We knew we were going to see points, touchdowns, long gainers, and plenty of highlight-reel plays in the 2023 Cotton Bowl between USC and Tulane.
The game lived up to the billing when viewed solely through the prism of exciting plays and lots of offense. Naturally, USC will be hugely disappointed with yet another bad showing on defense, but purely in terms of entertainment — especially for neutral fans just wanting a ballgame to watch on the holiday — this game came through.
It exceeded America’s expectations, that’s for sure.
Tulane looked dead in the water (which is ironic, given that the team’s nickname is the Green Wave), but it poured on a tsunami of points late in regulation to steal this one from USC, 46-45.
For USC, the plays Tulane made were lowlights. For America, they were amazing highlights, and rightly so. It was a supremely fun game if you were a neutral party. No one can deny the national view.
The view for USC? Anything but fun.
Here are the many highlights created by USC … but not enough to win, as it turned out. Tulane’s winning score has to be included in this USC highlight reel, because that was the ultimate story: The Green Wave did more in the end.