Tulsa looks to bounce back against Rice on Thursday

The halfway point of the season for Tulsa is really only just like the beginning for Braylon Braxton.

Braxton will likely finally get his chance to lead the Golden Hurricane after recovering from an ankle injury in the first quarter of the first game of the season.

The brief performance in the last game by Braxton showed that he should be ready. He almost led the Golden Hurricane to a comeback win at Florida Atlantic.

"That was a frustrating thing last week. It was a winnable game," TU coach Kevin Wilson said. "We didn't play well. We let that one slip away. You don't want that. We need to bounce back with some urgency, and some toughness. We need to take care of the ball and play winning football."

Tulsa (3-3, 1-1 AAC) will get a chance to erase the bad memory of the FAU game when it hosts Rice at 6 p.m. Thursday night at H.A. Chapman Stadium.

Rice (3-3, 1-1) hasn't been horrible for most of the season, but is coming off a loss to hapless UConn (1-5). The Huskies did beat Houston earlier in the year, which looked like a good win at the time, but Houston (3-3, 1-2 Big 12) has turned out to be mediocre.

Both Tulsa and Rice had bye weeks last week, so the short week of playing on Thursday is actually providing some much needed rest for the two teams.

Braxton came in at FAU with Tulsa down 10 and almost immediately broke off a 46-yard run on the rain-soaked field. He then threw a strike to freshman TE Luke McGary for a 20-yard score. TU got the ball back with a chance to tie or win, the connections between Braxton and his receivers just missed.

With Braxton back at the helm, the real question about Tulsa's offense will be if it can pick it up a notch or two from what has happened in the first half of the season.

Tulsa's offense hasn't been bad, but its passing game has yet to take off. It has been efficient at times, with Cardell Williams winning the AAC Offensive Player of the Week two games ago in the last home game against Temple.

"We're still not throwing the ball well, we're still not running routes well, we're not pass (protecting) well," Wilson said. "We're a little bit more one-dimensional than I'd like to be, so we're working hard to get the passing game in play."

Tulsa is averaging only 192 yards passing, compared with 194.2 yards per game rushing.

"We've relied a little bit more on the run game, and we've done that, quite honestly, because sometimes you want to make sure the ball doesn't go to them," Wilson said of avoiding turnovers. "So sometimes we've taken the air out of the football.

"Our throwing numbers are not very high because we're trying to be smart and take care of the quarterback. I'd like to be more wide open this week. We'll just see."

If Braxton is to put up numbers like he did in the last game of the 2022 season against Houston, where he completed 25 of 43 passes for 316 yards and 3 TD passes in Tulsa's 37-30 victory, he is going to need more consistency from the offense, especially from the receivers.

"That receiver corps is a little bit of a work in progress," Wilson said. "We've got a combination of young receivers and young quarterbacks, and it's been challenging. But it's been fun."

Marquis Shoulders and Devan Williams have emerged as playmakers this season, but Shoulders is out for a few weeks with an ankle injury.

That's the bad news. The good news is that Tulsa will be getting back Malachai Jones, who was Tulsa's only experienced receiver from last season. Jones has missed most of the season with an ankle injury similar to Braxton's.

Jones caught a 31-yard pass late in the FAU game when Tulsa was mounting a comeback that fell short. Jones caught 37 passes for 470 yards and 3 TD's last season.

"He's a veteran player, so it's good to have him back in them mix," Wilson said of Jones.

Other than Devan Williams and Jones, Tulsa's receivers will need Braylin Presley to show his immense ability. Presley finally broke though last week when replacing the injured Shoulders, catching 4 passes for 39 yards. Previously he had caught only 3 passes for 54 yards, all against the Washington Huskies.

Kamdyn Benjamin has been productive lately, and will be needed, as well as other receivers like Carl Chester and Nick Rempert.

Anthony Watkins is the clear leader in a running back by committee approach, having gained 367 yards so far this season. Jordan Ford and Bill Jackson have 240 and 196 yards rushing, respectively. Unfortunately, Tulsa's leading rusher against FAU, Tahj Gary (11-53) injured a knee and probably will be out for awhile.

Rice has a prolific passing attack led by J.T. Daniels, a former five-star recruit who has bounced around, first at USC, then Georgia, and most recently, at West Virginia, where he passed for 2,107 yards last season.

Daniels, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound sixth year senior, passed for 2,642 yards in 11 games as a true freshman for USC. He passed for 1,953 yards in 10 games for Georgia in 2020-2021. He has career totals of 8,778 yards, with a 63 percent completion percentage, with 60 TD's and 30 interceptions.

Not a running threat, Daniels has minus 353 career rushing yards. This season for Rice, Daniels is averaging 305.2 yards passing, with 15 touchdowns and 5 interceptions and a 63.6 completion percentage.

The down side for Rice is that the Owls are not good, at all, running the ball, averaging a paltry 79.5 yards at an embarrassing 2.8 yards per carry.

Leading Rice's receivers is the accomplished Luke McCaffrey, from the NFL McCaffrey family. A former Nebraska quarterback, McCaffrey has 30 catches for 514 yards and 6 TD's this season, his fifth in college football, and his third at Rice. He has career totals of 833 yards and 7 TD's rushing, 921 yards and 5 touchdowns passing, and 90 catches for 1,254 yards and 12 TD's.

The Owls' defense can be decent, but is nothing to write home about. Giving up 38 points at home to awful UConn does not merit praise. Which is one more point than the Owls allowed in a 37-10 season opening loss at Texas.

What is clear is that Rice is a decent team with a very talented quarterback. But the Owls are a team that TU should never lose to, especially at home. Tulsa is favored by 3 points.

If Tulsa is going to have a winning season, this is a game it simply cannot afford to lose.