Tulsa Football Opens Season Tonight at 6 PM

Saturday, September 1

H.A. Chapman Stadium

6:00 PM

Tulsa

Central Arkansas

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Photo by: Brett Rojo

Tulsa Football Opens Season Tonight at 6 PM

8/31/2018 6:30:00 AM | Football

WEAR WHITE ON SATURDAY!

Join us to Honor our Local Communities Police, Fire and EMS Professionals on For Our City / Hometown Heroes Game

GAME 1: TULSA (0-0, 0-0 American) vs. UCA (0-0, 0-0 Southland)
Date/Time:	Saturday, September 1, 6:05 p.m. (CT)
Site:	Tulsa, Okla.
Stadium:	Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium (30,000)
Coaches:	TULSA – Philip Montgomery (Tarleton State '95), 4th year UCA – Nathan Brown (UCA '09), 1st year
TV:	ESPN3
Talent:	Trey Bender (pxp), Watson Brown (analyst)
Tickets:	To purchase tickets, click here
Gameday Guide:	For gameday guide, click here
Radio:	Big Country 99.5 FM or Online
Talent:	Bruce Howard (pxp), Rick Couri (analyst), Jeremie Poplin (sidelines)
Live Stats:	Live Stats
Series:	Tulsa leads 2-0-0
First Meeting:	Tulsa 62, UCA 34 (Sept. 27, 2008), Tulsa, Okla.
Last Meeting:	Tulsa 41, UCA 41 (Sept. 25, 2010), Tulsa, Okla.
Game Notes:	Tulsa \| UCA \| American Athletic Conference

Tulsa kicks off the 2018 season tonight in a 6:00 p.m. home game against the UCA Bears, traveling nearly four hours from Conway, Arkansas to take on the Hurricane for the third time in the last 11 years. UCA comes into the season ranked 15^thnationally in the FCS national poll.

"We're really excited to get started. We've waited a long time to get on the field. We've been talking about it, planning for it, working for it, and now we can feel the intensity and the excitement about opening the season," said Montgomery.

Montgomery is hoping for a stadium filled with fans cheering on the Golden Hurricane Saturday night on For Our City / Hometown Heroes Night. Fans can still purchase tickets online at TulsaHurricane.com or call 918.631.GoTU (4688). Fans can purchase tickets at th TU Reynolds Center Athletic Ticket Office until 3 pm today, and then again at 4:30 p.m. at any of the four corner gates (cash only). Gates open at 4:30 p.m.

50468 — Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery urges fans to turn-out and cheer on the Hurricane Saturday night.

"We have guys that want to represent our community, guys that have worked extremely hard to represent our community, and want to represent it the right way," said Montgomery. "We're going to keep you on the edge of your seat. We're going to play an exciting brand of football and guys will be laying it on the line each and every play. The fans can make such a huge different for the home team. They can bring you back, cheer you on, raise the level and make it difficult for the opposition. We need our fans help."

There have been many FCS over FBS upsets in recent years and this UCA team is not one to take lightly.

Tulsa's opponent posted a 10-2 record last year, winning the Southland Conference with a perfect 9-0 mark, and advancing to the FCS Playoffs. UCA is an extremely talented and well-coached group, one that is coached by Nathan Brown, who in the first meeting between the two schools in 2008 threw for over 300 yards and 4 TDs for the Bears in Tulsa's 62-34 victory.

"This team here, UCA, is very, very talented. They have a ton of guys coming back on defense, a defense ranked number 2 in its conference and pretty high nationally. They won 10 games last year. They have a lot of weapons on offense," said Montgomery. "We know we have our hands full with UCA. This is not a team you can overlook. This is a team you just better lineup and be ready to play because they're very physical, they fly to the football and are very well coached."

Tulsa's offense will have its hands full against one of the FCS' top defensive teams last year.

UCA's defense held five opponents to less than 55 yards rushing, including game totals of 25, 26, 41, 44 and 52 rushing yards. The Bears ranked second in the Southland last season in scoring defense (17.5 ppg), rushing defense (108.8 ypg) and total defense (318.8 ypg).

