TU Football Set To Kick Off New Era

It's a new era at TU as American Conference play starts Thursday against Tulane. The Golden Hurricane would like nothing more than to get rid of the 3-9 taste of last year along with a preseason pick of last place. So to get the program back on track, they say Thursday night is a must win.

"It is a very big game, Tulsa coach Bill Blankenship said. “We know we can't hide from our record a year ago. We can't hide from what we felt about it and what other people felt about it. But all we can do is go out and do our best."

"There's a lot of maturity with the team and a lot of focus with the team,” defensive back Michael Mudoh said. “This home opener we definitely have a better team."

At least there's precedent for TU. In the last decade, all three coaches had blips in their TU careers. Steve Kragthorpe had 2004, Todd Graham had 2009. Both went to bowl games the next year. Blankenship hopes to do the same.

"I think that's the nature of college football,” Blankenship said. “I think that's what we've tried to do coming out of our offseason is to really be very diligent about locking down about the things that we really had left hanging last year."

But for a turn-around season, at least TU is starting 1 and 0, sort of.

"Coach (Denver) Johnson said up until now, we've won August,” Dane Evans said. “So we just need to keep our winning ways up and keep Tulane on the brain."