AMHERST — For the first four minutes, the UMass football team looked flawless. For most of the other 56, things went in the wrong direction.
The Minutemen couldn’t keep their offense on the field or get their defense off of it until the hole was too deep to climb out of. Even a fourth-quarter quarterback switch wasn’t enough to spark UMass, which fell to Tulane, 31-24, Saturday at McGuirk Stadium.
The Green Wave had the ball for more than two thirds of the game with a 40 minute, 30 second to 19:30 time of possession advantage. Tulane ran 31 more plays (85-54).
“We just couldn’t get off the field and if you don’t get off the field they have it into four-down territory. We stopped them on third down and they made a bunch of fourth downs,” UMass coach Mark Whipple said. “They were big and physical. Their running backs were good. They were who we thought. They ran the ball, took the air out of it and that’s the way they play. We knew that was the way they play. They did a good job.”
Out of the gate, it looked like UMass might have an easy game. The defense forced a three-and-out on Tulane’s opening drive. Andrew Ford led a nifty, four-play, 59-yard drive and hit a sliding Andy Isabella for a 12-yard touchdown 3:40 into the first.
On the ensuing kickoff, Khary Bailey-Smith stripped the ball from return man Devin Glenn and recovered it on the Tulane 12. From that spot, UMass did almost the exact same thing. Isabella (six catches, 94 yards) didn’t slide this time, but he still caught another 12-yard TD pass from Ford, giving UMass a 14-0 lead 14 seconds after its first touchdown.
His team’s reaction to its early fortune worried Whipple.
“I didn’t like the look in our guys’ eyes when we were up 14-0,” Whipple said. “The young guys were like ‘This game is over.’ Credit Tulane, they had a good plan and they were physical.”
Tight end Adam Breneman wasn’t sure what to attribute the backslide to.
“It’s tough to tell. You go out there and you score 14 points in the blink of an eye. Things look they are going to be pretty easy and then reality sets in,” he said. “Football’s not an easy game. We came out hot and we were ready to play. We had a great week of practice. (Isabella) made some big plays for us. We just have to find that consistency on offense.”
The early deficit seemed to wake up Tulane. The Wave covered 75 yards in 10 plays on their next drive, capped by Dontrell Hilliard’s 11-yard TD run with 6:37 left in the first.
After a Minuteman punt, Tulane grounded out another long march, going 85 yards on 20 plays in 8:32 before settling for a 22-yard Andrew DiRocco field goal that made it 14-10. Neither team scored again in the half.
After avoiding a sack on third down on the first drive of the second half, Ford was stripped from behind, giving Tulane the ball with a short field at the UMass 38. Two plays later Terren Encalade (seven catches, 125 yards) got behind the defense and Glen Cuiellette (11-for-20, 168 yards) lofted a pass down the right sideline that found him for a 36-yard touchdown that put the visitors ahead 17-14, 52 seconds in the third quarter.
After the UMass offense again sputtered, the Minutemen appeared to get a lift when Logan Laurent boomed a 58-yard punt and the defense held the Wave. But Bilal Ally was flagged for running into the kicker, giving Tulane a first down. With new life, the Wave moved down the field, capped by a 38-yard pass set up a 19-yard touchdown run by Lazedrick Thompson that pushed Tulane’s lead to 24-14 with 6:54 left in the third quarter.
Ford, who’d been effective in his first two starts, struggled to sustain drives in his third, completing 11 of 19 throws for 109 yards with two touchdowns, an interception and a fumble.
Whipple went back to former starter Ross Comis in the fourth quarter.
The redshirt sophomore gave the Minutemen a spark, completing 5 of 11 attempts for 72 yards.
“We just didn’t have anything going in the second and third quarter and I didn’t like the look in Andrew’s eyes. Ross had practiced better,” Whipple said. “I thought it was a good move. It was one move I made right. He gave us a little spark and, like I said, it probably sparked the team. We just have to eliminate that stretch that we just have that has killed us in three games. I have to figure out a way in that lull.”
The Minutemen settled for a 28-yard Logan Laurent field goal on Comis’ first drive at the controls to make it 24-17 with 9:37 remaining, but the defense couldn’t hold.
Tulane (3-2) answered with a 75-yard touchdown drive to stretch its edge back to a game-set-match 31-17.
Using his arm and his legs, Comis led another scoring drive, this one capped by Sekai Lindsay’s 2-yard TD run with 2:45 left.
Trailing 31-24, Whipple chose to kick deep with all three timeouts available and the move paid off as the Minutemen forced a punt with 2:18 remaining. But the would-be final drive sputtered without a first down. Two short runs and two incomplete passes gave Tulane the ball back and it ran out the clock.
UMass (1-4) is at Old Dominion (3-2), Saturday at 6 p.m.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage