Tulane Rallies From 10 Down, Beats Charlotte 38-31 in Overtime on Dagan Bruno's Fourth-Down Sneak

Tulane has spent the entire 2026 season refusing to string two results together. Win, loss, win, loss, all the way to the end of October. On Friday night in Charlotte, the pattern held, but only barely, and only because the Green Wave climbed out of a 10-point fourth-quarter hole in a game they had no business still being in.

Tulane erased a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit, tied the game on Trace Johnson's 11-yard touchdown pass to Cameron Roberts with 10 seconds left in regulation, and beat Charlotte 38-31 in overtime at Jerry Richardson Stadium. Backup quarterback Dagan Bruno scored the winner on a fourth-and-goal push from inside the 1, and the Tulane defense stuffed the 49ers four straight times from inside the 5 to end it.

The Green Wave moved to 4-4 and 2-2 in the American, six days after UTSA forced six turnovers in a 42-19 rout in New Orleans. Charlotte fell to 1-7 and 1-3, the second overtime loss of a season that began with a 43-41 triple-overtime defeat against The Citadel.

A clean start, then a chaotic second quarter

Tulane opened like a team that had watched the UTSA film and hated it. The Green Wave took the opening kickoff and went 92 yards in 15 plays, with Johnnie Daniels finishing it on a 2-yard run. Nothing about the first 15 minutes suggested Charlotte would ever lead.

Then the second quarter happened, and it got weird. Johnson, the true freshman starter, threw an interception in the red zone, with Jameel Croft Jr. returning it 15 yards. Charlotte cashed it in immediately when Khamani Alexander broke a 44-yard touchdown run to tie it. On the ensuing kickoff, TJ Smith lost a fumble, and Aiden Bui turned the gift into a 48-yard field goal for a 10-7 lead.

Smith's response to that mistake was the best individual play of the night. On the next kickoff, Smith took it 95 yards to the house and put Tulane back in front 14-10. It is not every day a returner fumbles one kickoff and scores on the next, but that is about how this game went.

Charlotte did not blink. Conner Harrell found Jaden Barnes for a 22-yard touchdown with 4:01 left in the half, then led an eight-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 16-yard strike to Derrick Eley with 49 seconds left. A quarter that began with Tulane in control ended with the 49ers up 24-14 at halftime, having scored 24 points in a single period.

Daniels steadies it, Charlotte answers again

The Green Wave came out of the break and did what they had done on the opening drive: they leaned on Daniels. An 80-yard march ended with his second 2-yard touchdown run of the night, and it was 24-21.

Charlotte had a reply ready. Early in the fourth quarter, Eley took an end-around in from 1 yard out with 10:52 left, making it 31-21. Eley had now scored as a receiver and a runner, and Charlotte was one long drive away from its second conference win in three weeks.

Henry Rutledge was the engine for most of it. The Charlotte running back carried a season-high 22 times for 121 yards, caught four passes for 79 more, and added a 54-yard kickoff return. On a night when the 49ers ran for 216 yards as a team, Rutledge was the reason Tulane could never fully load up against Harrell.

The turning point: a fake punt that did not fool anybody

Tulane chipped back with a 27-yard Cooper Helmke field goal with 6:29 left, making it 31-24. The kicker had missed an earlier try, so even that felt like progress. But Charlotte still had the lead and the ball late, and needed only to flip the field and make Tulane go the length of it.

Instead, the 49ers rolled the dice. With a little under two minutes left, Charlotte called a fake punt, and the Tulane special teams stopped it. The Green Wave took over at their own 39, needing 61 yards and a touchdown.

Johnson, who had thrown the red-zone pick in the second quarter, played the drive like a veteran. Tulane went 61 yards in eight plays, and on the final snap that mattered, Johnson found Roberts from 11 yards out with 10 seconds remaining. Helmke's extra point tied it at 31, and the decision on the fake suddenly loomed over everything that followed.

Overtime: two goal-line stands, one winner

Charlotte opened overtime on defense, and it nearly worked. The 49ers stopped the Green Wave on three straight snaps near the goal line, forcing a fourth-and-goal from just outside the end zone. Tulane turned to Bruno, the backup quarterback, and Bruno lunged across for the touchdown. Helmke's kick made it 38-31.

Charlotte got its chance from close range, a first-and-goal at the Tulane 4. Two runs gained a combined 1 yard. Harrell then threw two straight incompletions, and the Green Wave had survived.

The numbers that mattered

This was as even as a game gets. Tulane finished with 467 total yards and Charlotte had 455. The 49ers won the turnover battle 2-0 and still lost, which is usually a sign that the other team won the moments rather than the margins. The full line is in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

Johnson's line tells the story of a freshman growing up in real time: 28 of 36 for 284 yards, a touchdown and that red-zone interception. Daniels ran 13 times for 99 yards and two scores, and Tulane rushed for 183 yards overall. Destyn Hill caught six passes for 51 yards, and Zycarl Lewis Jr. had three grabs for 55.

Defensively, Dickson Agu was everywhere with 14 tackles, and Kevin Adams III added 10. Makai Williams, Dalton Hughes and Warren Roberts Jr. each had a sack, three total for a defense that kept Harrell from ever getting fully comfortable. Charlotte did not record a sack. Punter William Hudlow quietly helped too, averaging 53.3 yards on three kicks.

For Charlotte, Harrell went 23 of 36 for 239 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Barnes caught eight passes for 66 yards and a score, and Gavin Willis led the 49ers with 12 tackles.

What it means

For Will Hall, this was a pressure valve. Tulane made the College Football Playoff last season before Hall was promoted to replace Jon Sumrall, and a first season under the new coach has been bumpy enough that a loss in Charlotte would have made bowl eligibility a long shot. Instead, as Tulane's recap (opens in a new tab) put it, the Wave rallied in the Queen City, and they are back at .500 with Tulsa coming to New Orleans for Homecoming on Nov. 7.

The streak of alternating results is cute, but Tulane cannot afford to keep it going. The Green Wave still need two more wins to reach bowl eligibility, and the margin for another off night is basically zero.

For Charlotte and second-year coach Tim Albin, it is another painful near-miss. The 49ers had ended a 14-game losing streak by beating Temple 38-31 on Oct. 17, and for most of Friday night they looked like a team ready to build on that. Next on the schedule is a trip to UAB on Nov. 7.

The last word

Charlotte had this game in its hands twice: up 10 with under 11 minutes left, and with the ball and the lead inside the final two minutes. The fake punt will be the play everyone remembers. Tulane, meanwhile, got a returner who made up for a fumble, a freshman quarterback who made up for an interception, and a defense that found its best four snaps when it needed them most. That is how a season gets saved, at least for one more week.

Sources: ESPN box score, The Associated Press, Crescent City Sports and Tulane Football's official X account. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Ken Lund/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).