Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson
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| | Matt Pearce/Icon SMI |
| | Todd Graham's Golden Hurricane have scored 56 or more points in five of their seven wins. |
Tulsa coach Todd Graham isn't going to apologize for some of the scores his team has put up this season.
The undefeated Golden Hurricane have scored 56 or more points in five of their seven wins. Two of those games have been in the 60s and last week's 77-35 rout of UTEP, which was supposed to be Tulsa's best competition to date, was the final decision that pushed the Golden Hurricane into the national rankings and BCS standings.
Graham's not a guy who's trying to run up the score. At the start of the fourth quarter against UTEP, he had his backups in and rushed the ball every play.
But he knows big scores are going to get the Golden Hurricane noticed in a BCS world that's giving the bulk of the attention to the Mountain West and WAC.
"I'm not going to leave anything to chance," Graham said candidly. "I want to make sure that when people see that score, they know we dominated, if we can dominate, because I want to leave no doubt because that's important.
"I do think it's something that enters your mind. And nowadays, we're playing UTEP and they can score three touchdowns in 5 minutes. So you can't just ever let up. You've got to make sure the game's in hand, and you want to make sure that people around the country know that you're dominating."
With the exception of a 37-31 win over SMU two weeks ago, the Golden Hurricane have been dominating. They've beaten their opponents by an average of just under 30 points per game. They lead the country in total offense (624.71 ypg), scoring offense (56.57 ppg), and passing efficiency (207.77).
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| | Matt Pearce/Icon SMI |
| | Tulsa quarterback David Johnson leads the nation in total offense. |
What's even more impressive is they've done it with balance. Although senior quarterback David Johnson leads the country in total offense, the passing game (357.71 ypg) accounts for just 57 percent of the total offense. The Golden Hurricane have the seventh-best rushing offense in the country, averaging 267.00 yards.
With those kinds of numbers, it's easy to call this offense the best in the country regardless of the competition.
"I think it is," Graham said of his offense. "That's my opinion and I'm biased probably, but I think that we've put a lot of hard work and design into this thing and it's working. We're reaping the benefits of that design, and we've got good players and we've got a good system. One of the things that makes this offense so good, the reason why I would tell you that I think it's the best in the country, is the balance that we have. Last week we rushed for 300-some yards and we threw for 400-some yards. To me, it's the balance that makes this offense second to none."
It's also the pace with which it plays. Graham said his scheme is not a no-huddle offense, it's a no-huddle team. The Golden Hurricane move at a breakneck pace that tests the conditioning of their opponents.
In the first quarter, Tulsa is outscoring its opponents 94-72. But through the next three quarters, the Golden Hurricane crush their competition 302-118, including 115 points to 39 in the second quarter.
To put that in perspective, UTEP was tied with Tulsa at 28 at the end of the first quarter last week.
Graham started to see his team develop that no-huddle marathon pace last season when it defeated Bowling Green 63-7 in the GMAC Bowl. The coaches kept preaching the work ethic through the spring and summer, and now the pace that is causing opponents to fade after the first quarter is just old hat to Tulsa.
"You cannot get into the condition that we're in right now in a year," Graham said. "We're in our second year. When I was at West Virginia with Rich [Rodriguez] that's when it paid off for us. It was in year two and year three. So what I think happens during the game is that our guys go with that tempo and go fast, fast, fast and other teams just aren't used to going at that tempo. It's a great advantage for us."
Graham said although the Golden Hurricane popped into the national polls this week for the first time this season and appeared at No. 19 in the first BCS standings, they're not impressed. They're convinced they can run the table despite the fact that the schedule gets significantly more difficult beginning this weekend against Central Florida.
UCF beat Tulsa twice last season, including a 44-25 decision in the Conference USA championship, and always seem to have the perfect defensive game plan to neutralize Tulsa's quick-strike offense. Although the Knights are 2-4 overall, they played both South Florida and Miami close.
Graham said this game also presents a problem because it's on Sunday and gives the Golden Hurricane just five days to prepare for Arkansas in two weeks.
Still, with five regular season games remaining and a possible trip to the conference championship, Tulsa's goal is to go 13-0. Graham said regardless of the current rankings and the non-BCS teams in front of Tulsa, he believes a perfect record will be enough to get his team into a BCS bowl game.
"I am not worried one bit about the rankings," Graham said. "I know people speculate, but look at history. How many people went undefeated last year? None. Hawaii went undefeated in the regular season and they play in the WAC and they don't play a conference championship game and they went to a BCS bowl. I just don't believe that any team that goes 12-0, then wins their conference championship game and is 13-0, there's no way that that team's not going to play [in a BCS bowl] especially at a Conference USA school."