Tulane’s Toledo ‘baffled’ by team’s reaction to bad plays

• By LES EAST
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Oct 8, 2008 - Page: 3C - UPDATED: 12:45 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — Tulane was surprisingly competitive while playing ranked opponents in its first two games, then won two games in a row. Then came the Army game.

Three days after the 44-13 blowout loss to the previously winless Black Knights on Homecoming, coach Bob Toledo was still befuddled by the sudden and dramatic fall-off in his team’s play.

“I believe we prepared to win; we worked very hard at practice,” he said Tuesday at the Green Wave’s weekly news conference. “I believe we wanted to win, the players wanted to win extremely bad, but we didn’t play well enough to win and we’ve all seen that happen over the years and it’s hard to find answers.

“Everybody says ‘what happened?’ Well, if I knew what happened, I would’ve solved it before it happened. I don’t know what happened.”

Here’s part of what happened: Tulane had three turnovers, including a punt return for a touchdown and a fumble return for a touchdown, 10 penalties, and a blocked punt that set up a touchdown.

But, Toledo, said, those bad plays where compounded by how the players reacted to them.

“Bad things are going to happen,” he said. “They usually happen to both teams. You have to put it behind you and you have to forget about it and move on. We have a tendency, when bad things happen to us, there’s a look in our eye and a feeling of ‘here we go again.’

“We’ve got to change the mentality and learn how to compete. Just because bad things happen doesn’t mean you stop competing. You can’t give in to it.”

Toledo said he cited Tiger Woods’ competitive drive and ability to overcome adversity to his team.

“You’ve got to have a mentality, you have to be tough minded, and you have to fight through the bad things,” he said. “We’re still a work in progress. We have not arrived yet. We are working hard at it. Our players are working hard, our coaching staff is working hard.”

Toledo said he was “baffled” by the team’s reaction to bad plays on Saturday because it had overcome bad plays early in games against ranked foes Alabama and East Carolina in the first two games and competed well until the end.

“I thought we had turned the corner,” he said. “I thought wow, we are getting better, we’re improving, and we’re getting this thing going. And I just felt like we took a giant step backward.

“We thought we had arrived, so to speak. We are improving and getting better and then all of sudden we take a giant step backwards. It was an eerie feeling being out there to be perfectly honest with you. I even had an eerie feeling.”