USF @ Tulane Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK

Photo Credit: Parker Waters

After two gruelingly hot road games at Oklahoma and Louisiana-Lafayette, the Tulane Green Wave (2-2, 0-0) return home to face the USF Bulls (2-2, 0-0), in a matchup of teams undefeated against anyone they've played outside the top 25, with USF's two losses coming at the hands of Alabama and Miami, ranked 4th and 8th this week, respectively. These programs met just two seasons ago, in October of 2022, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, but much has changed for both, since that time. Both Jeff Scott and [REDACTED], the head coaches of the two programs then, have since been replaced by Alex Golesh and Jon Sumrall, respectively.

Golesh has done a rather impressive job, in Tampa, inheriting a club that was coming off of a 1-11 (0-8) campaign in 2022. Last season, his first on the job, not only did the Bulls make it to the Boca Raton Bowl after finishing the regular season 6-6 (4-4), they cooked Syracuse while there, for a final score of 45-0. Coming into this season, USF was picked to finish 4th in the AAC Preseason Media Poll, just one slot and a handful of points behind Tulane, who was voted to finish 3rd.

So exactly who are these Bulls, and what should we be looking for, come 11:00 am Saturday at Yulman Stadium?

South Florida has one of the fastest offenses in the nation. I do not mean to say that their skill position players are the fastest in the country, but the operation is fast. They average 21.9 seconds to expire from the game clock, per offensive snap, which is the sixth fewest in the nation, out of 134 FBS qualifiers. They trail Mississippi State, with the lowest average of 20.2 seconds per by just 1.7 seconds per snap. They will rarely substitute, if they feel they're even remotely in sync, and force those same 11 Tulane defenders to remain on the field without a break. The bet of course then being that the more tired the defenders get (note: the forecast calls for a high of 89 and lots of sun, on Saturday), the more likely the offense is to have success both on that very possession and throughout the remainder of the afternoon. To put into perspective just how fast their operation is, and how little the huddle and/or how little they slow down, Tulane has the 89th "fastest" offense in the country.

While USF certainly believes in "quantity over quality," in that, they are more interested in getting plays off and winning in the aggregate than ensuring that protections, reads, alignments, etc. are perfect on any snap, the numbers bear out that while they are inefficient, they're not ineffective. For example, out of the same 134 qualifiers, the Bulls rank just 89th in points per play, 95th in yards per play, and 75th in points per offensive score. However, they do rank 42nd in yards per game, and have scored an average of 26.7 points per contest. Now, they get a Tulane defense that is reeling, having allowed 33 points, 400+ yards, 6.3 yards per carry, and 7.0 yards per pass attempt to ULL, last week.

Byrum Brown, the quarterback for USF, is most certainly the straw that stirs the drink. The offense is a whole is relatively balanced, with 51% of their snaps being designed runs (a not-insignificant number given that they've trailed in two of their 4 games by quite a bit). Brown leads the team in both rushing attempts (49) and yards (335). His 49 carries have resulted in 15 downs, and they're not merely scrambles. According to PFF, over 2/3 are designed run calls. Perhaps most impressively, he is averaging over 4.3 yards after contact. A Green Wave front six that has not tackled particularly well, of late, will need to be considerably improved in that arena. As a passer, his numbers look acceptable (57.9% completion percentage, 703 yards, 6.2 yards per attempt, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions). But once we drill down, the truth emerges: while he is 20/22 on screen passes, with an average of 7.6 yards per attempt, his completion percentage drops to just 50.0% and his yards per attempt falls to 5.8 on all other passes. Further, he has completed just 1 of 13 attempts that traveled at least 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Their passing game relies on a healthy does of play action and RPO's, in addition to those screens.

All components of their three-headed running back room have performed admirably, to date. Nay'Quan Wright has amassed 199 yards on 39 carries (5.1 yards per attempt) to go along with 2 scores, while Kelley Joiner, Jr. has accumulated 251 yards on 36 carries (7.0 yards per attempt) and 4 touchdowns, as Ta'ron Keith cannot be forgotten, with his 106 yards on 23 carries (4.6 yards per attempt) with 3 trips to the endzone. Perhaps most impressively, there has not been a fumble, yet, amongst the three of them.

Flipping over to the other side of the ball, this is a defense against which the Green Wave offense should have some success, as the Bulls are allowing 7.4 yards per play to opposing offenses, which ranks 7th worst in the nation. As one would expect, USF has a correspondingly bad scoring defense, as they hold the country's 113th best scoring defense, allowing 38.7 points per game. Finally, rounding out the similar subset of categories, the Bulls have allowed 490.7 yards per game this season, which is astonishingly only the 12th worst such average in the FBS. USF opponents are averaging 4.8 yards per rush attempt (90th best mark by a defense) and those same opponents are averaging 10.6 yards per pass attempt -- better than only 4 of the 134 FBS teams. Amazingly, this is a group that has racked up 88 pressures through those 4 games, and gotten home for 11 sacks. Rico Watson, Jason Vaughn, and Mac Harris are the players to keep an eye on, as they lead the way with 15, 12 and 10 pressures, respectively.

I would very much expect Tulane to try and get redshirt freshman Darian Mensah into a groove, early, as his eyes haven't seemed to match his feet, nor has he thrown with rhythm and timing since the 4th quarter of the Oklahoma game, in my view. He is a critical aspect of what the Wave will need in order to have the type of conference-play success that they're most certainly aiming for. That being said, when in doubt, it was clear that Joe Craddock's preference in Lafayette was to lean on Makhi Hughes, who was battling an illness and wasn't even 100%, in that matchup. For the Green Wave to have a top 3 offense the conference, they have to get Mensah going, even with the aces up the sleeve of both (A) Hughes and (B) the Ty Thompson package.

Prediction: This is both a great opponent to see how Mensah will bounce back from a rough outing, and to see how the defense, particularly the secondary and the pass rush, will bounce back from their most disappointing outing of the season, last week. I personally expect the offense to have a bit of success, while the defense still works out some kinks and finds the right combinations of personnel groupings. Byrum Brown has taken 11 sacks and has a pressure-to-sack mark of 20.3%. In other words, this should be a good opportunity for the Green Wave pass rush to come alive. Tulane 45-27