Tulsa’s Bill Blankenship is Coaching for His Job

Tulsa lost its third straight game last Saturday, falling to Texas State at home in triple-overtime—overtime was much kinder to the Golden Hurricane the last time they played beyond regulation, defeating Tulane 38-31 in double-overtime in Week 1.

As each week passes and the schedule becomes more vigorous, Tulsa’s lone victory on the 2014 slate continues to float farther and farther from memory.

Week 1 gave Tulsa fans nothing but positives (well, mostly). The defense gave up over 500 yards to Tulane, but its deficiencies were masked by the explosive Golden Hurricane offense that fell eight yards short of accumulating 600 yards.

Two blowout losses followed by an overtime loss where the inept Tulsa pass defense had Texas State on the verge of attempting a field goal to try for a fourth OT, until the Bobcats, unsurprisingly, connected on a 24-yard pass on 3rd-and-11 that set up the 2-yard game winning score, are all Tulsa fans currently remember about this team.

Tulsa makes the trip to Fort Collins, Colorado, on Saturday to play the 4-1 Colorado State Rams. The Golden Hurricane battle the Temple Owls, who are No. 3 in AAC Football Fever‘s conference power rankings, in Philadelphia the following Saturday.

Tulsa is staring at a 1-5 start unless it becomes drastically more improved over the next couple weeks, and coach Bill Blankenship is staring at the end of the line as head coach of his alma mater.

Blankenship is 23-20 after Saturday’s loss at home to Texas State; a far cry from the 53-26 record Tulsa garnered from 2005-2010 when Steve Kragthorpe and, in 2007, Todd Graham lead the team in Conference USA. Blankenship’s C-USA championship in 2012 might hold more weight on his list of accomplishments if the Golden Hurricane weren’t transitioning to a new and improved conference. Conference USA championships no longer matter to the Tulsa faithful; AAC titles do.

Kelly Hines, the Golden Hurricane beat writer for Tulsa World, wrote an article illustrating just how far, statistically, Tulsa has fallen since the 2012 season. The Golden Hurricane are 4-12 since it won the C-USA in 2012.

Here are the eye-opening stats from her piece:

Points scored per game

2012: 34.7 points

2013-14: 22.1 points

Points allowed per game

2012: 23.6 points

2013-14: 36.1 points

First-quarter scoring

2012: 9.5 points per game

2013-14: 4.3 points per game

Sack margin

2012: Plus-44

2013-14: Plus-15

Turnover margin

2012: Plus-4

2013-14: Minus-17

The fact that most of these statistics stem from games that were played against C-USA opponents shows Tulsa began spiraling before it entered the American Athletic Conference.

In 2011, Texas A&M fired respected head coach Mike Sherman after leading the Aggies to a disappointing 7-6 injury-riddled season. He was only a year removed from back-to-back nine-win campaigns. He was replaced with the younger up-and-coming Kevin Sumlin because they believed they needed new, fresh leadership at the helm as the school moved from the Big 12 to the country’s top football conference, the SEC.

Blankenship has already moved with Tulsa to the AAC, but maybe TU Athletic Director Derrick Grags should consider hiring a new face for the Golden Hurricane if 2014 ends with nine or more losses.

New leadership is sometimes all that is needed to right the ship. Just ask the Aggies.