There is a reason why TU coach Philip Montgomery calls McKinley Whitfield a stud. The kid can play, as was clearly evidenced Saturday afternoon at H.A. Chapman Stadium.
Whitfield blocked two punts and intercepted a pass in the first half in a game which may have foreshadowed the future for the talented 6-foot-4, 212-pound sophomore safety from Spiro.
Whitfield’s performance highlighted a clinical 58-21 victory for Tulsa over North Carolina A&T where the Golden Hurricane led 48-0 at halftime in front of an announced crowd of 16,111.
“He's really growing as a player,” Montgomery said of Whitfield. “McKinley is progressing at the rate that we want him to. He ended up taking a lot of snaps today. I think he's going to continue that trend.”
The game was a nice change from the Ohio State game, as Tulsa was able to pull most of its starters early in the third quarter. The Golden Hurricane led 58-0 before calling off the dogs.
Dane Evans threw for 282 yards, completing 19 of 29 passes for three touchdowns before Montgomery mercifully pulled him on TU’s second offensive series of the third quarter. Keevan Lucas turned three of his four pass receptions into touchdowns, including two in which he outleaped Aggie defenders.
“Coach Monty kind of said it all week, after a week like last week, nothing seems right,” Evans said about last week’s loss to Ohio State. “The days don’t seem right, food doesn’t taste the same, music doesn’t sound good, and you just don’t want to talk about it anymore.
“You just want to go out and play on Saturday, and you want to get that taste out of your mouth, and that’s exactly what we did today. And now that we got that taste out of our mouth, we’re ready to go for next week and to keep this thing rolling.”
Lucas finished with 119 yards receiving, and Justin Hobbs caught seven passes for 114 yards in a game that was being played against the No. 19 ranked team in FCS that was coming off an FBS victory at Kent State.
“After watching the tape, it was confirmation that we played terrible,” Lucas said of the Ohio State game. “And so we were just ready to get back to work.”
The fact that the NC A&T game wasn’t supposed to be this easy was a testament to how well Tulsa played. The best part of the game was getting to play the reserves.
But before the reserves came in, defensive tackle Kolton Shindelar returned his second career interception for a touchdown. This time it was a result of Petera Wilson’s brutal blindside hit on quarterback Oluwafemi Bamiro, which caused a floater that Shindelar caught and then proceeded to cruise to the end zone, putting Tulsa up 17-0.
Whitfield’s first blocked punt was recovered by Rowdy Simon at the 1-yard-line, resulting in a 1-yard plunge by James Flanders to put Tulsa up 10-0.
“Just all week, with Coach (Calvin) Lowry preaching to me, he drew the block punt up and all week long he was saying, ‘McKinley just get there and we can practice it all week’.” Whitfield said. “So luckily, in the game he called it on the first one. (Matt) Hickman and Cooper (Edmiston) did their jobs and I slipped through and got a hand on the ball.”
Tulsa knocking A&T star runner Tarik Cohen out of the game didn't hurt matters. The two-time MEAC Offensive Player of the Year leads the Aggies in running and receiving yards. He carried four times for 16 yards before leaving the game midway through the first quarter.
In another interesting development, Ryan Rubley looked good in his college debut after Dane Evans was pulled with a 51-0 lead early in the first quarter.
The 6-3, 220-pound Rubley, son of legendary TU quarterback T.J. Rubley, came out throwing crisply, and certainly made a case for being the number two quarterback this season and possible starter for next season. Much heralded Chad President would be the number two quarterback but wasn’t suited for the second consecutive game due to an injury.
“Ryan did a nice job, first time to really kind of get some action. Made a couple of good throws in there,” Montgomery said. “You know, he made some mistakes in there. Some of those he paid for because he got hit in the face.
"But I thought overall, it was a good first outing for him. For him to be in the live action, he had not been in it in a long time, so to kind of get his feet wet today I think is going to be good for us in the future.”
Rubley’s first college pass was zipped into tight coverage and should have been caught, but Hobbs couldn’t hold on. Rubley came back on the next series and led TU to a touchdown, as he completed a 9-yard touchdown pass to tight end Rob Riederer for his first career reception. Hobbs provided a nice 32-yard catch and run to set up the score.
Another nice development was that Nigel Carter came back and played well after having some drops in the rain at Ohio State. Evans went to Carter early, as a 16-yarder on the first series of the game down to the 3-yard-line got a first down and set up a field goal. Carter caught four passes for 40 yards.
Punt returner/cornerback Keidrien Wadley returned four punts for 105 yards, including a 60-yarder. Bishop Louie returned two kickoffs for 78 yards, including a 43-yarder, and caught two passes for 12 yards. Redshirt freshman defensive end Trevis Gipson had a sack. Backup linebackers Micheal Thomas, Diamon Cannon and Cooper Edmiston made some good plays.
But perhaps the best thing about the game was Nancy Lopez being the honorary captain. The LPGA great being back at a TU game in itself made going to the game worthwhile.
NC A&T coach Rod Broadway, who has won two black college national championships in previous coaching stops at Grambling and NCCU, clearly wished he wasn’t in Tulsa Saturday.
“I didn’t want to play them from the start,” Broadway said of Tulsa. “They put 52 (points) on Virginia Tech last year in a bowl game. So we knew that if they can do that against Virginia Tech, they know they can do that to us. It was a thorough butt-kicking.”
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