Tulane rallies for 30-13 win over Southern Miss in AF Bowl

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Justin McMillan threw three touchdown passes in the second half when Tulane rallied for a 30-13 win while renewing a rivalry against Southern Mississippi in the Armed Forces Bowl on Saturday.

The Golden Eagles (7-6) took a 13-0 lead after Jack Abraham threw a touchdown and ran for a score on their first drives, but the quarterback took a hard shot on his last snap before halftime and didn’t play again. They also lost top running back De’Michael Harris to a hamstring injury in the first half.

Tulane (7-6) tied the game at 13-all on its first possession after halftime, when McMillan threw a 52-yard TD pass to Jalen McCleskey.

McMillan had a high-stepping 18-yard run to set up Merek Glover’s third field goal, a tiebreaking 36-yarder, before TD passes to Jacob Robertson (7 yards) and a wide-open Amare Jones (20 yards) on the next two drives.

McMillan had only 22 yards passing at halftime, but was 9-of-10 for 193 yards after that in his final game. The former transfer from LSU won two Texas state championships playing at Cedar Hill High School, which is about 35 miles from the TCU campus where the bowl was played.

Abraham, only the third Golden Eagles quarterback with a 3,000-yard passing season, threw 44-yard touchdown to Quez Watkins and ran 3 yards for another score for the 13-0 lead.

But Abraham took a shot on a blitz by linebacker Lawrence Graham and fell hard on his shoulder on a third-down incompletion in the final minute of the first half. Abraham never returned, though he was still in uniform on the sideline after halftime.

THE TAKEAWAY

Southern Miss: The Golden Eagles had 164 total yards after their first two drives, and only 35 more the rest of the first half. Thad Whatley, the sophomore quarterback who took over for Abraham, had attempted only seven passes while appearing in two games during the regular season. He was 9-of-22 passing for 134 yards with two interceptions. Watkins finished with eight catches for 121 yards.

Tulane: A positive finish for the Green Wave after losing their last three games in the regular season. They had gotten off to a 5-1 start before back-to-back road losses in late October to Memphis and Navy.

UP NEXT

Southern Miss will open coach Jay Hopson’s fifth season, after four consecutive winning seasons, Sept. 5 at home against South Alabama. Abraham, the former junior college transfer who has started 22 games the past two seasons, is expected back and could have his top three receivers: Watkins, Jaylond Adams and Tim Jones.

Tulane will have a new quarterback, possibly former Southern Miss transfer Keon Howard. The Green Wave this season went to consecutive bowls for the first time since 1979-80, but has never gone to bowl games in three consecutive seasons. They start the season with a Thursday night game at home on Sept. 3 against Southeastern Louisiana.