A rare appearance on national television was not kind to the Green Wave on Halloween night. Despite entering Yulman Stadium with an astounding 8-0 record, Tulane endured a 38-14 beating at the hands of the Cincinnati Bearcats in front of a sparse home crowd.

Yikes. I don't really have a need to talk much about this game. I have made an active effort not to read any of the fan boards because I don't like ruining my Saturday and I pretty much know what is going to be there.

Here's a funny picture of a creepy Cat in the Hat though.

Look how lonely that creepy Cat in the Hat is. But I digress. Tulane went to halftime with a 24-0 deficit. The worst part is that it didn't have to be that way.

Tulane showed up for this one, at first. On superstar QB Gunner Kiel's first throw, Parry Nickerson picked off the Cincy gunslinger. He was abruptly benched for the rest of the game. Good news, right?

Well then Tanner Lee marches his team down the field completing every pass on the way. Maybe he has some Manning at Isidore Newman blood in him, who knows? The kid looked great though.

In the red zone, Tulane couldn't break through when going for the touchdown on fourth. Then it was all Munchie Legaux, graduate of the nearby Karr High School, for the rest of the half.

Cincy just straight up rolled through the Tulane defense. Nothing was stoppable. Pressure the QB? Munchie would float one to the screen for 30 yards. Try to cover the spread? Watch a Bearcats RB break through the line at twice the speed of our linebackers.

It just got out of hand. No way around that. Now that being said, there is one thing that I loved. 

This team --- all year --- has come out of the locker room flat. They scored one touchdown in the third quarter of every game combined up to this point. Not this time.

Tanner Lee led his team on the opening drive to make it a 24-7 game. Tulane wasn't done. Darion Monroe picked off a charging Munchie on the next drive. After that, it was Lee time once again, who looked sharp and smart in the pocket, culminating in a TD throw in the red zone.

24-14. It's a game. Two scores. Maybe the Bearcats were getting a little ahead of themselves, but who knows? Tulane looked like a real team.

Then this happened.

Munchie hits a gentleman named Shaq Washington, who put in a phenomenal effort to haul this pass in. It is ruled a touchdown on the field. As the replay and the screenshot above shows though, the ball essentially rested on the receiver --- not in control -- until he crosses that boundary when he gets his hand back onto the ball. It is bobbling until he crosses out of bounds. The good folks of ESPN 2 confidently believed this one was coming back.

It did not. And the game was 31-14 and out of reach entering the fourth quarter. Look, I am not going to bellyache about this too much. When you put your team down by 24, you are one bad break from letting a game get away. I think it was a shitty call, but that is my $.02.

Regardless though, the momentum was gone. The air was sucked out of Yulman. And as the commentators noted, it seemed like Munchie's 75 friends and family in attendance made up about half of the total audience at that point.

Absolutely brutal. At least this dude perfectly timed going Hulk on his t-shirt for the ESPN cameras. Nice work, bro.

Happy Halloween, y'all. It is Tulane Gameday. At 7 PM, the Cincinnati Bearcats will make their first-ever appearance in Yulman Stadium in a crucial in-conference matchup. 

The Bearcats are 4-3 on the year and will enter riding a two-game winning streak. Tulane had a week off to allow star running back Sherman Badie to heal up and for freshman Tanner Lee to get back in the mix. 

I had a chance to interview Scott over at the Bearcats Blog. You can find them on Twitter here too. Here's what we learned. 

1. We now know Gunner Kiel is officially in for Friday instead of Munchie Legaux (who went to Karr on the Westbank in New Orleans). With his rib injury against USF, do you see Gunner being limited at all, or should the offense be back at 100%? 

Kiel has battled the rib injury ever since the third game of the season at Ohio State. He's a very tough kid. He's also been knocked out of a couple of games since. That's a little worrisome. I'm of the mind that Kiel shouldn't start and only play a "In case of fire, break glass," role, but I'm not the coach. Kiel is great. He's going to throw deep, he's going to throw short and he's going to just make any throw he wants because he's incredibly talented. We've seen him tear apart most of the secondaries UC has faced. 

2. This is obviously a weird year in the world of the AAC with some new teams coming on board, but Cincinnati was the #1 pick in the preseason. After losing that three game stretch against Ohio State, in-conference Memphis, and the U, do you feel like the Bearcats have regained their momentum? How's the fan base handling this season in Cinci? 

That's a tough question to answer. The Bearcats have bounced back on the scoreboard with a couple of lopsided wins. Those wins have come against Southern Methodist and South Florida, teams who hold up the southern part of the standings. They are two of the dirt worst teams in the nation. Tulane isn't thought of much better, sorry!, so even a huge win here wouldn't answer a ton of concerns.

The defense has been a huge issue for the Cats this season and is one of the 30 or so worst in the nation. They have feasted on SMU and South Florida. The Bearcats have picked off 4 passes the last two weeks after having two all season to that point. The Cats have taken away opposing run games, something they didn't do to OSU, Memphis or Miami, and forced the awful quarterbacks to make plays. If you know anything about SMU and USF, those quarterback situations are a mess.

Cincinnati's running game has given the offense balance the last couple weeks as well. The UC QBs ran for over a combined 100 yards against SMU and freshman running back Mike Boone had over 200 yards last week. Again, the competition is a major point but the results are positive. 

Cincinnati has turned a bit of a corner. I say that with some optimism and some reserve because we really won't know until the Cats play East Carolina. Double sorry, Tulane fans reading this. 

3. We're a little shocked to be a 2.5 point underdog to Cinci, especially since the Green Wave was a 20 point dog to UCF in the last matchup. What's your prediction for the matchup this week? 

