What could have been a heartwarming story of Kirk Francis coming off the bench to lead Tulsa to victory turned out to be a game of almosts.
In the end, when you let a bad team like Charlotte keep living, in a game where Tulsa should have blown out Charlotte by 40 points, then good things often don't happen.
Getting no breaks in the end, Tulsa succumbed to Charlotte 33-26 in overtime Saturday in front of a dismayed homecoming crowd of 20,151 at H.A. Chapman Stadium.
Good teams make their own breaks. Tulsa clearly is nowhere near being a good team right now.
"Just disappointed we weren't able to make the plays to win the game," said Tulsa coach Kevin Wilson.
Tulsa (3-6, 1-4 AAC) turned to Francis, a true freshman walk-on from Metro Christian, when Braylon Braxton was ineffective, and Cardell Williams was injured.
Francis led an impressive drive at the end of regulation where Tulsa, down 26-23 with 59 seconds left and the ball at its own 25, was inches away from winning the game outright. Instead, a 27-yard field goal by Chase Meyer sent the game into overtime.
After Charlotte scored shockingly easily in overtime, Tulsa's chances of tying the game were dashed on a third-down interception by Dantae Balfour at the 10-yard-line.
It was an impressive play by Balfour, who got away with interference on the play, grabbing Carl Chester and throwing him aside just before making the interception. In what was a blatant infraction that wasn't called, Balfour, a transfer from UNC, came up with his first career interception.
On Francis' late drive in regulation, he completed 3 of his first 4 passes, including the key 40-yard bomb to Chester down to the Charlotte 19-yard-line. Unfortunately, Francis was having trouble getting the next play from the sideline, and TU wasted precious seconds before calling its only timeout that it had going into the drive.
Two fade passes from the 9-yard-line from Francis were caught by Nick Rempert, but were ruled out of bounds. The second one was particularly frustrating, because it was replayed and looked like he may have had a foot in bounds. Francis' third down pass to the right side was almost caught by Devan Williams, with Balfour covering.
"It was a nice drive. It was good for Kirk to do that," said Wilson. "He gave us a chance on a couple of throws. He threw two up high. We couldn't get our feet in. We tried. Their defensive guys made some plays. Tried to back-shoulder fake the last one, but couldn't get it in."
It was interesting seeing the game come down to Francis, in his first career action at TU, throwing to Rempert, who has caught one pass for 8 yards all season.
The game clearly should not have come down to the last seconds. It looked like Tulsa was going to destroy Charlotte early.
TU got out to a 17-0 lead when Cardell Williams, who took over for starter Braylon Braxton after one series, sparked Tulsa to that margin midway through the second quarter. Williams had two rushing TD's in the first quarter of 9 and 5 yards on the way to a 14-0 first quarter lead.
"I just thought Braylon is a good athlete and a good leader and has done well for us, but he's not throwing the ball well," Wilson said. "Hasn't thrown it well in practice and has just been off-target.
"On the first drive, we missed a couple. Went with Cardell. He got hot."
