Hurricane suffers difficult loss to UC Davis in opener

There is no way to sugarcoat it. This was unimaginably dreadful.

Losing to a lower-division team in your home opener is going to be tough to overcome. Not impossible, but difficult.

Tulsa did everything it could to lose a game it should have won going away, and in the end, it resulted in a 19-17 loss to UC Davis on Thursday night at H.A. Chapman Stadium before an announced crowd of 15,085.

Missed long passes. Interceptions. And in the end, a key fumble just when it looked like Tulsa was going to pull the game out.

In short, a disaster.

It was an inauspicious debut for the Davis Brin era at TU.

It was also a carryover from a nightmarish hangover against Mississippi State in the bowl game loss that kept Tulsa out of the end of season Top 25 after being ranked for much of 2020.

TU's suspended players were missed, to be sure. But still, Tulsa should have handled this team by three touchdowns, minimum.

Tulsa was playing without some of its best players due to suspensions from last year's fight at the end of its bowl game. Not having first team All-AAC left tackle Tyler Smith didn't help. Also losing defensive leader JustIn Wright in the middle was not a good thing.

In all, six Tulsa players missed the entire game, and another three missed the first half. Starting free safety TieNeal Martin didn't play. Starting Will linebacker Treyvon Reeves didn't play.

Starting left guard Dante Bivens missed the first half.

"Most of the time it was us stopping us more than the other way around," said TU coach Philip Montgomery. "We had things open and we missed them. We had our eyes in the wrong spot."

It was an ominous beginning when the Aggies marched down the field on the first drive of the game to take a 7-0 lead. Still, Tulsa came back to lead 10-7 in the second quarter. But the end of the half was typical of the game.

A 61-yard pass from Brin to Keylon Stokes had Tulsa in scoring position. But a bad interception ended the drive, and UC Davis marched down the field to tie the game at 10-10 on the last play of the first half.

After getting down 13-10, Deneric Prince busted a 59-yarder to put the Hurricane up 17-13 with 6:46 left in the third quarter. Another long run by Prince later in the quarter deep into Aggies' territory was partially called back due to an illegal block, knocking 40 yards off the run.

So instead of potentially going up 24-13 and putting the game away, there were no points, and TU let UC Davis live again.

"I thought that was a pretty important drive, obviously. He gets the big run," Montgomery said. "I thought there was a lot of momentum in that. Go ahead, punch it in there, get a little bit of separation. I thought that was a crucial point of the game. But I'd say the same thing on the last drive."

In the end, Tulsa's defense had no answer for UC Davis quarterback Hunter Rodrigues, who continually shredded Tulsa's defense. He finished 28 of 35 for 311 yards. His previous career high was 265 yards.

At the end of the game, Tulsa's was playing almost a completely new defense from last year on the back end with its defensive backs and linebackers due to suspensions, cramping, and defections.

After a second interception put UC Davis in field goal range midway through the fourth quarter to give the Aggies a 19-17 lead, Tulsa looked like it was going to go down and score. TU promptly marched its way down the field, but Stokes fumbled a short pass just inside the 10-yard-line through the end line for a touchback with 4:06 remaining.

And amazingly, a UC Davis team that had very little running game all night managed to run the clock out.

One of the few positives was TU's running game, which had Prince gaining 151 yards on just 14 carries. And Shamari Brooks looked good in his return, especially in Tulsa's final drive, finishing with 80 yards on 10 carries.

As for Brin, he made some good plays, but his two interceptions were killers. He also misconnected twice with Stokes on wide open bombs that would have made a huge difference in the game. He finished 15 of 28 for 201 yards.

"There's a lot of hype coming into it with the quarter and a little bit that he's played," Montgomery said about Brin. "But you have to remember, it's his first start, his first rattle out of the box. At times he did some really nice things, and other times we've got some work to do.

"The one thing you know about him is he's very competitive. He's going to look at that tape and grow from it and come out and be better."

Stokes, who finished with four catches for 95 yards, emphasized that the season is far from being over.

"All of our leaders have to step up and take over," Stokes said. "This game tonight was disappointing, but we've got to come back and finish strong."