A late write up here given a lot of Thanksgiving festivities and travel. In a game where Mike Pratt did not have his best, the Wave did what Willie demands of his team and won the turnover battle and the rushing battle. Shout out Shiel Wood, UTSAs vaunted offense has struggled against him mightily two years in a row. The Wave fends off the scariest addition to the AAC and becomes only the third school to play in back to back AAC title games. Let’s get into the recap.
This one started eerily similar to the USA game, a pick by the defense on the first series of the game paid off by a touchdown from Chris Brazzell.
I had hoped given the similar start that we’d see a return to the offensive showing against the jags. We would not be so lucky but a guy can dream right?
The second UTSA possession ended much like the first with a Frank Harris pick. Momentum is a funny thing in college football. One minute you have all of it and the next minute you have none.
Tulane took possession at around midfield and immediately returned the ball via strip sack. We all love Mahki here but like most freshman, he has room to grow in pass protection. Jamal Ligon rings the conjoined triangles of success, which has to the dumbest offshoot of the whole turnover chain era.
UTSA paid off the turnover and all of a sudden it was tied. This was their easiest score of the game, arguably the defenses only poor series of the game. Set the opposing team up at your 30, they’re going to score no two ways about it. That said, Rocco ran in untouched on 3rd down and touchdowns that easy can’t happen this late in the season.
The next three drives ended in punts and you began to wonder if we were settling in for the early edition of Iowa Nebraska. The offense was very discouraging in the first quarter. I’ll leave the stats to my guy I Pop but I’d hazard to guess the wave had less than 50 yards of offense in the first quarter. With the exception of the brazzell tuddy, it seemed like everything went nowhere.
UTSA took their sole lead of the game in the early going of the second quarter. Many “no one ever said it was going to be easy” texts were shared in wave group chats across the country. Thankfully, nagle found something in that second quarter, that something was freshman phenom Mahki Hughes.
Hughes rushed for over 100 yards in the second quarter alone including a dominant runs of 58 and 30. Sitting here now it’s fine, but I am still furious Mahki was caught from behind and that drive ended with 3. If you get an explosive play of 40+ you finish it off with a tuddy. Thems the rules. As they say in the ambrosio household ALLORA, Valentino tied it 10-10 midway through the second then placed the wave ahead 13-10 minutes later. The second quarter weirdly seemed to last longer than the other 3 combined.
The turnover beads might as well have Lance Robinson’s initials on them. Lance has been integral this year making game changing plays. 4 picks on the season and here a crucial forced fumble when UTSA appeared to be driving. 3 turnovers for the wave defense in the first 25 minutes. Elite.
Luckily, there was another explosive play forthcoming. Chris brazzell with the catch of the season. Many rubbing their eyes and seeing a different member of the uptown New Orleans community on a rainy night in November of 2014.
Hughes paid it off with the touchdown he should have had and it looked like the wave would take a 20-10 lead into the half. Most would think UTSA would get conservative at the end of the half with 3 turnovers and thank their lucky stars that they were only down by 10.
As they lined up to punt, I thought wow this has been a sloppy half. Little did I know, the best was yet to come on the sloppy front. I consider myself to be a fake punt and pass aficionado. It ranks behind fat guy touchdown on the best things in football. Watching UTSAs punter throw that duck has me re-thinking the whole thing. Tahir Annoor comes up with the pick on one of the worst passes I have ever seen. The pick led me to my fist trip to Tahirs Twitter account. Nashville by way of Spartanburg. Go terriers!
Man that fake punt was bad. Not to be outdone by future Houston head coach Jeff Traylor, future Tulane head coach Willie Fritz called one of his own. How did UTSA not spot that skyscraper lining up to punt. Ibieta snuck back there and executed a slightly less shitty fake punt. Proving anything UTSA does, the wave can do better. The fake punt penalty led to a field goal. 23-10 at half.
If you’re wondering why I poured out 1,000 words on the first half. Here is why
The second half was dreadful on both sides of the ball. 5 punts a fumble and two turnover on downs kicked off the second half of this monumental game. I’m just glad Tulane had the 13 point cushion because that 3rd quarter was painful to watch. It spilled into the 4th too. Let’s get that cleaned up ahead of SMU, what do you say Slade.
Pratt iced the game with a couple of nice tosses to brazzell with 5 minutes remaining. 29-10 wave, ball game.
As far as I’m concerned that last UTSA garbage time TD didn’t happen. The Tyler Grubbs pure deletion happened for sure though. No two points awarded, do not pass go. Have a safe flight back to San Antonio or in Coach Traylors case Houston.
Undefeated in conference, hosting a second consecutive conference championship at Yulman. Drink it in Wave fans, this is the elixir of the super powers of college football. See you next week right back here for SMUs death penalty in the American.
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