Football Runs Over North Texas 45-37 To Earn Bowl Eligibility

Saturday, October 26

Denton, TX

11 a.m.

Tulane University

6-2 , 4-0

North Texas

5-3 , 2-2

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Tulane

North Texas

Football Runs Over North Texas 45-37 To Earn Bowl Eligibility

Oct 26, 2024 | Football

Box Score

FINAL STATS
ESPN HIGHLIGHTS
POSTGAME SUMRALL PRESS CONFERENCE
POSTGAME HUGHES PRESS CONFERENCE
POSTGAME FOBBS-WHITE PRESS CONFERENCE
PHOTO GALLERY (BY PARKER WATERS)

DENTON, TX – The Tulane football team (6-2, 4-0 AAC), behind the nearly 200-yard rushing performance from Makhi Hughes, became bowl eligible with its fifth straight win in a 45-37 victory over North Texas (5-3, 2-2 AAC) on Saturday afternoon on the road at the Denton Area Teaches Credit Union Stadium (DATCU).

Hughes had career highs of 30 carries for 195 yards and a rushing touchdown. Arnold Barnes III ran 11 times for 78 yards. Ty Thompson and Yulkeith Brown both had rushing touchdowns on the afternoon. Brown also had a receiving touchdown. Darian Mensah went 10-for-13 for 175 yards with three touchdown passes and an interception. Dontae Fleming led the team with three catches for 92 yards. Alex Bauman also picked up a receiving touchdown.

Jack Tchienchou led the team with eight tackles. Caleb Ransaw totaled five tackles, two stops for loss and a pass breakup. Kevin Adams III, Dickson Agu and Bailey Despanie all had five stops. Kameron Hamilton totaled three tackles and a stop for loss. Matthew Fobbs-White recorded a sack and Sam Howard had a fumble recovery.

North Texas outgained Tulane 525 to 472. The Green Wave held the 297 to 76 advantage on the ground, while the Mean Green attempted 57 passes to get 449 yards through the air. The Green Wave defense totaled 65 tackles, a sack, five tackles for loss, three pass breakups and two forced fumbles.

After both teams were unable to dent the scoreboard on the first possession, Tulane drew first blood on a seven play, 44-yard drive capped by a nine-yard touchdown reception to Mario Williams to put the Green Wave up 7-0 with 7:50 remaining in the opening quarter.

The Mean Green answered with a 43-yard field goal from Kali Nguma on the ensuing possession to put the score at 7-3 with 4:12 remaining in the opener.

The Green Wave then received a 30-yard touchdown reception from Brown to go up by two scores, 14-3, with 2:07 left in the first quarter.

The Tulane special teams' forced a turnover as Kevin Adams III recovered a fumble to give the offense a short field that it quickly capitalized on as Thompson rushed it in with 1:16 remaining in the busy first quarter to increase the lead to 21-3.

North Texas scored the program's first touchdown of the game early in the second as Chandler Morris connected with Damon Ward on a 26-yard pitch-and-catch to draw the Mean Green to 21-10 with 10:01 remaining in the second quarter.

Tulane used the ground attack to again go up with three scores as Hughes rushed it in from the two put the Green Wave up 28-10 with 5:50 remaining in the second. On that drive Hughes had a 41-yard rush to go over 100 yards in the game.

North Texas again cut into the lead with DT Sheffield scoring on a 30-yard reception with 1:22 remaining in the first half.

The Green Wave extended the lead to two touchdowns, 31-17, right before the break as Jacob Barnes knocked in his 47-yard attempt. The kick was the longest of his Tulane career.

The Green Wave, after a defensive stop of fourth down, put up another touchdown as Bauman took a 14-yard Mensah pass to the endzone to increase the Tulane lead to 37-17 with 8:06 remaining in the third quarter.

The Mean Green would not go quietly as it again cut the margin to 37-24 on a 20-yard rush from Morris with 5:55 remaining in the third quarter.

After the sack from Fobbs-White and the recovery by Howard, Tulane's offense scored on the first play as Brown rushed it in from the 11. The two-point attempt was good as Mensah connected with Brown to increase the score at 45-24 with 3:02 remaining in the third.

North Texas drew a touchdown closer as Mackenzie McGill ran it in from the two with 4:24 remaining to make the margin 45-30.

The Mean Green got a late touchdown with 44 seconds left to make the final score 45-37.

Next, the football team travels to take on Charlotte at Jerry Richardson Stadium at 6:30 p.m. in a game that will also be shown on ESPN on Halloween Night.

