NORMAN, Okla. —?Sporting a 1-2 record, Tulane coach Jon Sumrall is in an awfully familiar position.
Now he will find out if he can get the Green Wave to mimic his Troy teams from the past two years and dominate the rest of the regular season.
"I'm not proud of it, but I'm pretty good at going 1-2,” Sumrall said after the Wave’s 34-19 loss at 15th-ranked Oklahoma on Saturday. “It's not my highlight, but our response has usually been pretty good. We'll see how we respond. I think we'll be fine. I'm not going to sit around and mope. I've been 1-2 before (all three years of his career). We have a lot of work to do getting where we need to go."
In 2022, Troy lost at Ole Miss and Appalachian State before ripping off 11 in a row to finish 12-2 with a Sun Belt Conference championship.
A year later, the Trojans lost back-to-back games to Kansas State and James Madison, then won 10 straight on the way to a second consecutive Sun Belt title before Sumrall accepted the Tulane job.
Tulane’s road back after a missed opportunity at home against No. 17 Kansas State and another close call versus Oklahoma starts with a trip to Lafayette on Saturday to face UL (2-0). The untested Cajuns had an open date after beating Grambling of the FCS and Kennesaw State, a former FCS member that is making the transition to the FBS.
The Wave’s second-half performance against Oklahoma was much more encouraging than the first, when it fell behind 21-0 while getting outmatched on both sides of the ball. A last-minute touchdown provided a spark that turned into a flame as Tulane pulled within 24-19 early in the fourth quarter and had the ball twice with a chance to take the lead.
"It was more about us,” Sumrall said. “The plays that were beating us was one guy not doing his job the right way, so it was like, guys, let's all play together and execute. We improved there.”
The key going forward is consistent play from redshirt freshman quarterback Darian Mensah, who followed two terrific games with an up-and-down performance against the talented Sooners, and retaining the pass rush the Wave mounted in the second half after a pretty much pressure-free first 10 quarters of the season.
Mensah, who entered with the seventh best quarterback efficiency rating in the FBS, went 14 of 32 with a touchdown and an interception. He was sacked three times and was fortunate to avoid an intentional grounding call that would have resulted in a safety when he threw the ball away from his end zone to avoid a sack while appearing to be in the pocket.
“He did a couple of things really well of seeing some things on time, but a couple of times he didn't really realize that the shot clock was going to be faster because of the pressure. He was a little bit loose (with ball security) on one play scrambling. He's a third-game college player. He still has a lot of things he can get better at."
The Wave sacked Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold three times in the second half — more than its total of two for the season to that point — and also forced him into an rushed throw that linebacker Tyler Grubbs returned 22 yards for a touchdown. Grubbs, tackle Patrick Jenkins and end Angelo Anderson all registered their first sack of the year.
“There was a different sense of urgency,” Sumrall said. “I don't know that we've played out best as a D-line or even close to it all year, but for the first time in the second half you started to feel the front turn it on, so that affected the way the game went. We stepped it up defensively quite a bit. We've got to start faster to do that, but we finally showed a little bit of life in some areas that I don't that we had."
Tulane opens AAC play at home on Sept. 28 against South Florida. In between the Bulls and undefeated Memphis on Thanksgiving at Yulman Stadium, the Wave faces six league opponents with a combined 1-9 record against FBS opponents with plenty of ugly losses.
Confidence remains high.
"I feel like we can play with anybody,” Mensah said. “If we don't hurt ourselves and play the right way, we can hang with anybody. That's the biggest thing."