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 dropped to 2-5 on the season (and 1-2 in the American Conference) in a 20-13 loss to former Conference USA foe UCF yesterday in Orlando, FL.

At this point, we know the program is done with moral victories, so I don't want to go crazy in celebrating a loss... But here are the key points from the game yesterday.

1. The Tulane Defense is Actually Very Good

The biggest surprise this year, in my opinion, was not the foibles of the special teams unit but a strange regression for the Tulane Defense.

By the end of last season, capped off by a bowl appearance, "mid-major Michigan State" was thrown around frequently to describe the defensive powerhouse that Tulane was honestly becoming. Lorenzo Doss was picked as the next big thing, and anyone who knew anything about this team expected for the "bend but don't break" Green Wave to come back.

It didn't quite happen like that. In the first game of the season, the secondary broke down against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and couldn't stop a comeback that culminated in a double overtime loss.

Things didn't look better when the Duke Blue Devils and Rutgers Scarlet Knights put up points at will against the prized element of our program.

That seems to be changing though. Last week at home, Tulane held the UConn Huskies to three points, facilitating another home victory with minimal offensive production in the absence of Tanner Lee. Fair enough, but it's still UConn, right?

Well, this week may be a true turning point. In the last two matchups with UCF, the Golden Knights put up 110 points of offense combined. It was not good, and the Green Wave didn't belong on the same field.

Yesterday, however, the Tulane Defense did everything it possibly could to keep its team in the game. In the second half especially, Tulane forced two consecutive three-and-outs to set up potential game-tying drives. This is what you have to do playing a good team on the road, and they stepped up every chance they had.

2. Nick Montana muffed a meaningless play, and now everyone is freaking out but it did not matter. 

You have probably seen this, right?


With :05 left in the first half, Nick Montana thought he had a first down and instinctively spiked the ball in a last ditch effort to stop the clock.

SB Nation, Bleacher Report, and ESPN could not resist the urge to post this as a not top ten-type of play involving "Joe Montana's son." The fact remains though:

Montana spike on 4th down was embarrassing but no effect on game for #Tulane. Wave had no time to run real play after not getting 1st down
— Guerry Smith (@Guersmith) October 19, 2014

It's whatever. I am sure Nick is capable of handling that type of attention given his last name, but he did everything he could as a third string quarterback to give his team a chance to win. In the fourth quarter, he threw deep shots on first and fourth down (including escaping two sacks) that his receivers dropped. He did what he had to do.

3. DiRocco Nailed a 42 yarder, and it was awesome. 

DIROCCO HITS IT FROM 42 YARDS. ROLL WAVE ROLL. 13-6
— Fear the Wave (@FearTheWaveBlog) October 18, 2014

The narrative that DiRocco isn't any good was easy to latch onto. He missed field goals, extra points, and pretty much anything that involved holding a football and kicking it at something.

CJ was adamant, however, that DiRocco had the ability to play at this level, as a former first-team prospect out of the state of Florida. In particular, the snapping has been horrid, and this has caused a dozen opportunities where the play was mis-timed, which wreaks havoc on kickers mentally and physically.

He hit a good one yesterday, and you have to hope he's back on track after a pretty disastrous introduction to college football.

4. Tulane Could Have Won 

We out-gained UCF 278 to 233 in total yards. Tulane had greater time of possession. The Green Wave was +2 in turnover margin yesterday. It all adds up.

In the end, they were not able to nab a second score to tie it up. UCF is the upper level of the American Conference, and you have to make some plays to get out of there with a rare road victory.

That said, the Green Wave showed tangible progress yesterday. It wasn't enough for a win, but it is enough for me to get psyched for the Halloween showdown with Cincinnati.

Tulane has a week off and some momentum and fire after leaving Orlando. Let's see what they bring to Yulman against another top team from the American Conference.