Tulsa Golden Hurricane Blows Away Sam Houston State

Originally Published: Sep 26, 2009 9:44 PM CDT

Andrew Topps
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

TULSA, Oklahoma -- New Uniforms, new mascot and a whole lot of points made Tulsa’s home opener at H.A. Chapman Stadium nothing less than spectacular.

G.J. Kinne threw four touchdown passes, all in the first half, in the Golden Hurricane's 56-3 rout of FCS Sam Houston State. The sophomore amassed 264 yards through the air and 58 more on the ground.The Texas nativeplayed just one series in the second half.Kinne connected with Trae Johnson for two scores (34, 16), and hit Slick Shelley (30) and Damaris Johnson (63) for two more touchdowns in the first quarter.

Tulsa held the ball six minutes less than the Bearkats, but kept Sam Houston State to 100 yards passing while out gaining the ‘Kats 516-241.

"I feel really good. We've played well three games," coach Todd Graham said. "How good of a team did we play today? Not a very good team. We're 3-1 going on the road. We got a good football team."

Kinne opened the game bythrowing touchdown passes on consecutive drives. The Golden Hurricane offense blew away last week’s shutout loss toOU in dramatic fashion, taking a 35-3 lead into the half. Tulsa racked up 102 of its 149 first quarter yards through the air.

Charles Opeseyitan found the end zone from two yards out in the first quarter. A.J. Whitmore, Jacob Bower and Willie Carter also got into the end zone on the ground in the third quarter.

"It was great to get it going," Carter said. "We've been struggling with it all year. But today, we found we could get the ground game going. We'll just go off today."
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Miguel Antonio’s 25-yard field goal in the first quarter was all the points Sam Houston State could muster.

TU improves to 3-1 overall and 1-0 in Conference USA. The Golden Hurricane jump back into C-USA play at Rice onOctober 3.