Army defensive back Jabril Williams leaped and deflected Jake Retzlaff‘s initial throw to Shazz Preston down inside the 5-yard line Saturday in the final minute of a tied game.
But Preston spun to his right, managed to locate the ball careening into the end zone and remained focused through a couple bobbles before finally securing the go-ahead touchdown still in bounds in the back of the end zone to lift Tulane (6-1, 3-0) to a 24-17 comeback victory.
The former St. James star’s highlight-reel moment — like his college career thus far, or many of the Green Wave’s recent games — may have taken more twists and dramatic turns than originally anticipated, but nonetheless would not be denied.
“We won the game. How ’bout that? There’s your stat line,” coach Jon Sumrall said searching for his postgame box score. “But, man, we keep finding ways to win. This team’s gritty, tough, but they fight. I told ’em in the locker room, ‘Nobody’s gonna question our toughness.’ Now, we’re not pretty yet. Like, if you were gonna grade our pretty scale, it ain’t real good-looking right now, but we’re finding ways to win. And I told ’em once we get pretty, we’re already tough — if you match up pretty and tough together, we’re gonna be even a harder out.
“Right now, we’re not maximizing our opportunities and we’ve got to continue to grow. That starts with me. It’s not the players. It’s me. I’ve got to help the staff equip them to be ready to capitalize better in a lot of areas. But a win is a win is a win.”
And Tulane once again found a way to scratch out exactly that with bend, but don’t break defense much of the contest; a few pivotal stops; and two touchdowns in the final 1:54 against an Army defense that had allowed just one during the previous 58-plus minutes.
The Green Wave couldn’t find the end zone in the first half for the second straight week — this time due in no small part to Army’s grinding, ball-control style that ate nearly 12 minutes off the clock on the opening drive and allowed the teams just a combined five completed possessions before the break.
But a 30-yard field goal by freshman kicker Patrick Durkin and a gutty resilient effort to also keep the Black Knights (3-4, 2-3) out of the end zone kept the game knotted, 3-3, at the midway mark.
Army proved frustrating to get off the field for huge stretches of marches down the field on its way to 6-for-15 on third downs and 4-for-4 on fourth downs. But Tulane buckled down in key moments to forced a missed field goal and a punt before halftime and three total punts in the contest.
“We talked this week: a three-and-out against an option team is like a turnover. It’s like getting a forced fumble,” Sumrall said. “We didn’t get one until the very end. But when it counted, it really showed up.”
The teams traded third-quarter scores: junior quarterback Cale Hellums capping an 80-yard drive with a goal-line keeper, and Retzlaff answering with a 37-yard dash up the sideline less than two minutes later.
Tulane appeared poised to claim a lead early in the fourth quarter after quick defensive stop late in the third and subsequent push toward the red zone.
But Retzlaff overshot a third-down throw to the end zone high of sophomore receiver Omari Hayes, and Knights senior safety Casey Larkin made a diving catch to snatch the quarterback’s first interception in seven games for the program.
“That was just frustrating,” Retzlaff said. “I’ve gotta get the ball down. Omari jumped up there high. It was just a tough play, man. I shoulda got back to the dig. Shack was open on a dig route on the boundary. That was their change-up coverage they run, and they’ve got the backside safety walling that route with the other safety kind of over the top of it. It’s kind of a different deal. I tried to put the ball up for Omari to go get it. It was just off his fingertips. And it’s just, like, I can live with that. If that’s gonna be my one, then I can live with that and let’s keep going. I’m gonna sling the ball around and sometimes stuff like that happens.”
Army bled another 8:16 off the clock on its way to another Hellums touchdown, this time claiming a 17-10 lead with just 5:54 remaining.
But the ice-veined Wave remained unfazed during the extent of an 11-play, 75-yard answer or on the fourth-down, under-pressure strike to the end zone that punctuated it.
