to their travel and scheduled, this week. Throughout the season, the football team has practiced the morning before a road game at Yulman Stadium, in what they call their "sprints" session (it is a full speed practice with no pads, only helmets and shorts, after a traditional walkthrough is held the day prior to that), and then left campus for the airport around lunch time. Yesterday, the team instead flew up in the morning, and held their "sprints" session at the New York Giants facility, outside, to help acclimate the players to the conditions they're expected to experience, tonight.

Before I dive into the nuts and bolts of this game, welcome to consistent winning in college football. It's not something we, long-suffering Tulane fans, are or have been used to at used to in my 34 years of life. For the third consecutive December, it appears that other school(s) want our head coach to be theirs. We don't do rumors or unsubstantiated speculation on this website, but let me say this; that wouldn't (allegedly) be happening had our Green Wave gone 5-7, this year. You know who P4 schools aren't dying to interview? UAB's Trent Dilfer, because he and his team are terrible. This is the world we live in, folks. Michigan and Washington played each other the National Championship, in January of this year. Four days later Washington had lost Kalen DeBoer to the University of Alabama and twelve days after that, Michigan had lost Jim Harbaugh to the Los Angeles Chargers. Again, Trent Dilfer's agent's phone wasn't ringing. Welcome to relevancy, welcome to winning, and if you're reading this, you're someone who believes in what this Collective is doing, where this program is going, and what tomorrow brings. Administrators change, coaches change, players change, conferences change, but we all do not, and we all must not let our commitment waver, either. Who knows what the coming days or weeks will bring, but I for one would much rather be in the conference championship game every December, wondering what will happen next, as opposed to where I was on December 1, 2010; opening the Times-Picayune to learn that Bob Toledo and his then-record of 13-35 (6-23) would be back for year number five, in 2011.

Army enters having dropped only one game all season, to Notre Dame, who is currently ranked No. 4 in the latest College Football Playoff Poll. The Black Knights maintain the country's 32nd best scoring defense (31.8 points per game), 18th best Points Per Play average, 8th best red zone scoring percentage (93.75%), 52nd total offense (398 yards per game), and 6th highest yards per carry average (5.6 yards per). They also have called the FBS' highest percentage of designed runs this season (85%), but have been wildly explosive on that ~15% of snaps that they take to the air, as they have the nation's highest yards per pass attempt average (10.7 yards per). The key is to keep Army in obvious passing down and distances, when they do take to the air, and take play-action off the table by winning early downs as much as possible; a full 50.0% of quarterback Bryson Daily's dropbacks have come off of play action.

As with most triple-option offenses, however, Daily has kept the ball quite often. He is averaging over 22 carries per game through Army's 11 contests, and he has turned those 246 attempts into 1,351 yards (5.5 yards per attempt) and 25 touchdowns. Kanye Udoh and Noah Short are the two backs that have topped 30 carries, this season, and have turned 145 carries into 900 yards (6.2 YPC) and 9 touchdowns and 58 carries into 488 yards (8.7 YPC) and 2 touchdowns, respectively. Short and Udoh both average over 3.2 yards per attempt after contact while Daily has found plenty of open lanes after excellent reads, running that triple option. In terms of expected points added per rush, Army ranks 6th in the FBS and 9th in the FBS on expected points added per dropback. We received a listener question inquiring as to what "Expected Points Added" is: https://www.the33rdteam.com/epa-explained/.

Aside from the Notre Dame matchup at Yankee Stadium, 13 days ago, Army's defense has been rather elite, statistically. They rank 8th in scoring defense (only allowing 15.9 points per game), 9th in yards per game allowed, 12th in points per play allowed, but they still surrender 5.0 yards per play. It's important to remember, when viewing team statistics for the Black Knights, that are accumulated throughout a game, that the ideal game (in their mind) calls for each team to only possess the ball 6-7 times. For example, when Army defeated North Texas in Dention, in November, the Mean Green only had 6 possessions, all game. Conversely, several weeks earlier, when Tulane went into the same stadium and beat North Texas 45-37, the Mean Green had 13 possessions.

On the defensive line, edge rusher Elo Modozie is the name to know, for Tulane fans. He has only totaled 4 sacks, this season, but leads the Black Knights with 27 pressures through 11 games. The Green Wave would be wise to pull a play out of Memphis' playbook, and attempt to isolate Army linebackers Andon Thomas and Kaleb Fortner in coverage against Alex Bauman and/or a slot receiver and/or Shaadie Clayton-Johnson. Thomas and Fortner have allowed completion percentages and quarterback ratings against of 70.3% and 90.4 (Thomas) and 77.8% and 104.6 (Fortner). Army's secondary has certainly been strong, this season, ranking 25th in yards per pass attempt against (6.2) and 33rd in passer rating against, but they've seldom faced arsenals of weapons with the speed of Fleming, Williams, and Brown.

Two critical areas to keep an eye on;

(1) As always, the turnover differential. For the third game in a row, Tulane will face an opponent that enters the game in the top 10 of turnover differential per game. Army is 9th in the country with an average margin of +1.0 per game, as Tulane has dropped to 16th nationally, after losing the turnover battle 3-0 to Memphis during their Thanksgiving night loss.

(2) Army ranks 133rd (out of 134 FBS teams) in net starting field position, while the Green Wave rank 6th, in the same category. Those are hidden yards that Tulane would love to rack up an advantage in, throughout tonight's game, but be warned; Army has blocked two punts, this season, and part of the reason that they do not gain yards on punt returns is that they frequently sell out to get a block. Will they get one? Does Tulane have a fake punt up their sleeve?

Prediction: The Green Wave rushing attack should get back on track, even against an Army defense that has only allowed 3.8 yards per carry against (35th best average, nationally), but ranks 88th in Expected Points Added against, per rush. Tulane would love to have Army play both behind on the scoreboard and on lengthy distances on late downs. Fair or not, I can't get the 35-0 result against Navy, coupled with Troy's 19-0 win at West Point last season (while Sumrall and Gasparato were there), out of my mind. Tulane, 20-10.