By: Brandon Shively
Tulsa returns 17 starters this season, including 10 on offense which is good news for 1st year coach Phillip Montgomery. Montgomery is best known as being the offensive coordinator that led Baylor's high octane offense finishing in the Top 4 in total offense the past four seasons. I think Montgomery will turn this program around that won a conference championship in 2012, but is off back-to-back losing season. He brings with him Receivers, Running Backs, and Special Teams coaches from Baylor also. He also brings in Co-Offensive Coordinators from Bowling Green who led the MAC in total yards last year. Before that, these two guys led Eastern Illinois in points per game.
Needless to say, this offense has HUGE potential this season and I will be looking to play on Tulsa when the situation is prime and will ALSO be looking to go OVER the TOTAL more often than not. Montgomery displayed the up-tempo offense this spring and QB Evans looked like he was grasping the offense. Evans has playmakers at receiver and running back and an O-line that returns 4 starters (70 career starts). The biggest issue will be tightening up a defense that got shredded last year. My thought is that this defense can only get better and it will start with a more experienced defensive line. After giving up 489 yards a game last season, I'll almost guarantee that won't happen this season. Montgomery brought Brian Norwood with him from Baylor and he will be the Co-Defensive Coordinator along with Bill Young who was with Tulsa in the early 80's. Young has experience coordinating defenses at Ohio State, Oklahoma, USC, and Oklahoma State so this guy has plenty of experience. Norwood also was guided under Joe Paterno so I think it's safe to say that this Tulsa defense will improve dramatically. I think that Tulsa has done a great job with getting the right coaches for this program.
Tulsa should start off the season going 2-0 with a home game vs. Fla. Atlantic and then a road game at New Mexico. They play a home game on October 10th vs. UL-Monroe which should be another win. In conference play, they play Memphis, who they have had success in the past and I expect to be 'down' this year. The Tigers only return 3 starters on defense and Tulsa should shred this young defense. Another win will be when they close out the regular season vs. Tulane as Tulsa leads the series 9-2 and have beaten Tulane easily the majority of the time.
I just mentioned 5 wins, but there are a few more winnable games to get them bowl eligible. There are 3 home games (vs. Houston, UCF, and Navy) that I really think Tulsa finds a way to win two of these games. They catch a down UCF team that only returns 9 starters and a Navy team that only returns 11 starters. Tulsa has a much more experienced team this season than many of their opponents and I think they use it to their advantage. I think their offense might be the highest scoring outside of the Power 5 conferences. The defense will be better with more experienced players and coaches. Revenge will be a factor for much of the season and I look for the Tulsa Hurricane to go OVER 5 wins in 2015.
Prediction: Tulsa Hurricane OVER 5 wins (-105)
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