Duke @ Tulane Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK

"Ah Kirk, my old friend. Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us that revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It's very cold in space." -Khan, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

Of course.

Of course.

Of course the biggest regular season game in the 12 season history of Yulman Stadium has to also involve former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah coming back to campus, leading a strong Power 4 opponent. Over the span of three and a half months last fall, Darian Mensah went from third string quarterback, to untested starter, to team leader and a driver of success, to a ghost that figuratively slipped out the back door and went on his way to Durham, North Carolina. It's early, but realistically, if either team is to challenge for a spot in the College Football Playoff, they may well need this game. But those are indeed the stakes as Duke (1-1, 0-0) comes to visit Tulane (2-0, 0-0) tonight at Yulman Stadium (7:00 pm CT, ESPN2, 106.7 The Ticket).

The Blue Devils, led by second-year head coach pummeled FCS Elon in week one before falling 45-19 at home last week to Illinois, who was then ranked No. 11 in the AP poll and is ranked No. 9, this week. However, it would be unwise to simply look at the final score and assume that the Blue Devils got smoked by the Fighting Illini. Duke outgained Illinois and actually had a higher net success rate, but lost the turnover battle 5-0 (net success rate is a statistic that measure's a team's overall efficiency by subtracting their defensive success rate from their offensive success rate. An offensive play is successful if the team gains a certain percentage of yards-to-go on a given down (e.g. 40% on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third/fourth down), while a defensive play is successful if it prevents the offensive from doing so).

This may well be the best receiving corps that Tulane has played since Jon Sumrall arrived. Andrel Anthony, Sahmir Hagans, Que'Sean Brown, Cooper Barkate, Jayden Moore. All really good players. Brown and Moore predominantly line up in the slot, while you can find Anthony, Hagans and Barkate out wide. The Blue Devils run a rather conventional shotgun-based dropback offense that'll deploy mostly 11 personnel (1 running back, 1 tight end or H-back, and thus 3 receivers). Play action or throwing off of an RPO (read pass option) is somewhat of an easy button for quarterbacks at any level of football. Last season, Darian Mensah threw off of play action or an RPO (ProFootballFocus unfortunately does not differentiate between the two) a staggering 53% of the time. This year, Mensah's play action/RPO usage is down significantly, at 30% of his attempts, as noted by Jimmy Ordeneaux on the FTW Cast Pregame, sponsored by Scandurro and Layrisson, LLC (https://soundcloud.com/user-774038550/ftw-cast-duke-pregame-sponsored-by-scandurro-layrisson-llc?si=1b43e237811c46cbaa4ecabc29c5a40a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing). That's an interesting bet being made by Duke offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer, and it'll bear worth watching how Mensah performs as he is continually asked to do more on his own.

Despite blowing out an FCS opponent in week one, Duke has only run the ball 43 times through 2 games, with their running backs getting carry counts of 12, 10, 7 and 7, thus far. Mensah, on the other hand, has dropped back 81 times through 2 games. When the Blue Devils have run it out of their shotgun-base, they've run it well. As a team, they average 6.1 yards per carry and 4.51 yards per carry after contact. Mensah has accounted for 4 turnovers (3 fumbles, 1 interception), through 2 games, and that will likely be a point of emphasis for this Green Wave defense. And that, my friends, is where Tulane must have some success today, in the turnover differential:

Duke managed 4 trips into the red zone last week on 11 possessions, last week. On those 4 trips, they scored 2 touchdowns, kicked one field goal, and lost a fumble. That would be a good recipe for Tulane to get a win, tonight.

While we've talked much about Darian Mensah and the weapons at his disposal, Duke's defensive front is the most impressive that Tulane has seen, probably since the Oklahoma game last year (so that would include Northwestern, Florida, Army, Memphis, etc.). Vincent Anthony, Jr. is a game-wrecker off the edge. After accounting for 36 pressures for the Blue Devils last season, he has already totaled 5 and 4 sacks (3 of them against Illinois), through 2 games. On the interior sits Josiah Green, who himself posted 3 pressures from the inside last week against the Illini. The Blue Devils pressured Luke Altmyer on 44% of his dropbacks, last week -- the Wave would do well to avoid having the game conclude with such a percentage on Retzlaff/Sullivan.

Assuming they can protect, opportunities should present themselves down the field for Omari Hayes, Shazz Preston, Anthony Brown-Stephens and (calling my shot, here) Jimmy Calloway. The Blue Devils trio of corners has had a pretty rough go of it to start the season. Against Illinois, corners Kimari Robinson, Landan Callahan, and Chandler Rivers were tagged with passer ratings against (i.e. when targeted) of 118.1, 118.8, and 93.8, respectively. Despite the aforementioned pressure on 44% of his dropbacks, Luke Altmyer was 22/31 on 36 dropbacks for 296 yards (9.5 yards per attempt), 3 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 0 "turnover-worthy plays" and 0 "big-time throws." Think about those last two for a moment. Despite being pressured on nearly 50% of his dropbacks, not once did he make a throw that was turnover-worthy, and not once did he have to fire one into a very tight window. For those that did not watch the game, hopefully that illustrates just how open his receivers were down the field against this Blue Devil secondary.

Altmeyer was 6/12 on passes that traveled 10-19 yards beyond the line of scrimmage and 2/3 on passes that traveled 20+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage. That's the recipe for success tonight, I believe, but to bake that particular cake, this Tulane passing game will need to make more throws and catches on-schedule than they have through the first two games. Having Maurice Turner back, hopefully, would be a tremendous boost, but Zuberi Mobley and true freshman Javin Gordon (who was committed to Duke for ~5 months before flipping to Tulane in November) showed themselves more than capable of shouldering the load, if needed and called upon.

Prediction: Tulane 24 - Duke 23