Tulane must win the battle on the line of scrimmage to control a path to victory against Ole Miss in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
Any college football game between the Group of Five and the Power Four can all but come down to the size discrepancy – and that widens when the opponent comes from the SEC. That difference is usually felt the worst on the line of scrimmage, and it can become noncompetitive and ugly quick. And it will be a focal point for the Tulane Green Wave to pull off an upset against the Ole Miss Rebels in the first round of the College Football Playoff this Saturday, Sept. 20.
It should’ve been a bigger storyline that the Green Wave were down their starting left tackle, Derrick Graham, as they went to take on the Rebels back in September.
Instead, the offensive line held up in the trenches against a Power Four team better than expected with the number of moving parts. 6-foot-4, 314-pound Graham was replaced by 6-foot-2, 293-pound left guard Shadre Hurst – he performed considerably well, but he’s not the necessary size at tackle. He was replaced by Elijah Baker at guard, who made his first college start. The team still hadn’t figured out the right side of the line, and had a turnstile of Darion Reed, Jordan Hall, and Reese Baker rotating between right guard and right tackle.
Since then, they’ve settled in with Hall at guard and Baker at tackle. The entire starting o-line will be intact for this rematch. Tulane offensive coordinator Joe Craddock spoke about the importance of that for the offense during Monday’s post-practice press conference.
“It's huge,” Craddock said. “I mean, EB [Baker] made his first start at left guard. That's a tough game to go make your first start in. And Shadre had to kick out the tackle, and I think Shadre knows this as we all know this, he's not a tackle. They went and played their best, did a really good job. EB actually got our player of the game, which was great to see. And on the right side too, early in the season, we were moving people around, and now we feel like we have our five. The continuity up front has been pretty stable.”
The Green Wave still had 178 rush yards in the 45-10 loss. However, most of those came from quarterback Jake Retzlaff couldn’t have had a worse day against the Rebels, going 0-of-11 to start the contest. He had 8 carries for 51 yards. The team hadn’t really discovered the true potential and employed running back Jamauri McClure yet. He could stand to be the difference-maker this time and be poised to have greater gaps with the starting o-line.
An established ground game gives Tulane a chance to control the tempo of this contest. They need to demand it in order to pull off the win in Oxford.