Hope everyone got off Fresno last night after it was announced their starting QB and star WR would not play...
TONIGHT'S SELECTION: Oklahoma -36 over TULSA
A season of high expectations begins for third-ranked Oklahoma when it visits intrastate rival Tulsa. Picked as the top team in the country by Sports Illustrated and other various publications, the Sooners feature a swarming defense in which speed is the key element. The concern is on offense, which stalled last season and kept the Sooners from a shot at a second straight national title. Jason White won the quarterback battle with Nate Hybl and will be under center to operate the offense that will feature a few new twists this year. While the offense did struggle at times last year, it seemed to be just fine when playing The Hurricane as the Sooners smoked Tulsa 58-0.
Tulsa lost its final 10 games last season after a season-opening win and had an anemic offense that averaged just 17.4 points per game. Coach Keith Burns changed offensive coordinators in the offseason and brought in Dan Lounsbury, who was quarterbacks coach at Texas Christian last season. The quarterback is Tyler Gooch, who took his lumps as a freshman last season but had a pair of 100-yard rushing games. The 'Cane should be a very improved team as the season progresses but we don't expect any improvement to be apparent in this game.
Oklahoma special teams could account for some points on their own as Stoops stresses this part of the game and will dominate the over-matched Tulsa crew in this area as well. As we have seen already this young season squads with strong special teams do very well, especially early in the year. Nebraska and Virginia Tech have a couple of the best special teams units in the nation and scored touchdowns last week in their "pre-season" SU and ATS wins.
The Sooners may well hold back some offensive schemes in anticipation of playing Alabama next week, but this proud defense will not give up anything to anyone, so we don’t expect the defensive coaches to play too vanilla. Being an in-state game, we expect head Sooner Bob Stoops to let his ponies run. In addition to the 58-0 pasting of Tulsa in Norman last year, the Sooners dismantled The Hurricane last time they met in Tulsa. When the smoke cleared that day in 1987, Oklahoma had obliterated them 65-0. The Sooners will want to start this year strong to validate their high ranking, as they have a history of fast starts away from home, going 14-7 ATS in road openers, including a perfect 3-0 ATS under Stoops. Meanwhile, Tulsa is just 3-6 in their last 9 lined homed openers.
This point spread is certainly a large number but Oklahoma has been up to the task before, beating Baylor 56-7 as a 39-pt fave in 2000, and, of course, the home 58-0 cover over Tulsa last year as a 41-point chalk. Other numbers foretell of a Sooner cover as Okalahoma is 17-5 ATS when allowing 14 points or less. This creates a powerful dichotomy as Tulsa is a horrid 2-24-2 ATS when scoring 14 points or less. In addition to those sad numbers, the 'Cane is 5-42 ATS in SU losses and 3-32 ATS when allowing 30+ points. This one should get out of hand quickly, giving Tulsa reason to throw in the towel and look ahead to a beatable opponent (Arkansas State) next week, while the Sooners pour it on.
FINAL SCORE: OKLAHOMA 53 TULSA 0