Looking ahead to Tulsa

Having had a little fun with Tulsa's silly-ass nickname, let's get down to business....something that is not silly ass. Looking at Tulsa to size up our chances to win our fifth straight bowl game.

The final analysis is that this team presents us with a huge challenge. Next to BC, this is without doubt the best offensive team we have played, and they can put huge points up. In fact, my guess is that we will need to do one of two things:

1. Score like mad
2. Get some turnovers.

Luckily, as we will see below, both of these things could easily happen. We absolutely must control the football and make first downs. Otherwise, it could be ugly.

The velocity of the Golden Hurricane offense cannot be underestimated. They are Category 5 (hehehehehe). Consider this:

• Tulsa scored 48 points or more in four of its last five games.
• They are scoring 39.6 points/game, 9th in the NCAA.
• With 542 yards per game, they lead the NCAA in total offense.
• They are not one dimensional. They are 3rd in passing yards and 41st in running yards.
• They are fifth in passing efficiency.
• Yes, many of these numbers were racked up in the C-USA, college football's smelly ass. But, they did score mad points on BYU and Houston, both of whom made bowl games.

We'll look at their individual players a little more later in the week, but this is an offensive machine. The only blemish on their record when they have the ball is that they were shut down twice by UCF--a team that look decidedly average in their bowl game.

Now, on defense.....well, its a different story. They also gave up 39 or more points in their last three games, including against Army.

Consider this:

• They are 105th in the NCAA (out of 119) in Scoring defense.
• They are 111th in Total Defense (yards).
• They are 108th in Pass defense by yards and 96th in pass defense efficiency.
• They are 97th in rushing defense.

Simply put, this is a one-dimensional team. They score like mad, but do not defend. With that in mind, we could easily score like made against this team, and our team, which I feel is slightly more balanced than this one, can hopefully get enough stops to win the game.

As for victory condition #2....note this:

• Tulsa is 106th in turnover margin, and 11th in their own conference.

The special teams are not especially good. Not to belabor the point, but they appear to punt poorly and have an average kicker and only average kick returns.

I think this will be a good game with lots of scoring. BG will be hampered by playing without its best pass rusher, but while this team has some gaudy numbers, I believe we match up well with them.