Tulane @ UTSA Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK

It's time.

It's time for the Green Wave to make a statement.

Tulane (6-1, 3-0) enters tonight's game at the Alamodome against the UTSA Roadrunners (3-4, 1-2) having won three consecutive games to open American Conference play. 6:30 p.m. CT, ESPN, 106.7 The Ticket. The Wave's most recent two contests have had a similar discomfort and excitement at the end, as Tulane scored game-winning touchdowns to break ties within the final 35 seconds of play against both East Carolina and Army. Clearly those tight home wins, combined with the lopsided loss in Oxford, are what have kept the Wave outside of the AP top 25, to date. But with the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season set to come out on Tuesday night, it's time for Tulane to make a statement.

While UTSA is indeed just 3-4 and coming off of a bye (like Tulane) following a dreadful 55-17 loss in Denton against North Texas, do not be fooled. The Roadrunners have won 23-consecutive conference home games, going all the way back to the start of 2020. In other words, Jeff Traylor, who is in his sixth season as UTSA's head coach, has never lost a conference game at the Alamodome. Make no mistake, there is plenty of high-end talent on this Roadrunner team, and the market has noticed. Despite the starkly different records through seven games, Tulane is just a 3.5 point favorite, tonight.

The Roadrunners lead running back Robert Henry, Jr. has carried the ball 106 times for 874 yards (8.2 yards per carry) and has a staggering 18 carries that have gone for 10 yards or more. Perhaps more impressive is that he's busted a run of 70 yards or more in five of UTSA's seven games, thus far. 64% of Henry's yards have been off of "breakaways," per ProFootballFocus, which is defined as a carry that exceeds a gain of 15 yards. Among the 68 FBS running backs that have carried the ball at least 90 times this season, Henry's 64% is the highest by a considerable margin (next such highest percentage of yards gained off of breakaway carries is Boise State's Dylan Riley, who has totaled 59% of his rushing yardage off of breakaways). Phrased differently, Henry, and this UTSA offense, rely strongly on the explosive play. They have not been a terribly efficient or consistent offense on a down-in, down-out basis, but their talent level is such that they have shown the ability to really hurt opponents with catastrophic explosive plays.

For Tulane to win, and certainly for Tulane to win convincingly and make a statement, they'll need to tackle well and put a lid on those. But to illustrate the point that they have not been a consistent offense, the Roadrunners rank 113th in overall offensive success rate out of 136 FBS teams, with a ranking of 107th passing success rate and 108th rushing success rate (Offensive success rate is a metric that measures how often an offense stays "on schedule" by gaining a sufficient amount of yards for a specific down and distance. It is calculated by dividing the number of successful plays by the total number of plays. A play is considered successful if it gains at least 40% of the needed yards on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% (a first down or touchdown) on third or fourth down).

UTSA is quarterbacked by Owen McCown, son of former NFL quarterback Josh McCown. McCown is in his third season in San Antonio and his second as the starter, having spent the 2022 season as a backup at Colorado. Through seven games he has an adjusted completion percentage of 72.3% with an average depth of target of just 7.3 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Among the 104 FBS quarterbacks who have attempted at least 150 passes, McCown ranks 94th in average depth of target beyond the line of scrimmage. That, however, is not a negative. He's efficient and quick to deliver the ball, and will dink and dunk opponents to death, waiting for a receiver to (tell me if this sounds familiar from the above) break a tackle or two and generate an explosive for the Roadrunner offense. Among those same 104 FBS quarterbacks, McCown's time to throw, from snap to release, has been the 4th fastest (2.45 seconds). Given that, the 10 sacks he's taken is a little higher than I would have anticipated, but in some of their contests the game script has been such that they're in obvious passing downs for long stretches of time.

The Roadrunners defense has been a bit of an interesting up-and-down story, as well. While their success rate measures are solid (39th overall, 56th against the pass and 38th against the run) they've been susceptible to the catastrophic explosive plays from their opponents that their own offense so desperately needs. And what has resulted is some gaudy averages; UTSA is allowing 8.1 yards per pass attempt and 4.5 yards per carry, as a team. I love this matchup for Tulane's suddenly humming passing game. I'm heading into tonight fully expecting the Wave to throw on early downs and try and dice the Roadrunners up in those intermediate-to-deep areas of the field. Against both East Carolina and Army, Tulane averaged over 9.00 yards per dropback, performances that put those games in the 86th and 90th percentiles, per Gameonpaper.com, and 0.48 and 0.55 expected points added per dropback, respectively. Those impressive marks were in the 90th and 92nd percentile, respectively. In other words, if it felt like the Tulane passing offense was absolutely lights out over their past 2 games, especially between the 20 yards lines, the data strongly reflects that. Obviously the red zone woes were the only thing that kept Tulane from scoring significantly more, in each of those games. And where, you might ask, does UTSA rank in expected points added against per dropback? 125th out of those 136 FBS schools.

As I said, it's time for Tulane to make a statement. It's time for these red zone trips to result in touchdowns.

Prediction: 34-28, Tulane