Tulsa's Bill Blankenship

As we approach the last 48 hours before the opener, I wanted to take a minute to post about Tulsa's coach, who I think is a pretty unique guy.  Rather than work his way up by being a GA, a position coach, a coordinator and then a head coach, he took a different route--being one of the best HS coaches in Oklahoma history.

He spent 19 years coaching HS football in OK.  The last 14 years were at Union High School right in Tulsa...here's how Wikipedia describes his HS career.

There he compiled an overall 154-26 record. During his tenure, Union won eight consecutive district championships, qualified for the playoffs fourteen times, reached the quarterfinals ten times, participated in the state Class 6A championship seven times, and won the state title in 2002, 2004, and 2005. Union also amassed an unbroken home winning streak of 56 straight wins between the years 1997 and 2005.

After 2005, he decided he wanted to get into college coaching and resigned at Union.  And.....he spent the next year out of coaching.  After one year, Todd Graham brought him in as a position coach, and he was a position coach for three seasons, before Graham bolted and he was named Head Coach.

Blankenship is a Hurricane....he was a starting QB for the team during college.  He seems to have taken to it...they were 19-8 in his two seasons and 11-3 last season.

Anyway, it is an interesting career route.  Clearly, the guy can Coach football and he is building on the success Tulsa is getting used to.  Will be an interesting match up on Thursday.