I'm a bit surprised the spread was that low too. Cincinnati was only 13.5 and 10 point favorites to SMU and USF. Vegas does not believe in the Bearcats. Memphis opened as a 24ish point favorite at SMU for some comparison. I thought some of it was because of Kiel's status, but even now it's a 4 point spread. Cincinnati is ranked 75 on the Football Outsider S&P rankings, Tulane 101. Just off that, you would think that the Bearcats would be a bigger favorite, even on the road.

My prediction is going to be a blowout (sorry again). Cincinnati has proven one thing under Tommy Tuberville and it's that they can wipe the floor with the bottom of the league, USF excluded. The games against the top teams are a different question. Maybe Tulane gets the Bearcats to play the same type of terrible offense that the Green Wave were able to force Central Florida into a couple weeks ago. Making the game incredibly ugly is Tulane's only shot in my book. 

I just don't think they'll be able to pull it off for 60 minutes. UC was pushed to the limit by an awful Miami Ohio squad, so anything could happen. Still see a blowout. Something like Cincinnati 34 Tulane 13.

4. With a sophomore linebacker picking up another run-in with Johnny Law this week, is Tommy Tuberville starting to see some distractions for the team with the legal incidents, or do you not expect that to be much of a factor against this opponent? 

Sadly, Cincinnati has faced this problem as recently as last week. It sounds like Marcus Tappan, the player arrested, is going to have a long road back to getting on the field, if he ever gets on the field at Cincinnati. I think arrests are more of a public perception problem than on the field problem. I doubt FSU is going to be too distracted by the fact their starting running back is involved in whatever the hell he's involved in. There are bigger things to worry about, like the opponent. You can't stroll into Tulane and be distracted. That's how you walk home with a loss.

I hope ending this with a compliment of Tulane has endeared me to the readers. You'll be better soon. Just not this year in any sports that matter. But one day.

Tulane Football returns to the field tomorrow for an AAC showdown with the University of Central Florida.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. UCF, of course, is a former Conference USA foe, but this will be the first meeting between the two teams in the American Conference.

Let's preview the action in Orlando.

1. Records: Tulane (2-4 /1-1 in AAC) at UCF (3-2/1-0 in AAC)

2. Last Game: Tulane defeated UConn at home in a 12-3 victory. UCF delivered a home victory in overtime against BYU, albeit a BYU team without injured big-time QB Taysom Hill.

3. Broadcast: National on ESPNU and Streaming on Watch ESPN

4. Game Time: 11 AM CST. Wake up for this one.

5. All-Time Record: UCF leads 4-1 in the all-time series

6. Green Wave Storyline: The return of Montana.

Redshirt freshman and resident gunslinger Tanner Lee missed his first full game of the season last week when he nursed a "bruised" shoulder (with speculation that it may be separated). Due to second-string QB Powell struggling to command the offense in the prior week against Rutgers, the stage was set for former starter Nick Montana to lead the offense once again.

Nick Montana came out with another victory as a starting quarterback with one passing TD to boot. That said, the offense largely fell back to the "dink and dunk" method of 2013. While this may have been in part due to Montana's lack of recent experience, the UConn defense is also structured to prevent long plays.

The feeling is that Montana will be starting this week unless CJ is working on some Payton-esque Jedi mind tricks here. The report is that Montana worked on some longer passes this week in his first team reps, so our offense will be a big question mark.

7. UCF Storyline: Pretender or contender?

UCF has not established a clear identity in wake of the departure of first-round draft pick Blake Bortles. They started the season with disappointing losses to Missouri and Penn State, but they have been solid, as of late.

They will enter their home field riding a three game winning streak and a history of taking care of business when on the same turf as the Tulane Green Wave.

That said, with an emotional overtime victory behind them, they will need to reclaim their focus this week to take care of a Green Wave squad that just captured its first American Conference victory ever.

8. Bulletin Board Material of the Week: 

It's gonna be fun spanking Tulane and their "Greenies" 😏
— #BeatTulane (@ChargeOn_UCF) October 16, 2014

The Tulane Green Wave earned its first American Conference victory ever by beating the UConn Huskies 12-3 in a home victory.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. This was important. UConn is not a great team, or even an average team, but they are a team. In our conference. As their hometown paper remarked, "Both teams need a win. Badly." Tulane was the team that survived today.

2. Nick Montana earned a W. The son of Joe started 11-games last year in a season that ended in a bowl berth. Losing the starting job to Tanner Lee in camp couldn't have been a great feeling, but Nick stayed with the program and had a chance to lead tonight.

The word that came to mind was efficiency. Arm strength has always been the challenge for Montana, but he delivered a series of effective throws on short routes to keep drives alive. He didn't cough the ball up or sustain as many sacks as he regularly did last year. All in all, great game for a third stringer coming in for his first start of the year, right?

3. Anthony DiRocco put one through the uprights. From the right hashmark in the fourth quarter, DiRocco helped to extend the Tulane lead in a close game. He wasn't a liability, and he took care of a tough but critical kick. It's too soon to tell whether the Cairo Santos visit will be a turning point for his season, but tonight was the first solid game he has had in a Tulane jersey.

4. Defense had swag tonight. The Tulane defense has been a bit of a surprise this year given sky high hopes entering the season.

The unit showed up tonight. Three turnovers --- two of which ended with a Darion Monroe recovery --- let us attain a +3 turnover margin this game. This was highlighted by a safety after a bad run call on the 1 yard line for UConn. Defense produced offense tonight.

5. Yulman Stadium remains undefeated as a venue in night games. It's also 2-1 all-time with the lone loss to #22 Georgia Tech.

Tulane will head back on the road to face UCF in Orlando, FL next week.