Why BYU will win Part III: Tulsa

With a busy weekend in recruiting, it's time to catch up with our weekly edition of fan breakdowns and my response. Thanks to the BYU, and opponents, fans who have also been responding. Hopefully this site is facilitating at least some constructive debate during the long off-season. This time I will turn my attention first to reasons that Rippin said Tulsa would win:

-At Tulsa:

I'm going to argue little to no factor. BYU will have played at home (65k) and at the Rose Bowl (65k.) I can understand Tulsa may be excited about football this year, but they only averaged around 21k last year, only a couple thousand more than showed up to BYU's spring game.

-Malzhan's offense:

The one that ran all year long at Arkansas and drove Mustain and some other recruits to other schools? Another team implementing a new offense that underestimates the difficulty of doing it. Paul Smith, while pretty good, needs his receivers to be up to the task.

-TU's Defense:

Unless the team learned how to tackle in the off season, this point is moot. With a #62 run defense and a #43 scoring defense, this is hard to call a strength. Vakapuna and Tonga two big bruising backs and will romp all over the field again. Also, who knows the weaknesses of the 3-3-5 better than Bronco?

-The Ground Game

Another shaky point. No running back on Tulsa gained more than 25 yards total against BYU or better than 2.9 yards per carry. Curtis Brown alone carried for 29 yards more and BYU had 3 running backs with better than 6 yards per carry (including Vakapuna's phenomenal 8.9 ypc.)

-Revenge

Probably the best point. If BYU loses to UCLA they may suffer a down game while Tulsa will most likely be at their peak. They start off with a gimme game and have two weeks to prepare.

Now....

Why BYU will repeat last year's manhandling

Truth be told, BYU should be able to dominate Tulsa again. If Fui Vakapuna and Manase Tonga are both at full strength they will pull, drag, stiff-arm and make Tulsa's defense look silly. This will be the first non-BCS defense they face (Arizona and UCLA's defense are their strength's) and BYU will pull away quickly. Hall will have 2 games under his belt and be close to full-swing by the time he arrives in Tulsa. If BYU can keep its one-game-at-a-time focus from last season, BYU should win by several touchdowns. Expect to see the debut of Gaskins in the 4th quarter.

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