Senior defensive tackle Eric Jackson and junior Chris Terrell make up one of the FCS's top pass rushing tandems in the nation. The duo combined for an outstanding 38.5 tackles for loss and 22 sacks in 2017. The linebacker corps lost the Southland's Defensive Player of the Year George Odum, but two starters return including senior Raphael Garner and junior Roy Sutton.

The secondary loses Kansas City Chiefs draft pick Tremon Smith at cornerback, but the cupboard was not left bare as junior safety Juan Jackson was UCA's second-leading tackler in 2017 with 82 stops.

It was just days ago that Philip Montgomery announced his starting quarterback for Saturday's season opener, as sophomore Luke Skipper gets the nod for the Golden Hurricane. In seven games last year, Skipper threw for 163 yards per game, including 19 of his 71 completions over 20 yards and seven passes over 50 yards.

Skipper will have a more experienced receiving corps in 2018, led by senior Justin Hobbs, who comes into the season with over 2,000 career yards after catching a team-high 55 passes for 830 yards and three TDs last year. Junior Keenen Johnson with 539 yards and sophomores Josh Stewart with 162 yards and Keylon Stokes with 143 yards gained valuable experience last year.

The Tulsa rushing attack loses the school's all-time leading rusher, D'Angelo Brewer, but sophomore Shamari Brooks leads a balanced crew of running backs. In nine games a year ago, Brooks set the school's true freshman rushing record with 687 yards and 10 TDs. Fellow sophomore Corey Taylor II, who played in only the first two games last year due to injury, and junior Javon Thomas, who missed the 2017 season, have had solid preseason camps.

Tulsa's offensive front returns three seniors, who have combined to start 98 games. All-conference center Chandler Miller has started all 38 games since starting his first game of his red-shirt freshman season, while tackle Willie Wright has started 35 games and guard Tyler Bowling has started 24 consecutive contests.

The Bears' offense has been consistently prolific during their time in the Southland, averaging 4,938 yards per season since joining the league in 2006. The high was 5,584 last season with 268.8 yards passing and 196.6 yards on the ground. UCA topped 5,000 yards of total offense six times, including four of the past five years.

UCA returns one of the top running back corps in all of FCS football, as Carlos Blackman and Kierre Crossley combined for 1,550 rushing yards and 13 TDs last year.

Sophomore Breylin Smith appears to have won the job at quarterback, replacing record-setting signal-caller Hayden Hildebrand. Smith will have numerous targets in the likes of Lester Wells, Jakari Dillard and Brandon Myers as the trio combined for nearly 1,000 receiving yards and nine TDs.

The offensive line, not a senior among them, is big with each of the five tipping the scales at over 300 pounds and averaging 311 pounds combined.

The Golden Hurricane defense will have to be much better in 2018. An injury-plagued Tulsa defense gave up 528.9 yards and 37.5 points a year ago. The Hurricane 'D' will have to be a cohesive group in 2018, and one that gets off the field on third down and eliminates explosive plays.

Safety McKinley Whitfield leads the Tulsa defense after totaling a team-leading 113 tackles last year. Fellwo safeties Manny Bunch and Jordan Mitchell return from ACL injuries last year to bolster the back-end of the Tulsa defense.

Linebackers Cooper Edmiston, with 106 tackles last year, and Diamon Cannon, who totaled 60 stops, are returning starters at linebacker, while fellow junior Robert Revels III holds down the third starting spot at linebacker.

Tulsa's front four is comprised of two new starters on the outside – senior Myles Mouton and junior Trevis Gipson. The duo each saw valuable playing time last year and have shown in the preseason that they can be nemesis at the end positions for the Hurricane. Two 300-pounders, Shemarr Robinson and Tyarise Stevenson, man the interior positions for Tulsa.

The first 1,000 fans will receive a WHITE-OUT T-shirt, 2,000 DE-FENSE signs will be handed out and fans will be entertained by a post-game fireworks show.