With a 34-31 win at SMU on Saturday, to end the regular season, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane became bowl eligible, with a 6-6 record (5-3 in American Athletic Conference). Now Tulsa waits to find out in which bowl game they’ll be invited to play. SMU dropped to 8-4 overall, 4-4 in the AAC.
Tulsa battled back from a 17-point deficit, in a pouring rain storm. The Golden Hurricane rallied with 31 unanswered points to take a 31-17 lead with 13:30 to go in the fourth quarter. The Mustangs continued to attack and cut the lead to 31-24.
Tulsa’s Zack Long kicked field goals of 36 and 27 yards, with the second one coming with 4:06 left in the game, to seal the win.
However, SMU answered again with a two-yard run into the end zone by Tyler Lavine with 2:50 remaining, move the Mustangs within three points. Tulsa’s L.J. Wallace recovered the ensuing onside kick and the Golden Hurricane ran out the clock.
Tulsa quarterback Davis Brin passed for 244 yards and a touchdown to Josh Johnson, to lead the Golden Hurricane, but SMU outpaced Tulsa in total offensive yards, 405-374.
Three Tulsa players scored rushing touchdowns in the game; Anthony Watkins, Braylon Braxton, and Deneric Prince.
Tulsa’s comeback from a 17-0 deficit is the largest come-from-behind victory since an 18-point deficit last season (Oct. 3, 2020). The loss was SMU’s first at home this season.
“I’m just extremely proud of our football team through all the adversity they’ve gone through this year,” said Tulsa head coach Philip Montgomery. “Tonight, we get down 17 points, they stay tight together and keep battling and then we come back with 31 unanswered points. That’s who we are to our core as a program and a team; guys continuing to battle and continue to believe in each other. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
SMU’s Tanner Mordecai threw for 298 yards and a touchdown, set the AAC single-season record with 39 touchdowns.
The game was over shadowed a bit, or at least on the television broadcast, by the talk of SMU’s head coach Sonny Dykes being headed for the coaching job at TCU. According to several reports, Dykes will join the Horned Frogs after five years as coach at SMU, where he led the Mustangs to a 30-17 record including the program’s first 10-win season since 1983.
MABEE SELLOUT
Last Friday, the ORU Golden Eagles hosted the Oklahoma State Cowboys in an intrastate basketball matchup, and ORU officials announced it was officially a sellout crowd. It was the first time the Mabee Center was sold out for a home game since 1997; the last time ORU hosted the Cowboys.
On top of that, it was an extremely exciting game, as OSU narrowly won 78-77, in overtime.
As an ORU alum and longtime supporter of ORU basketball, it was great seeing such a huge crowd in the newly remodeled Mabee Center, even if half the folks there were wearing orange and cheering for the Cowboys.
It was also great to see a couple former ORU head coaches back in the building, Scott Sutton and Barry Hinson, even if they were on the OSU bench.
Hinson spent several minutes chatting with me before the game. He said he was thrilled to be an assistant coach at his alma mater at this stage of his career.
“I’m home, and it’s a dream to be working at OSU,” Hinson told me. “I’m done. I don’t want to go anywhere else at my age. I’d like to just stay here until I retire.”
Hinson still has family in Tulsa, so he said living in Stillwater makes it easy for him and his wife to visit often, or for his children and grandchildren to make the short drive down the Cimmaron Turnpike.
“Angie gets over here more often than I do, but our daughters and grand kids come to Stillwater quite a bit, so that makes it nice,” Hinson said.
As I’ve said before, with the number of ORU alumnus who live in the area, it sure would be nice to see a mostly full Mabee Center for a lot more games, than just once every couple decades.