Football Falls To Temple In Season Finale, 10-3

Saturday, December 6

Yulman Stadium

6:30 PM

Tulane University

3-9 , 2-6

Temple

6-6 , 4-4

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Temple

Tulane Green Wave

Football Falls To Temple In Season Finale, 10-3

Dec 7, 2014 | Football

Box Score

Dec. 6, 2014

Final Stats | Quotes | Notes | Photo Gallery

Tulane/Temple Game Book In PDF Format

NEW ORLEANS - With their backs against the wall and simply pride on the line, the Tulane University football team gave it their all but ultimately fell short as the Green Wave dropped a 10-3 decision to American Athletic Conference foe Temple in the 2014 season finale on Saturday evening in Yulman Stadium.

Down by a touchdown and facing first-and-10 from their own nine-yard line with 3:09 to play, the Green Wave marched down the Owls' nine yard line and held first-and-goal. Temple's defense, as it had done all night, stiffened to sandwich a pair of sacks around two incomplete passes to stifle Tulane's last-ditch effort at a tying score and took over on downs with 36 seconds remaining.

With the loss, Tulane concludes the 2014 season 3-9 overall with a 2-6 mark in its first year as a member of the American. Temple, meanwhile, halted a three-game skid to become bowl eligible at 6-6 while finishing 4-4 in league action.

"That game was a slugfest if I've ever seen one," Tulane head coach Curtis Johnson said. "I thought Temple played extremely well tonight. Their team is very similar to ours in that they are a defense-first team. Those corners were outstanding tonight for them, and they played very well. Our defense, on the other hand, played extremely well tonight. I thought they gave us a chance to win.

"We never could really get anything going. We only made one third-down conversion and one red-zone conversion, and Temple was 0-for-2 in the red zone and 2-for-17 on third down. It's just one of those games where it comes down to who has better field position a lot of the time and that was Temple for most of the night, especially in the second half."

With the score tied at 3-3 after three quarters of play, Temple was forced to punt from the Green Wave 39 with 12:37 to play in regulation, but Alex Starzyk's kick pinned the Green Wave at the own one-yard line. Playing in the shadow of their own goalpost, Tulane was only able to produce three yards on consecutive running plays and Peter Picerelli's ensuing punt was returned by 14 yards by John Christopher to set up the Owls first-and-10 at the Green Wave 25.

From there, Temple quarterback P.J. Walker completed all three of his pass attempts and added a 12-yard run, and his eight-yard touchdown strike to Romond Deloatch proved to be the difference in the ballgame.

Tulane had its chances to take the lead throughout the contest, but had two touchdowns taken off the scoreboard due to penalty. The Green Wave appeared to take a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter when sophomore running back Lazedrick Thompson plunged into the endzone from one-yard out, but the play was erased on a chop blocking call by the offensive line. Tulane had to settle for a 28-yard field goal by freshman Andrew DiRocco for the home team's lone score of the contest.

Temple kicker Austin Jones made amends for a 35-yard miss early in the second quarter with a 37-yard boot with 2:25 to play before the break.

Jones missed a 39-yard effort later in the period and DiRocco was off the mark on a 39-yard try of his own on the opening possession of the third quarter. Tulane scored what appeared to be the go-ahead touchdown on Temple's ensuing drive as redshirt-freshman cornerback Parry Nickerson scooped up an Owls' fumble and returned it 39 yards for the score, but the defense was called for being offsides to take seven more points off the board.

Temple punted later in that drive and had another promising performance stifled in the endzone when junior cornerback Lorenzo Doss picked off a Walker pass from 15 yards out to keep it a tied ballgame. The Green Wave offense, meanwhile, could not sustain a drive until the waning moments and the field-flipping punt by Starzyk set up the late-game dramatics.

"That was very frustrating," Johnson said of the touchdown-erasing chop blocking call. "That is one of those mistakes that you can't make. We didn't have many penalties tonight, but it's just an opportune time to score and then we get a penalty. The next one, Parry picks up the fumble and runs it for the touchdown, but we were in the neutral zone. Sometimes you just have buzzard's luck."

The Owls' defense held Tulane to 266 yards while Temple tallied 347 total yards, including 255 through the air. Playing in his final collegiate contest, senior defensive end Tyler Gilbert tallied a career-best 4.0 tackles for loss, including a sack for a seven-yard loss, and the defense posted a season-best seven pass break-ups. Sophomore linebacker Nico Marley led the unit with eight tackles (3 solo, 5 assists) while both Nickerson and senior free safety Sam Scofield both broke up a pair of passes.

Thompson led the Green Wave ground game with 63 yards on 11 carries and redshirt-freshman quarterback tallied 109 yards on 16-of-33 passing. Freshman running back Dontrell Hilliard and rookie wide receiver Teddy Veal shared team-high receiving honors with four grabs each, and freshman wideout Terren Encalade led the aerial assault with 32 yards on two receptions.

Walker led Temple with 20 completions on 38 throws to account for all of the Owls' passing yards and also paced the ground game with 76 yards on 16 carries. Kenneth Harper headlined the receiving corps with six grabs and Jahad Thomas had a game-high 94 yards through the air on a pair of catches. Tyler Matakevich led a stifling defensive effort with 16 stops (13 solo, 3 assists), including 3.0 tackles for loss.