With not many games left against the hated Houston Cougars before they depart for the Big 12, now is the perfect time for TU to show that the Golden Hurricane is truly back on track this season.
Last Saturday's 41-34 victory over Arkansas State was a good start, providing Tulsa with its first win of the season. With conference play starting, a sound victory over Houston would be a great statement to the rest of the league that TU will again be a force in the AAC.
Fresh off being named the AAC Offensive Player of the Week, quarterback Davis Brin will lead Tulsa (1-3) Friday night at 6:30 against Houston at H.A. Chapman Stadium.
Brin completed 17 of 25 passes for 355 yards, with an incredible 20.9 average per completion and 14.2 yards per attempt. With the exception of one poor decision where he threw an interception into ASU's end zone, Brin was nearly flawless.
Averaging 302 yards per game this season, Brin is beginning to live up to the early season hype.
Potentially helping matters against Houston (3-1, 1-0 AAC) would be the return of Tulsa's best receiver, Keylon Stokes. Already 10th on Tulsa's career yardage list, Stokes, who has missed the last two games, would add to what is a very good receiving group.
Josh Johnson leads Tulsa with 23 catches for 317 yards, while JuanCarlos Santana has 17 catches for 259 yards, and Sam Crawford has 12 receptions for 237 yards.
"Hopefully we get Keylon back this week," said TU coach Philip Montgomery. "But we're going to rotate receivers in and do some things because guys have stepped up and made plays."
One receiver who has stepped up the last two weeks is 6-foot-4 Kansas grad transfer Ezra Naylor. He had five catches for 81 yards at Ohio State, and last week he had a 24-yard catch on third down deep into ASU territory late in the game that was a dagger to Arkansas State's comeback hopes, allowing Tulsa to essentially run out the clock.
It is hard to tell if Houston is any good this season. That program always seems to think highly of itself, as evidenced by their imminent departure from the AAC. Just another reason for Tulsa to loathe the Cougars.
Obviously, the number of times Houston has tried to run up the score against Tulsa factors into the rivalry. Tulsa's key victories in the series, including in the first ever football game in the Astrodome, have fueled Houston to try and kick Tulsa in seasons where the Golden Hurricane is down.
On the other hand, Tulsa has shown restraint where it could have run up the score on the Cougars, like in the 2007 game where TU won 56-7 in Tulsa. That game easily could have been 80-0.
The Cougars haven't played a game outside Houston this season. They opened this year by losing to Texas Tech 38-21. They followed with a 44-7 win over hapless Rice, then won 45-0 against FCS Grambling, and won 28-20 against 0-3 Navy.
Coach Dana Holgorsen, who gained his reputation as an offensive guru when he was the Offensive Coordinator at Houston from 2008-2009 and at OSU in 2010, did a good job as head coach at West Virginia from 2011-2018, compiling a 61-41 record.
Houston lured Holgorsen away from West Virginia after firing Major Applewhite, who was 7-5 and 8-5 in his two full seasons as head coach at Houston.
It has been a disaster so far for Holgorsen, who went 4-8 in 2019 and 3-5 in 2020. With all that money being spent on a losing coach, a loss to Tulsa - a team that Houston despises - could contribute heavily to Holgorsen getting canned in the near future.
An interesting side note to the game is that Holgorsen filled in for Montgomery at Houston as OC in 2008. Montgomery, who got his first college job at Houston from 2003-2007, was the Co-Offensive Coordinator for the Cougars from 2006-2007. Montgomery then moved to Baylor with Houston coach Art Briles, where Monty stayed from 2008-2014 before taking over at Tulsa in 2015.
Houston quarterback Clayton Tune has been serviceable for the Cougars. He can run a little bit, with 68 net rushing yards, and can pass decently, averaging 182.3 yards per game, with five TD passes and five interceptions.
Tune had his best game of the year last week against Navy, going 22 of 30 for 257 yards and a touchdown. He was intercepted four times while completing 27 of 38 for a paltry 174 yards in the opener against Texas Tech.
Nathaniel Dell is Houston's leading receiver with 25 catches for 342 yards and three scores. The 5-10, 155-pounder is quick and dangerous. Leading Houston's rushing attack is Alton McCaskill, who has rushed for 233 yards and a 4.6 yards per carry average.
Basically, Houston has done nothing special so far, and there is no reason to think they will be better than a .500 team in conference play this year.
It will be important for Tulsa to shore up its woeful kick coverage, which is probably the worst in the nation. Giving up both a punt return and a kickoff return for touchdowns in the same game is horrible, and it is amazing Tulsa still won the game. Other recent games have been lost due to poor kick coverage.
It would be better to kick the ball short or out of bounds. TU finally kicked the ball short last week on its last kickoff. It worked.
Tulsa's biggest obstacle this week will be playing without its defensive star, Jaxon Player, in the first half. Player, who is an incredible defensive tackle/nose guard, was suspended for the first half because of a very questionable targeting penalty in the second half against ASU.
"Jaxon is such a vital and important role to what we do defensively," Montgomery said. "He brings a level of tenaciousness to the field. In my opinion, the guy's an All-American player. Not having him there in the first half is going to be critical."
Even without Player for a half, this is the type of game Tulsa must win, especially since it is at home, for the Golden Hurricane to be a force in the AAC. Favored by 4.5 points, a victory here gets TU off to the right start in conference play, and will further increase its confidence.