Retzlaff dropped back from the 12-yard line with two minutes remaining and the game potentially on the line, given the Black Knights’ effectiveness churning clock.
He drifted back toward his left to buy time, but was cut off by a hard-charging edge-rusher, so planted and rifled a perfectly placed throw to Bryce Bohanan streaking into the end zone for his first career touchdown catch.
“Jake’s gutsy, man,” Sumrall said. “He’s got a lot of moxie about him. He’s the kinda dude you can tell played backyard football growing up, you know what I mean? Some guys you watch ’em play, and their instincts maybe are lacking, and you’re like, ‘Alright, you played video games as a kid, not backyard football.’ Jake Retzlaff played backyard football. He just has a little bit of an awareness of how to extend things, keep things alive, a little bit of a gunslinger mentality, never backs down, plays with an edge and a chip on his shoulder, never doubts.
“Like, I went up to him on the fourth-down touchdown, before, and I kinda smiled at him, and he gave me the biggest smile in a clutch moment. Some guys they don’t have it. Some guys (have) got it. And in that situation, he just has it, man. He’s like, ‘Let’s go, coach. I’m good. Fourth-and-whatever, let’s go score.'”
The surging Green Wave forced a three-and-out, Army’s first of the day and just seventh of the season (along with five turnovers on four downs), and used all three timeouts to preserve a 1:28 with which to work.
“It sounds really simple to kick a field goal. I know everyone’s like, ‘Ahh, it’s just a field goal,’ until you’re the guy snapping the ball or you’re the guy holding the ball or you’re the guy making the kick,” Sumrall said. “And, so against them, I felt like if we could score the touchdown…. we felt like making them go the length of the field probably was advantageous to us, as opposed to putting it in a kick’s hands. Y’all can question, second-guess me all day if you want. If they hit the hail-mary there at the end of the game, I’m idiot. We win the game, so I’m a genius right now. But I just felt like never put it in doubt.”
Retzlaff, Preston and company rose to the occasion, and the defense secured a second straight stop with a Javion White deflection in the end zone as time expired.
And Tulane remained undefeated early in American Athletic Conference play and against all opponents outside of top-10 SEC foe Ole Miss.
“This may be one of my more talented teams I’ve been around,” Sumrall said. “As a head coach, this is probably the most talented team I’ve coached. It’s the youngest, kind of least-developed team, too. Like, last year’s team here was kind of mature-ish, sort of developed. The two Troy teams I had, man, were chew-nails tough and very, very mature. This team’s just trying to grow up and figure it out. And it may age me, but it’s also gonna keep me young at heart because I’m trying to find ways to reach ’em and get ’em to really lock in.
“I love these guys, man. Like I love coming to work. I love what I do. I love impacting their lives. I love seeing them grow. I love seeing ’em develop. I want it to happen faster. And, so, we’ll get there.”
Retzlaff finished 22-for-29 (75.9%) — his second straight game completing better than 72% of his passes — for 261 yards, two touchdowns and the rare interception and rushed eight times for a team-high 62 yards and a score.
Preston hauled in all five of his targets for 86 yards and the circus score, and Anthony Brown-Stephens and Bohannon caught five passes each for 52 and 51 yards, respectively.
“Me and Bryce, we were in that cold weather in New York last year (for the AAC Championship), so me and Bryce were like, ‘We’re not losing to this team twice,'” Preston said. “We remember getting off that plane, and the wind cutting however many miles and hour and feeling the breeze going to the Giants’ (facility) with no sleeves on and all that and lose in the championship. So me and Bryce, we were gonna do whatever we can to win this game and do whatever we’ve gotta do to pull this out. Because we already knew it was gonna be a gut-check game.”
Junior linebacker Chris Rodgers led the defense with a game-high 10 tackles, including eight solo stops, and a quarterback hurry, and sophomore safety Jack Tchienchou and junior defensive lineman Gerrod Henderson added nine and eight tackles, respectively.
