Was it an aberration for Tulsa football, or the sign of things to come? One way to find out is to tune into TU’s game at UAB on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 at Protective Stadium (47,000) in Birmingham.

A week after pulling off one of the most amazing comebacks in school history, the Golden Hurricane is playing a game in which it really shouldn’t lose.

Alabama-Birmingham (1-6, 0-4 AAC) isn’t good. They have zero D-1 wins this season. Beating FCS Alcorn State is the Blazers lone victory.

Tulsa (3-5, 1-3) will try to replicate its second half performance of last week where the Golden Hurricane finally came to life after weeks of horrible football. The 35-7 halftime deficit was simply dreadful, like in previous weeks.

AP National Player of the Week and AAC Offensive Player of the week Cooper Legas hadn’t received extensive playing time, especially as a passer, this season, but TU came to life when he entered the game against UTSA.

Was Legas the difference? This week might give us a clue.

Can Legas rival his performance against UTSA, where he completed 16 of 31 for 331 yards and 5 TD passes in less than 3 quarters, and led Tulsa in rushing with 46 yards, even counting sacks?

Let’s just say, it would be more shocking to not see Legas start this week than it was seeing Tulsa’s comeback win last week. And that isn’t a knock on regular starter Kirk Francis, whose injured ankle appears to be ok for this week.

But when someone plays that well, like Legas did last week, he’s getting the ball, at least for a while. Especially when the team had been struggling mightily.

“I think you’ve got to trust the last game performance, but we’ll see what Kirk does coming off his injury,” said Tulsa coach Kevin Wilson of the starting quarterback decision. “He looked good last night. But we’ll see. You’ve got to give a lot of credit there to Cooper.”

When Wilson talked about Legas, he basically was commenting that Legas is a prime-time player. Better in games than practice. Also, experience helps, as Legas started 15 games at Utah State, and came off the bench to lead two comeback wins at Utah State last year while starting 7 games there.

“He’s not the purest of passers when you throw,” said Tulsa coach Kevin Wilson of Legas. “He’s one of those guys, when he starts running around, he’s a little bit better when the thing breaks down a little bit. When you’re standing back there when it’s kind of clean, he’s not Mr. Ideal. He’s ok, but he’s not just phenomenally accurate all the time.

“All of a sudden you want to improvise and be a player, and be a quarterback player on the run and making plays, he did that well before. That’s not statistically the biggest game he’s had in his career.”

After Wilson commented for weeks that the young players need to step up, the young players did exactly that. True freshmen Joseph Williams, Corey Smith, and Purdue transfer Zion Steptoe, after not doing much for most of the season, all came through with huge, big play catches on the game-winning drive against UTSA.

And the defense, which was having a nightmarish game against UTSA in the first half, came through with stops when it had to, including the final drive where UTSA got the ball back with 1:01 left, needing only to get into field goal range to defeat TU.

The defense was what got Tulsa going in the second half, as Vontroy Malone’s blindside QB sack caused a fumble that DT Amieh Williams scooped up and raced for the score.

The opportunity in playing a struggling UAB team that doesn’t have confidence is something in which Tulsa needs to take advantage.

The problem with playing UAB is that the Blazers have played a tough schedule, and they are probably not as bad as their record would indicate. UAB is probably due for a victory.

Trent Dilfer, the famous Super Bowl winning QB, is in his second season as UAB coach. Dilfer took over a team that previously had six consecutive winning seasons after UAB resumed its football program after a two-year hiatus where the program had been shut down after nine consecutive losing seasons.

In his first season at UAB, Dilfer’s team went 4-8. Perhaps Dilfer’s lack of coaching experience is showing, since he never had a college coaching job of any type before UAB. He had coached four years as a high school head coach leading up to getting the UAB job.

The opponents for UAB’s D-1 games this season have a combined 31-11 record. The teams from its four conference losses have a combined record of 22-5, 15-2 in AAC play.

UAB’s previous losses started at Louisiana-Monroe (5-2) 32-6, and continued at Arkansas (5-3) 37-27, at home against Navy (6-1, 4-0) 41-18 and Tulane (6-2, 4-0) 71-10, continued at Army (7-0, 6-0) 44-10 and at USF (3-4, 1-2) 35-25 last week.

The Golden Hurricane will be facing a talented quarterback in Florida transfer Jalen Kitna, who is the son of former longtime NFL starter Jon Kitna, who last played with the Dallas Cowboys. Kitna was kicked off Florida’s team in 2022 due to criminal charges that were dropped after pleading them down to two counts of no contest to breaching the peace.

Kitna (6-5, 210, Jr.) has started the last three games in place of Jacob Zeno, who has an injured right throwing shoulder. Kitna is coming off the USF game where he completed 33 of 56 passes for 284 yards, with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, while being sacked 4 times.

For the season, Kitna is averaging 288.3 yards per game, is completing 57.4 percent of his passes, has 4 TD passes and 6 picks, and is averaging 6.4 yards per attempt.

Zeno is averaging 6.9 yards per attempt, 204.8 yards per game, has a 69.5 completion percentage, has 6 TD passes and 5 interceptions, and has rushed for 97 yards.

Also, it doesn’t appear like Kitna is much of a running threat. He has minus 7 rushing yards in 20 attempts, including sacks. He last played for Florida in 2022, attempting 14 passes, which is his only college experience.

Offensively, the team has no standouts. Nobody has compiled impressive stats. Former Owasso RB Isaiah Jacobs, brother of NFL star and McLain grad Josh Jacobs, has 162 yards rushing in 4 games, but hasn’t played since September. A team captain, Jacobs will miss the remainder of the season with an undisclosed injury after having recent surgery.

Defensively, UAB isn’t very good against the run, giving up an average of 242.4 yards per game at 5.4 yards per carry. Perhaps because of poor run defense, the Blazers are only giving up 145.1 yards per game, but at 8.1 yards per attempt.

So defensively, the Blazers don’t stand out, either.

For Tulsa, the running game could begin to work, and it could come down to whether the young receivers continue to make plays like they did last week.

“We had some receivers step up and make plays for us who hadn’t in several weeks,” Wilson said. “We’re still struggling in pass pro. It was nice to see those receivers step up. We’ll see if it continues.”

Legas will likely get a chance to show that he isn’t a one-half wonder.

“Cooper delivered. Those guys made plays that made Cooper look good,” Wilson said. “But Cooper is the guy who avoided the rushes, because the protection was still what it was. He has to extend some plays, find some chicken salad there once in a while. It was hard to find, but he found it. It's a credit to him, now. He played a whale of a game.”

Wilson believes in his team, but is unsure about what version will show up this week.

“We got hot and got very fortunate,” Wilson said of last week. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. It isn’t like we’ve got it figured. We never do. You’re always working. We’ve just got to keep building on it. But I think it’s great for our kids.

“Hopefully we are going to have a lot of positive mojo. Because these are tough battles down the stretch, four of them coming up.”

After UAB, Tulsa’s schedule is set up for games that are winnable, playing East Carolina (4-4, 2-2) at home, followed by South Florida on the road, and finishing with Florida Atlantic (2-5, 0-3).

“We’re so young. Can we sustain,” Wilson said. “Can we continue it?”