It was awesome to honor at halftime the greatest clutch receiver in football history in recent NFL Hall of Famer Drew Pearson.
It was too bad Pearson had to witness this mess.
Tulsa bumbled and stumbled and lost to a Navy team it should have beaten by three touchdowns. Instead, Tulsa dropped a 20-17 heartbreaker to the Midshipmen in front of an announced crowd of 16,279 dejected fans on Friday night.
For Tulsa (3-5, 2-2 AAC), the loss means that it will be incredibly difficult to have a .500 season. Unless an unforeseen miracle happens at No. 2 Cincinnati next week, Tulsa would have to win its remaining three games to finish .500 in the regular season.
This crushing game typified Tulsa's home season. If fans saw the UC Davis debacle in the season opener, it was just like watching an instant replay.
Tulsa led 10-3 after the opening kickoff of the second half, which Anthony Watkins returned 97 yards for a touchdown. At that point it looked like TU had all the momentum.
"With the kickoff return, we've been talking about it as a unit," Watkins said. "We've been saying that we want to actually make something happen because I guess it hasn't happened in a couple years (9 years).
"And we just have to believe in ourselves. So I told them they got me, I got them. And we're going to make it happen. And I'm going to make it happen for them. And that's what I did. And it was great. I haven’t had a kickoff return since high school. So everything felt wonderful in that moment."
Unfortunately, it didn't stay wonderful for TU, as Navy came back on its first possession of the half and rammed it right back at TU to tie the score at 10-10.
The dagger, however, came on a dropped touchdown pass by Josh Johnson in the end zone on Tulsa's first offensive possession in the second half. What should have been a touchdown unbelievably bounced into Navy safety Rayuan Lane's hands while on the ground.
"Just the flow and momentum of the game on a play like that is pretty tough when you're in a dogfight battle," said TU coach Philip Montgomery.
So what at worst would have been Tulsa settling for a field goal late in the third quarter and having a three-point lead turned into a demoralizing tie game. When Navy scored on another long drive on the ensuing possession and led 17-10 with 11:25 left in the fourth quarter, Tulsa was in big trouble.
With TU going for it on fourth-and-five from its own 47 on its next series, Davis Brin couldn't connect with 8:10 remaining. Navy didn't have to go far to kick a field goal with 4:14 left to go up 20-10.
But the worst thing about it was Tulsa blew two timeouts on the 43-yard field goal. The first TO was to stop the clock. But after a lengthy timeout, TU had to call another one because it had two players on the field with the No. 0 -- CB Tyon Davis and 6-foot-4 WR Ezra Naylor, who was brought in to try and block the kick.
After the timeout, with Naylor wearing No. 80, the kick barely made it. Tulsa now had only one timeout down 10 points against a team that grinds up the clock.
The final blow came when a 42-yard touchdown pass from Brin to JuanCarlos Santana with 3:14 left was replayed and ruled short of the goal line. The officials, without communicating to TU the clock would start, started the clock with neither team's units on the field.
So valuable time was lost after two stopped ensuing attempts. But worse was that TU used its final timeout. So when TU scored on the next play on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Brin to Naylor with 2:21 left, the game was essentially over unless the Golden Hurricane recovered an onside kick.
A good attempt at it by kicker Zack Long was recovered by Navy, and Tulsa might have gotten the ball back with a few seconds remaining if it had stopped the Midshipmen. But Navy picked up a first down on the first play of the series, and it was officially over. Take a knee time.
Navy (2-6, 2-4) had only won once in its previous 11 games, and in the first half, their offense looked pathetic until an unbelievable defensive lapse gave it a field goal to tie the game at 3-3 going into halftime.
A 64-yard run by slotback Carlinos Acie in with 15 seconds remaining in the half with Navy having no timeouts got the Mids down to the TU 12-yard-line, setting up the field goal.
Quite simply, there is no way a simple option pitch at the end of a half should generate that type of yardage.
"Right there, on the last drive of the half, they ended up getting outside on us on the pitch part of it," Montgomery said. "That was kind of our Achilles heel there in the second half."
Tulsa couldn't stop the option pitch from that point on. Navy had only two first downs prior to the final drive of the half which started at its own 26 with 1:01 left in the half with no timeouts. When a team like Navy can't pass - it was 0 for 3 passing for the game - there should have been zero chance Navy scores at the end of the first half.
TU's offense wasn't effective for most of the game, with Brin finishing 13 of 23 for 165 yards. TU's running game, outside of Watkins' 78-yarder in the second quarter, was mostly non-existent. The long Watkins run set up Tulsa's only points of the first half -- a 26-yard field goal by Long.
Santana led TU in yards from scrimmage, catching 7 passes for 109 yards.
Tulsa now has to turn its focus to No. 2 Cincinnati. The Hurricane faces the Bearcats in Ohio at 2:30 pm on Nov. 6.
