Kadin Semonza pulled the ball on a read option from nine yards out and walked into the end zone at 7:55 of the first quarter Saturday, capping a seven-play, 90-yard drive that was the first offensive touchdown Kansas State had allowed all season and the first time the Wildcats had trailed. Then Kansas State sacked him six times for 45 yards, piled up 12 tackles for loss, and Tulane finished the 31-20 loss in Manhattan with 260 yards on 59 plays. Tulane was a 20.5-point underdog and lost by 11, which is the flattering version. The unflattering version is that the offense scored on four of nine possessions and punted five times after the best drive it has put together all year.
Semonza himself was 13-of-26 for 165 yards with a touchdown pass to Maurice Turner, no interceptions, and that rushing score, a third straight start without giving the ball away. And Crescent City Sports said he held the ball too long a few times, putting part of the sack total on him rather than the line alone. That is the honest state of the quarterback job. The ball is safe, the throws are shrinking, and nobody can yet separate how much of that is Semonza and how much is the five men in front of him.
Southern Miss is the defense that should start to answer that question. The Golden Eagles rank 116th nationally in scoring defense at 31.3 points allowed per game and 119th in total defense at 424.0 yards, and Tulane is favored by 18.5. If the line keeps Semonza clean and the completions get longer than checkdowns, the Kansas State pass rush looks like a good Big 12 front doing what good fronts do. If Semonza is running for his life against a defense that bad, Tulane has a real problem with Army waiting on October 10.
Hall had an explanation for why the run game stalled. He said the Wildcats "were giving us the run," playing high in bracket coverage, and that "we had a few outside zones where we got tackled for a loss, and that put us behind the chains." Turner and Daniels took the invitation, 64 and 59 yards, 5.3 per carry as a group, after Kansas State took Jaylin Lucas away entirely. Southern Miss will not bracket Tulane's receivers the way a top-10 defense can, so the outside zone that got swallowed in Manhattan should have somewhere to go. Watch whether Tulane finally wins early-down snaps instead of surviving second-and-13.
Jamauri McClure has not played a down this season with a left foot injury, and Turner, Daniels and Lucas have carried the position all three games. Reporting before the Kansas State trip had him possibly available for this one, with the Army opener the safer bet. Nothing about that is team-confirmed, so treat him as a bonus rather than a plan. The backfield has already proved it does not need him to function.
The defense is the part that has not improved at all. Kansas State punted its first two possessions, then scored on five drives, holding the ball 33:41. That is the third straight game Tulane's veteran defense has let an opponent live on third down or run through it, and it has one sack in three games. Chris Rodgers, who returned after 80 tackles a year ago, missed a second straight week and came off the two-deep entirely; Hall named Makai Williams, Dickson Agu, Dalton Hughes and J.C. Joseph as the group covering for him, and no diagnosis or return date has been reported. Southern Miss is expected to start Landry Lyddy with Ethan Hampton's hand not right. If this defense cannot get off the field against that, the pattern is the unit, not the schedule.
The personal layer is real and Tulane fans should enjoy it. Hall was the offensive coordinator here in 2019-20 before spending 2021-24 as Southern Miss's head coach, where he went 14-30 and was fired on October 20, 2024 after a 1-6 start. He came back to New Orleans as Tulane's head coach for 2026, an internal hire with two prior stints in the building. Add the venue history. Southern Miss leads the series 24-10, Tulane has won three of the last four meetings, and Tulane's last home win over the Golden Eagles in New Orleans was a 31-10 result in 2002.
Kickoff is 6 p.m. ET Saturday at Yulman Stadium on ESPN+. The model gives Tulane an 88.9% chance, and the American title-game math barely moves either way, roughly 15% if Tulane wins, about 11% if it loses. So the number on the scoreboard is not the point. The point is whether Semonza finishes the night upright and the defense forces a punt on third down. Full breakdown at /2026/4/tulane, methodology at /methodology.