Next Week's Opponent....Last Week

This is something new I am going to do each week....look at how next week's opponent did in their most recent game.

In this case, OMG!!!  I mean, damn.

I watched most of the Tulsa and East Carolina game yesterday and it was a really exciting game.  Back and forth, leads changing hands.  Excellent entertainment.  East Carolina eventually won on a hail mary pass on the last play of the game, which means that next week's BG-Tulsa game will feature two teams that lost in the last seconds.

The score of the game was 51-49, which is an astounding shoot out.  You rarely see 100 points scored in a game that ends in regulation.  Shoot, that is more points than are scored in some Falcon basketball games.

Now, what does this mean for us.  First, time will tell, but East Carolina was not expected to be very good this year.  They lost a huge amount of players from last year (among the most in FBS), and they have a new coach on top of it.  And while I am going to assume they are adapting ahead of schedule, you'd have to think that Tulsa was hoping to have a slightly easier time than that.

Both teams scored a TD the last 5 times they had the ball.

The game was @East Carolina.

Tulsa had some gaudy offensive numbers.  They had 399 yards passing and 180 yards rushing, and completed 65% of their passes with an average per attempt of over 9.  (In other words, high percentage on what would normally be considered low percentage passes).  In 43 attempts, they had 1 sack and 1 INT.

They also ran the ball well, with slightly over 4.5 yards per carry, sack adjusted.

Their QB is GJ Kinne, who was also their QB last year.  He originally went to Texas.  He carried the ball 13 times, not counting the sack.  Overall, the 181 rushing yards came on 41 attempts.

Of course, we know Tulsa can score points.  All too well.

Now, the flip side is that East Carolina hung 51 points on them.  Seems like big plays were a role.  Because East Carolina scored 51 points and had only 2 red zone possessions.

I will guess that is not common.

They are susceptible to the Hail Mary...so maybe we should try to set that up.  It is their second hail mary defeat in 5 games.

They gave up 538 yards in total offense, including 4.6 yards per rush.

Defense was expected to be a liability for Tulsa, but I don't think it was expected to be that bad.

We'll do 25 questions about Tulsa later in the week as we educate ourselves about this opponent.  It has the potential to be an interesting match-up in Oklahoma Saturday.