Hi, friends. Priya Halloran here, color-coded spreadsheet open, pit-crew headset on, writing from the Queen City. I track Charlotte football the way a NASCAR crew chief tracks a race: lap by lap, tire by tire, with a stopwatch in one hand and a highlighter in the other. And for six weeks this fall, every row in my spreadsheet had the same word in the last column.
Not anymore. Saturday in Philadelphia, the 49ers took the checkered flag. Let's review the race, honestly. Then let's talk about the open week, because Charlotte does not play this Saturday, and about the next race on the schedule: Tulane, at home, on a Friday night.
Part 1: Charlotte 38, Temple 31, and the First Checkered Flag
On Oct. 17 at Lincoln Financial Field, Conner Harrell threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more, and Charlotte beat Temple 38-31 for its first win of the season.
It was a door-to-door race. Khamani Alexander scored from a yard out in the first quarter. Temple answered on a 21-yard Keveun Mason run, and Ajani Sheppard's 7-yard run put the Owls up 14-7 at halftime. Then Harrell took over the third quarter: a 24-yard touchdown pass to Derrick Eley and an 8-yard touchdown run. Sheppard broke a 44-yarder to tie it 21-21 heading to the fourth.
The fourth quarter was pure short-track racing. Harrell hit Gus McGee for a 9-yard touchdown, Temple tied it on a 4-yard pass to Peter Clarke, and Harrell ran in from 10 yards to make it 35-28 with 8:40 left. Then Aiden Bui hit a career-long 47-yard field goal with 1:48 to play for a 38-28 lead. Temple kicked a short field goal with 48 seconds left, and the onside kick didn't come back to the Owls. Checkered flag.
My lap chart. Harrell completed 23 of 31 passes for 281 yards with no interceptions. Henry Rutledge ran 17 times for 123 yards, including a 48-yard burst. Eley caught six passes for 96 yards. Charlotte gained 449 yards, held the ball for 32:49, and went 6-for-10 on third down. And the 49ers committed just three penalties for 11 yards. That's a clean pit stop, friends.
Now, honest data: Temple gained 455 yards and ran for 206 at 6.1 per carry. Sheppard ran for 70 yards and two scores on seven carries and threw for 236. The defense still has work to do.
The Open Week, and the Season So Far
Charlotte has an open date this Saturday, Oct. 24. No game. A refuel, and the 49ers have earned it.
I'll be straight about the season. Charlotte is 1-6 and 1-2 in the American. The first six races were rough: a 43-41 loss to The Citadel, a 41-9 loss at Ole Miss, a 26-21 loss at App State, a 34-7 loss to Louisiana, a 59-8 loss to Memphis and a 50-10 loss at North Texas. Charlotte allows 40.6 points per game and scores 19.1. Those numbers don't hide. But in the last race, Harrell produced 38 points. A crew chief notices a lap time like that.
Part 2: Tulane at Charlotte, Friday, Oct. 30
Next up: Tulane (3-3, 1-1 American) at Jerry Richardson Stadium, Friday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. Eastern, per ESPN. A Friday night race under the lights.
Tulane's Car
Tulane just beat Memphis 31-17 by forcing six turnovers, and I'll give the Green Wave defense full credit. Its red zone defense ranks fifth in FBS, allowing scores on 65.4 percent of trips, and it holds opponents to 21.7 points per game, 50th.
Where Tulane Runs Out of Fuel
Now look under the hood. Per the AP's preview of Tulane's game this week, the Green Wave are last in FBS in time of possession, at 26:20 per game. Tulane's offense averages 332.0 yards per game, 116th, and 20.5 points per game, 117th. Against Memphis, it went three-and-out on its first three drives, with freshman Trace Johnson making his first start, and converted 4 of 16 third downs.
And the Tulane defense allows 212.5 rushing yards per game, 133rd in FBS, with opponents converting 45.6 percent of their third downs, 124th. Rutledge just ran for 123 yards. My highlighter is ready.
Tulane does have a big game before ours: UTSA on Saturday. Then a short week and a trip to Charlotte on Friday. Friends, a pit crew loves a car that just ran a hard race and is coming in on short rest.
The Series
CollegeFootballData.com lists Tulane ahead 2-0: 34-3 in Charlotte in 2024 and 27-0 in New Orleans last season. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It's the reason my spreadsheet has a whole tab called "Payback."
Town Report: Charlotte vs. New Orleans
Charlotte. The Queen City had 874,579 people at the 2020 census and is named for Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, queen consort of Great Britain and Ireland from 1761. Charlotte is home to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Wikipedia says about 75 percent of the NASCAR industry's race teams, employees and drivers are based nearby. Charlotte Motor Speedway is just up the road in Concord. We also have the Billy Graham Library, the U.S. National Whitewater Center, the Mint Museum, the Carolina Panthers and the Charlotte Hornets.
And here's my go-to piece of local history. In 1799, in nearby Cabarrus County, 12-year-old Conrad Reed found a 17-pound rock that his family used as a doorstop. It turned out to be nearly solid gold. Per Wikipedia, it was the first documented gold find of any consequence in the United States, and it set off the nation's first gold rush. So when you call our team the 49ers, friends, remember that this area had a gold rush half a century before California did. Many more veins of gold turned up around here through the 19th century, and in 1837 the federal government opened the Charlotte Mint. Gold country, friends. Gold country.
Our stadium, Jerry Richardson Stadium, is a 15,314-seat horseshoe on campus. It hosted its first game on Aug. 31, 2013, a Charlotte win over Campbell, in the program's very first season.
New Orleans. New Orleans is a wonderful city with beautiful music and the beignets at Café du Monde. But consider the nicknames. Wikipedia says "the Big Easy" may "possibly" refer to musicians finding work easily there. Possibly. A city that's not sure where its own nickname came from.
And Tulane football spent nearly 40 seasons playing indoors at the Superdome before moving back to campus in 2014. Four decades with a roof. Friends, we race outdoors in the Carolinas, rain or shine. And Tulane's old wave mascot, per Wikipedia, was nicknamed "Gumby" by fans. I have no further questions.
The Pit Stop
Here's the plan for the open week: refuel, heal up, study the Tulane film. Here's the plan for Friday: run Rutledge at the 133rd-ranked run defense, keep Harrell clean and turnover-free, and make Tulane's offense, the shortest-possession offense in FBS, try to keep up.
And one more note for the crew: Charlotte has scored 48 points in its last two games combined, 38 of them last Saturday. The arrow on my spreadsheet finally points up. A race team doesn't need to win every lap. It needs to keep getting faster.
One checkered flag down. Let's go get another.