You can mark this Saturday down as the realistic day the UC football season begins. Yes, UC comes into the game with a 3-0 record and yes, that included a ranked home win against Army, but if we are being honest, if the other conferences had started their seasons on time Army would not have been ranked to begin with. It is easy to look at the 1-1 Tulsa football team and think what’s the big deal? However, they may not be a team in the AAC who is already battle tested like Tulsa is right now. They started the year on the road against now 7th ranked Oklahoma State and were competitive in the game all the way to the end where they eventually fell 16-7, that’s an OK St. team currently averaging 37 points a game in the Big12 by the way. How did they follow up that tough start to the season? By turning around and going to UCF and ending their home winning streak in a dominant 34-26 performance. UC and Tulsa are the only teams in the last 35+ games to hold UCF under 30 points in a game. This is as evenly matched of a defensive game as we will see all season in the AAC and there is a reason the now No. 8 team in the country is only a 3 point favorite come Saturday.
The strength of Tulsa is certainly their defense, but it doesn’t mean the offense isn’t capable of scoring when they need to, as anyone who watched them upset UCF knows. Leading that attack will be redshirt senior quarterback Zach Smith. Smith transferred to Tulsa at the start of last season from Baylor, and has only gotten more comfortable in the role as time has passed. He had a rocky start to the season against Oklahoma State only throwing for 165 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Against UCF he had a big bounce back throwing for 273 yards and three touchdowns. If the Bearcats are going to come back from Tulsa with a win, then they are going to have to put pressure on Smith, keep him uncomfortable and force his numbers to regress back towards what they were in Tulsa’s first game.
The running game for Tulsa has been a little bit like the one for UC, it hasn’t really felt as effective as they would like for it to be as a team they average 3.7 yards a carry, UC is at 4.4 yards a carry and like UC, Tulsa does it with a committee of backs. The main focus will be sophomore Deneric Prince who leads the team with 123 yards on the season. Right behind him is redshirt sophomore T.K. Wilkerson, he is the one who got the bulk of the carries in the win against UCF putting him at 108 yards on the season and he has the teams lone rushing touchdown. Senior Corey Taylor II is the 3rd of the trio of backs and he’s only been given 13 carries, but he’s still posted a 4.7 yard per carry average and 61 yards on the year. What will help UC is that none of the three are a threat in Tulsa’s passing game as they have combined for just three receptions for 15 yards.
