It was an amazing comeback and a big win for the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, Saturday night at H.A. Chapman Stadium, as TU erased a 21-point deficit to come away with a 28-24 victory over the 19th-ranked SMU Mustangs.

Tulsa is now ranked No. 25 in the AP Top 25 Poll.  It’s the first time Tulsa has been in the AP poll since ending the 2010 season ranked 24th nationally.

This is Tulsa’s second win over a top-25 opponent this season, which is the first time in school history that the Golden Hurricane defeated two ranked opponents in the same season. The other being against then No. 11 UCF.

Tulsa head coach Philip Montgomery was thrilled with the way his team didn’t give up and kept on fighting back into the game.

“Obviously, they are trying to give their coach a heart attack, but the drama part of it, I mean, I just love to see the way they react to each other, the way they continue to keep playing for 60 minutes,” Montgomery said. “That’s always been a staple of our program. But as you can tell, just finding ways to win and to see guys step up and to make big plays and to continue to just battle. We didn’t start the game the way we wanted to. We spot them 21 points right there and then guys don’t get down, they don’t shrug. They just continue to keep battling and just keep chipping away at it, and you’ve got to love the mentality that they bring to the table each and every week.”

SMU jumped out to a quick 21-0 lead with 14:58 left to play in the second quarter.

Tulsa scored its first touchdown on a 20-yard pass from Zach Smith to Josh Johnson with 6:15 left in the second quarter.

SMU would score again before halftime with a Chris Naggar 45-yard field goal, and led 24-7 at halftime.

The Golden Hurricane defense did a great job shutting down the Mustang’s offense in the second half. SMU came into this game averaging 40.5 points per game.

“Obviously, our defense has played lights out all year long, and will continue to do that,” Montgomery said. “But we know they are going to get stops. They are going to make big plays. They are going to get turnovers. Those things are going to happen. They believe that they are going to make those things happen and they go out and make it work.”

With 2:51 left to play in the third, T.K. Wilkerson ran the ball into the end zone from one-yard out.

Smith threw two more touchdown passes in the fourth quarter; a 35-yard connection with Johnson, and a 4-yard pass to James Palmer, to seal the win. Smith completed 26-of-38 passes for a season-high 325 yards and three touchdowns. He is now two yards shy of 10th place on Tulsa’s career passing chart with 4,529 career yards.

Tulsa improved to 4-1 overall and is in second place in the American Athletic Conference with a 4-0 record. SMU is now 7-2, and third in the league at 4-2.

Tulsa is back in action tonight (Nov. 19) at H.A. Chapman Stadium as the Golden Hurricane hosts the Tulane Green Wave in another AAC matchup. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on ESPN.