NOTES:

- The Green Wave is 4-0 in conference play for the third straight year and the eighth time overall (2024, 2023, 2022, 2013, 1998, 1949, 1939, 1934)

- The victory was the sixth for Tulane in the team's first eight games. It marks the first time since 2013 that Tulane has won exactly six of the first eight games, but the third time in as many seasons that Tulane is 6-2 or better. Overall, Tulane is 6-2 or better for the 20th time in school history.

- The win was the first time that Jon Sumrall has won his first four conference game in three years as a head coach. It was his 11th straight regular season conference victory dating back to the Sun Belt Conference league game he lost to James Madison while at Troy last season (9/16/23).

- The win improved Coach Sumrall to 7-0 all-time against current AAC teams.

- The victory made Tulane 6-0 this season when outrushing the opponent.

- The win was Tulane's 14th straight in AAC regular season play dating back to the 2022 season (11/17/22 vs. SMU - Present). The streak is now the third-longest in league history and only trails UCF (9/30/2017 – 9/28/19) and Cincinnati (10/2/20 – 10/29/22) by three for the all-time record of 17 straight conference games victories. Tulane's 14 straight conference wins is the longest active streak in the country.

- The win improved Tulane to 3-0 all-time against North Texas.

- Coach Sumrall improved his all-time record to 29-6 (.823). He entered the weekend with the fourth-highest winning percentage among current FBS head coaches behind Ohio State's Ryan Day (.871 - 61-9), Georgia's Kirby Smart (.853 – 99-17) and Oregon's Dan Lanning (.848 – 28-5).

- Since the start of the 2022 season, Tulane is now 29-7 including a mark of 24-3 (.884) when scoring first

- With two turnovers forced against North Texas, Tulane has now won 25 of the last 29 games when forcing a turnover.

- Tulane has now outrushed the opposition in 26 of the last 34 games (including 20 of the last 24). In such contests, Tulane holds a 24-2 record (losses in 2022 vs. Southern Miss and 2023 vs. Ole Miss).

- Since the beginning of the 2016 season, Tulane is 48-7 (.872) when leading at the half and 50-9 (.847) when leading or tied after three quarters.

- Coach Sumrall improved his own record to 22-0 in his coaching career when outrushing the opponent.

- His teams are also 16-0 when holding the opposition under 100 yards rushing as they held North Texas to 76 in the game.

- Darian Mensah tied his career-high with three touchdown passes. The game marked his fourth game this season with multiple passing touchdowns. He has thrown at least one touchdown in each of the team's eight games this year.

- Makhi Hughes' 195 yards rushing was a career-high and his fifth game this season with 100+ yards on the ground and the 12th of his career. The 12 career 100+ rushing games ranks him fifth all-time at Tulane. Hughes is now 9th all-time at Tulane in rushing with 2,317 yards as he passed Jamaican Dartez's (1995-98) 2,284 in the game. He has now run for 939 yards this season and is just 61 yards from his second straight 1,000-yard rushing campaign.

- The interception thrown by Darian Mensah in the second quarter was only his third of the season and the first turnover for the Tulane offense in the last five games..The streak was the longest for Tulane since the program went five consecutive games in 1998 without a turnover.

- Tulane is now bowl eligible and will play in a bowl for the 17th time in school history. The undetermined bowl will be the third straight year that the Green Wave have been selected for a bowl. The three straight appearances in a bowl will tie the school record of three set by the 2018-2020 clubs. Tulane will play in a bowl game for the sixth time in the last seven seasons. Prior to the last seven years, Tulane had never made even consecutive bowl games in school history (1932 – Rose Bowl, 1935 – Sugar Bowl, 1970 – Liberty Bowl, 1973 – Astro Blue Bonnet Bowl, 1979 – Liberty, 1980 – Hall of Fame Bowl, 1987 – Independence Bowl, 1998 – Liberty Bowl, 2002 – Hawaii Bowl, 2013 – New Orleans Bowl, 2018 – Cure Bowl, 2019 – Armed Forced Bowl, 2020 – Famous Idaho Bowl, 2023 – Cotton Bowl, 2023 – Military Bowl).

- Tulane has now won 19 AAC games over the last three seasons (7-1 in 2022, 8-0 in 2023 and 4-0 in 2024). The program only won a total of 19 AAC games since joining the league in 2014 through the 2021 season (2 – 2014, 1 – 2015, 1 – 2016, 3 – 2017, 5 – 2018, 3 – 2019, 3 – 2020 and 1 – 2021).

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