East Carolina’s football team came up short at Tulane on Thursday, falling 26-19.
The loss dropped the Pirates to 3-3 on the season. Below are more details from ECU Sports Information. Videos are from Pirate Radio.
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Photo credit: (ECU Sports Information)
NEW ORLEANS– After a forgettable first half, nothing seemed more unlikely for East Carolina on Thursday night than to have a shot on the game’s final play.
When Katin Houser’s last-second heave fell to the Yulman Stadium end zone turf, the Pirates’ bid for a remarkable comeback win on the road vanished as Tulane escaped 26-19 in a battle of teams jockeying for the top spot in the American Conference.
ECU (3-3, 1-1 American), fortunate to be down just 12-0 at halftime to the penalty-plagued Green Wave (5-1, 2-0 American), stormed back in third quarter to briefly surge ahead 16-12. A 63-yard touchdown pass by Tulane’s Jake Retzlaff and Nick Mazzie’s 26-yard field goal knotted the score at 19-19 and set up the dramatic finish.
Tulane took its final possession with 5:48 to go and drove 75 yards for the deciding score, converting three third downs after being stuffed by ECU’s defense on its first seven attempts. A facemask penalty proved costly for the Pirates, but they still had life when Tulane opted not to milk the clock to the final seconds and turn the game over to dependable kicker Patrick Durkin.
Instead, Retzlaff tossed a pair of short passes to Javin Gordon, the last one covering the final 4 yards with 35 seconds to play.
With the aid of a pair of pass interference penalties, ECU reached the Tulane 36 with seven seconds showing, but Houser’s heave into a crowd fell incomplete.
“Losing that way, in a game we should have won, is a terrible feeling,” said senior Teagan Wilk, who stopped one Tulane threat inside the 5 with a fumble recovery. “I can’t blame anybody but myself, honestly. I gave six points away myself just dropping interceptions. It’s pretty rough.”
Without Wilk and the defense – plus a lot of help from Tulane mistakes – ECU would have found itself in a much deeper hole. The Green Wave produced just nine points from five trips inside the Pirates’ 20, kicking three field goals, coughing up a fumble at the two-yard line and failing on a fake field goal. Tulane also hurt itself with 11 penalties for 96 yards, one of which erased a touchdown.
The Green Wave still finished with 458 total yards. Retzlaff, a BYU transfer who came in with seven rushing touchdowns, carried just four times for 20 yards but came within a yard of his career high with 347 passing yards.
Fifteen of his 26 completions covered at least 11 yards.
“Going in we knew they were a big run-the-ball, take-a-shot team,” Wilk said. “I think we tried to stay on top as much as we possibly could on defense. Towards the end of the game, we’ve got to be a little more aggressive, get the ball back and make sure our offense gets the ball in great field position.”
That was not the case in an opening half dominated by Tulane, which ran 30 of their 39 plays on the Pirates’ side of the field, compared to just four for ECU across midfield. The Pirates managed just 91 total yards and six first downs in the opening half.
Quarterback Katin Houser, sacked just four times through five games, was dropped three times and completed 5 of 10 passes for 48 yards before finding a spark in the third quarter. Houser finished 19-of-30 for season-low 180 yards but connected on a momentum-shifting 49-yard pass to Anthony Smith and ran for a touchdown.
Four running backs gained at least 25 yards in a ground attack that produced 160 yards.
“At halftime we just talked about, hey, we’ve got to do what we do,” ECU head coach Blake Harrell said. “We’ve got to be about us, we’ve got to get back to our effort, our energy. I thought we did a good job of that in the third and fourth quarter there.”
Before that, the Pirates were scraping just to hang around.
Tulane benefited from excellent field position – twice due to poor punts – and lived in ECU territory much of the first 30 minutes but simply could not find the end zone.
Retzlaff missed an open receiver at the goal line then had a third-down pass dropped in the end zone on Tulane’s opening drive before Durkin kicked a 30-yard field goal.
A chop block on the following drive wiped out a 9-yard touchdown run on the Green Wave’s next possession, and Wilk forced Durkin out of bounds on a fake field goal.
Durkin, who is 13-of-13 this season, added field goals of 29 and 21 yards after Tulane stalled again in the red zone. A false start at the 11 hindered one drive, and another false start at the 2 derailed another.
ECU quickly made Tulane pay in the third quarter, scoring on its first three drives to take a 16-12 lead. Houser’s pass to Smith set up a 7-yard touchdown pass to Brock Spalding.
The Pirates then took a 13-12 lead, converting a fourth down when Tulane jumped offsides then scoring on Houser’s 10-yard scramble. A two-point pass failed.
The momentum only mounted. ECU suddenly threatened again when Kelan Robinson pounced on a pooch kick at the 31 but settled for a 46-yard Mazzie field goal.
Tulane drove to the ECU two-yard line before Arnold Barnes III mishandled a handoff and Wilk recovered. The Green Wave finally hit paydirt on their next possession, taking just one play when Ratzlaff fired a 63-yard strike to Zycarl Lewis Jr. and a 19-16 lead.
The Pirates appeared headed for a go-ahead touchdown before a third-down delay penalty at the Tulane 1. Mazzie came on to tie it at 19-19 with a 26-yarder.
Tulane, which has won 22 consecutive games when allowing 20 or fewer points, then pieced together its clinching drive but still gave ECU a few precious seconds.
Houser’s last gasp did not connect, but he believes that day is coming.
“I think we’re still growing as a team,” Houser said. “I think we’re still getting better every week. We’re playing these teams, we’re getting close, and we’re in one-score games and have a chance to win the game at the end. It’s happened a couple of times. We just haven’t done that yet.”
“We still have a long season left, a lot of games left and a lot to prove.”