Scouting the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, This Weekend's Tulane Opponent
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The Tulane Green Wave and the Golden Hurricane play this Saturday, September 27 in a game that will be broadcast on ESPNU starting at 3:00 p.m. CDT from Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium. It is the American Athletic Conference opener for the Wave, who comes in at 3-1 on the season. Tulane's lone loss came against 13th ranked Ole Miss on September 20, 45-10.
The 2-2 Hurricane, led by first year coach Tre Lamb, have already played a conference game, falling to Navy on September 13 in Annapolis, 42-23. Their other loss came at the hands of Conference USA's New Mexico State, 21-14. Tulsa claimed one of their biggest victories in almost three-quarters of a century, as the Golden Hurricane beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater last weekend, 19.12. It's the first time Tulsa beat Okie St there since 1951.
Tulsa Offense
The Golden Hurricane come close to splitting the difference on offense, running 49% of the time and tossing the football 51% of their possessions. When Tulsa gets into the red zone, their are deadly, scoring 80% of the time.
Rushing | Passing |
|---|---|
188.8 YPG | 218 YPG |
Tulsa's Running Game
The rushing game is led by 6-foot, 210-lb Oklahoma State transfer Dominic Richardson. The redshirt senior is averaging 110.5 yards per game, topping 146-yards against the Cowboys last weekend. Look for redshirt junior, Ajay Allen to carry the rock. He averages 5.7 YPC in his 20 attempts. Braylin Presley has carried the ball 17 times for 131 yards in his four games.
The Hurricane's Passing
Redshirt freshman quarterback Baylor Hayes has established himself as the Tulsa starter. He has completed 59 of his 90 passes for a 65.6% rate of completions. He has 542 yards in the three games he has played. Redshirt sophomore Kirk Francis could also see some action, going 33 of 54 in attempts for 318 yards.
Tulsa Defense
Teams have piled on big yardage on the Golden Hurricane D this year, averaging 353.8 yards per game against Tulsa, again pretty much splitting the difference. The Golden Hurricane is also allowing opposing teams to be successful on 3rd down almost 44% of the time.
Rushing Defense | Passing Defense |
|---|---|
177.8 YPG | 176 YPG |
The guy to watch defensively for Tulsa is Junior linebacker Ray Coney. Transferring from ETSU where he played for now Tulsa head coach Lamb, #0 leads the team in solo tackles with 19, assists with 30 for a total of 49 tackles, almost doubling the nearest Hurricane defender.
Hurricane Special Teams
Punter Angus Davies has a leg. He's hit an 80-yarder this year and is averaging 44.3 yards per punt in his 15 attempts.
Kicker Seth Morgan has hit 7 of his 9 field goal attempts, missing once between 40-49 yards and once beyond 50. His longest for this year is 47-yards.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.