Talk about two teams going in opposite directions. Yes it is true we had experienced a few bumps in the road leading up to the home contest against the hapless SMU Mustangs but calling SMU hapless was actually an understatement. We scored early, quickly, and often. On defense we did not allow them to move the ball at all. We crushed UConn the previous year 62 - 7 but other than that, I can't think of a game that we so totally dominated in all facets of the game. On a personal note I sat next to a pretty big guy during the first half of the game and I could not help notice the large ring he was wearing on his finger. It turns out that big guy was Jordan McCray and he was very cordial to me. I thanked him for the part he played in the success of the greatest season in Knight football history. I told him that I noticed his ring and kind of figured out who he was (I was 90% certain that it was him and not his brother Justin who plays for the Tennessee Titans). He let me off the hook and introduced himself as Jordan McCray and then proceeded to take off his ring and very graciously allowed me to get a closer look at it. (This is not my photo but this is what the ring looked like). Thank you very much Jordan that was a very special gesture - your parents obviously raised you right.
Back to the game, it was a very wet game that day and the crowd size was a little disappointing, but I guess given the lack of competition that day i suppose many chose not to show up? - Slackers! As expected we took our foot off the gas pedal in the second half (on offense anyway). The defense was just short of a shutout but that's alright we got to put in a group of second team players for some field time. In the end it was definitely two teams going in the opposite direction.
Tulsa had been struggling since we last met them in the Conference USA Championship game back in December of 2012. It was a combination of that struggling team and some home cooking that we needed to get the bad taste from the loss to Connecticut out of our mouths. From the beginning and all the way through to the end this game was never in doubt. Defensively we shut down their passing game completely. Offensively we did not have a complete game in that we had difficulty scoring in both the first and last quarter. The two quarters in between though were a different story with our offense moving the ball easily up and down the field and scoring almost all of our points. The weather was beautiful that Knight although more on the chilly side than I was expecting. I wore shorts to the game and spent most of the time regretting that decision. It was just a little too breezy to leave the long pants in the tailgate-mobile. Actually since this was a Friday Knight game, time did not permit us to take advantage of the usual tailgate but we did take some time to walk around campus prior to kickoff. I thought the early evening tailgating scene was actually pretty nice with several setups having some light effects. Overall it was a good game for the team to get back in the win column and move ahead with the rest of the season.
