Penalties and mistakes costly in Tulsa's 40-21 loss to OSU
Tulsa had Oklahoma State sweating, as the Golden Hurricane was punishing the Pokes with a lead with less than 20 minutes remaining.
At that point Tulsa had outscored Oklahoma State 21-3 after OSU’s first three possessions. TU couldn’t sustain it, but the final score of 40-21 was in no way indicative of the action in the game.
“I was very proud of our football team,” said Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery. “I think we stayed locked in, and continued to keep grinding. We stayed together. This team has a bunch of guys who are relentless about fighting and fighting until we find a way to win. I’m very proud of that part of it.”
Zach Smith completed 17 of 30 passes for 228 yards and a touchdown, Keylon Stokes had seven catches for 109 yards and a touchdown, and Shamari Brooks rushed for 107 yards and two touchdowns on 29 carries to pace the Golden Hurricane offense in front of a crowd of 28,612 on Saturday afternoon at H.A. Chapman Stadium.
Falling behind 17-0 after OSU’s first three possessions, including 14-0 after their first two offensive series, Tulsa was able to rebound and go into halftime with a 21-20 lead.
“I thought we really did some things there in the latter part of the first quarter and in the second quarter,” Montgomery said. “I thought some things kind of took fire. We played the way I wanted us to play. Good tempo on both sides. Good recognition. Hit some throws. I thought some guys really stepped up and made some plays.”
Stokes started the comeback with a wide-open 37-yard scoring toss from Smith with 4:23 left in the first quarter. A 44-yard yard pass down to the 3-yard-line to Sam Crawford set up a 3-yard score by Brooks with 9:57 left in the second quarter. When Brooks bowled over on a 1-yard touchdown, Tulsa led 21-20 with 2:29 left in the half.
Tulsa (1-2) wasn’t able to do much on offense in the third quarter due in great part to too many penalties, but still held the lead after two offensive series until a 27-yard touchdown run by OSU quarterback Spencer Sanders put the Cowboys up 27-21 with 4:35 left in the third quarter.
It seemed like whenever Tulsa got a big play in the second half, there was a penalty to call it back. Tulsa was penalized 17 times for 156 yards, compared with nine penalties for 89 yards for OSU from the flag-happy refs.
There were probably more ineligible lineman down the field penalties in this game then teams usually see in an entire season. And those penalties absolutely killed big plays by Tulsa.
“I’ll bet we lost 150 yards or more over penalties,” Montgomery said of the yardage Tulsa would have gained but got called back. “Honestly, I think a lot of that went back to us shooting ourselves in the foot with the penalty part of it.”
A 90-yard touchdown pass from Sanders to prolific deep threat Tylan Wallace put OSU up 33-21 with 1:29 left in the third quarter, but the Golden Hurricane wasn’t finished yet.
Tulsa made it down to the OSU 5-yard-line, but Smith was sacked on fourth-and-goal with 9:55 remaining. On its next series, TU was driving when Smith got knocked out of the game at the OSU 37-yard-line with just over six minutes remaining.
Seth Boomer came in and Tulsa couldn’t manage to pick up the first down on the series. At that point Tulsa was doomed, with OSU getting the ball back with 4:50 remaining, and subsequently driving down and scoring a late touchdown.
Smith was banged up, but could have returned to the game. Montgomery decided to hold him out, probably as a precaution. Smith was alert and appeared healthy in the post-game press conference interviews.
“The best times during the game were when we were getting positive yards on first and second down, and then we really got it going,” Smith said. “That’s really our bread and butter as an offense. When we do that, it’s tough to stop. We just have to keep ourselves our of a negative place.”
Tulsa got off to a nightmarish start, down 7-0 after one play, a 75- yard run by Chuba Hubbard up the middle. A 30-yard run by Hubbard upped the Cowboys lead to 14-0 with 11:23 left in the first quarter.
Hubbard had 116 yards on his first six carries, and his first quarter of 163 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries had him on a pace for 652 yards and eight touchdowns on 56 carries.
But Hubbard was stymied for most of the rest of the game, starting with a second quarter where he was held to 10 yards on four carries. He gained 93 yards on 18 carries the last three quarters, including a 33-yard touchdown to close out the OSU scoring. He finished with 256 yards on 32 carries.
“I think they just needed to take a deep breath and relax and get back to playing the football the way we know how to play it,” Montgomery said of his defense. “The big run early, I think we were just flying a little too fast and we overran it. Probably a little too hyped there.”
Outside of the long touchdowns pass and a touchdown run where nobody was around for most of the run, Sanders was held in check for most of the game. He finished with 12 of 22 completions for 169 yards, but outside of the long touchdown, Sanders passed for 79 yards.
Outside of Wallace’s long score, he did very little. Granted, he drew some smart pass interference penalties by Tulsa where TU defenders tackled him on long passes to take a 15-yard penalty rather than get beat deep. Wallace wound up with five catches for 118 yards, but only had 28 yards outside of his long touchdown.
“I think we have a dang good football team, I really do,” Montgomery said. “I think we’re young, but we’re starting to really come together.”