The Bulls opened American conference play Saturday afternoon against potential conference champs in the Tulane Green Wave, and USF fell flat, taking a 45-10 loss on the road.
The biggest story from the game however was Bulls star quarterback Byrum Brown going down with an injury in USF’s first drive of the second half, not returning for the remainder of the action and head coach Alex Golesh providing no update on the severity of the QB’s injury.
Unfortunately, Bulls fans will have to wait until the team returns to Tampa for any update regarding Brown and his status for next week’s even more difficult matchup at home against the Memphis Tigers, another team vying to take the top spot in the American Conference.
As for the actual game itself, the Bulls were bulldozed from the get-go, allowing Tulane to take a 31-0 lead before USF snuck in a late-half TD, their only of the game, courtesy of a Byrum Brown designed run.
The Green Wave were able to do whatever they wanted offensively, with freshman quarterback Darian Mensah only throwing 4 incompletions on his way to a 326 yard, 3 touchdown game through the air.
Tulane played so well that star running back Makhi Hughes didn’t even have to do much, with the Birmingham, Alabama native running for a pedestrian-for-him 61 yards on 3.6 yards per carry. He managed to mix in a couple of touchdowns, but most of Tulane’s production on the ground was equally spread out as they still ran for almost 200 yards despite his struggles.
The biggest star of the game for Tulane came in the form of veteran senior receiver Dontae Fleming, who had 128 yards receiving on 7 catches, one of which went for 6.
USF’s quarterback Bryce Archie came in for the injured Brown and seemed very uncomfortable against a Tulane defense that ended up with 6 sacks for the day, as Archie went 4-10 for only 41 yards through the air through almost 2 quarters of action under center.
The usually electric running game was also hindered by Tulane’s front-7, as they had 26 yards of rushing on 25 carries, a performance fans might have expected and even understood against either Miami or Alabama, but doing so when facing Tulane seemed out of character for a usually explosive offense.
Luckily it’s still early, the Bulls were underdogs for a reason in this game, and they have only one more tough opponent remaining on their schedule in next week’s matchup with Memphis. They get the easier part of their conference for the remainder of their 2024 campaign and are still in good position to make a bowl game, a realistic and fine goal for Alex Golesh’s 2nd year as the head coach of this program.
Coming off so many seasons of failure and ineptitude, consecutive bowl appearances would be a fantastic and frankly unprecedented step forward for this program, even with disappointing results like this one mixed in. So while it’s a bummer they lost in such embarrassing fashion in their conference opener, the Bulls can still make something of this season. All is not lost.
The hope is that Brown’s injury news isn’t too grim, the star QB only misses a few weeks, if any, and the Bulls can bounce back from this 2-game losing streak they find themselves in to enter October.