Finally, the University of Tulsa was able to play a home game, and they did it in exciting fashion, beating East Carolina, 34-30, Friday night at H.A. Chapman Stadium.

T.K. Wilkerson scored his second touchdown of the game on a one-yard run, with 29 seconds left on the clock, to give Tulsa the lead and the victory.

Tulsa improved to 3-1 on the season and 3-0 in American Athletic Conference play, while ECU fell to 1-4 and 1-3 in the league. It’s the first 3-game winning streak for the Hurricane since the 2016 season and continues to be Tulsa’s best start in its seven years as an AAC member.

The first half was not pretty for Tulsa, as the Golden Hurricane trailed 17-3 at halftime. However, TU turned things around in the second half, with the help of some ECU penalties and calls by the officiating crew that were reversed (or not in some cases), by the video review officials.

 “Offensively, [we] just really didn’t get anything going consistently in the first half,” said Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery after the game. “Really just needed to settle down and just play. I mean, we had things open. We just weren’t executing at a very good rate. You know, kind of got things calmed down a little bit at halftime. We come out the second half, take the first drive down, score, and I think momentum started to change a little bit, but my goodness, had to battle all the way through it.”

Tulsa quarterback Zach Smith completed 12-of-21 passes for 194 yards and two touchdowns in the second half, after only completing 7 passes for 59 yards in the first half. His totals for the game were 19-of-37 for 253 yards and two touchdowns.

Wilkerson tallied 89 yards on 18 carries with touchdown runs of 13 and one yard. Keylon Stokes led the receivers with six catches for 90 yards and a 25-yard touchdown, while Juan Carlos Santana had Tulsa’s other touchdown reception covering 39 yards.

“You know, those are the type of games that you continue to build your team on, and you know, we definitely had to battle tonight,” Montgomery said. “I can’t be more proud of our players and our coaches staying together. We got 60 minutes to play and it took all 60 minutes. Took every second of it, and again, our team, we have got great leadership. We have got guys that are going to fight for each other and battle for each other and like I said, I can’t be more proud of them.”

Tulsa will be back on the road for the fourth time this season as the Hurricane travels to Annapolis to take on the Navy Midshipmen on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. on CBSSN.

The next home game for the Golden Hurricane will be Nov. 14 against SMU, kickoff time to be announced.

AAC ADMITS ERROR

One of the biggest breaks the Golden Hurricane received on the final drive of the game, was on a fumble that was reversed by the video officials. Instead of giving the ball to the ECU, who recovered the fumble, this allowed Tulsa to continue its game winning drive. The American Athletic Conference admitted this mistake, in a statement the next morning.

 “The American Athletic Conference has acknowledged an officiating error that occurred in the fourth quarter of the Oct. 30 East Carolina-Tulsa football game,” reads a statement on the conference web site.

“With 1:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, a Tulsa ball carrier was ruled by the on-field officials to have fumbled, with the ensuing recovery by East Carolina. After further review of the play by the replay official, the ruling on the field was reversed; the replay official determined that the ball carrier had regained possession and was down, prior to East Carolina’s ultimately recovering the ball. After reviewing the video of the play, the Conference has determined that the judgment of the replay official was incorrect. The ball carrier did not regain possession of the ball, and the ruling on the field awarding the ball to East Carolina should not have been reversed. The American Athletic Conference has conducted a review of the game and has communicated its findings to East Carolina and Tulsa.”