Head Coach: Tre Lamb is in his 1st season as the head coach of the Golden Hurricane. He joins the program after a season at East Tennessee State where he led the Buccaneers to a 7-5 record, before that he was at Gardner-Webb and led the Bulldogs to their first 2 appearances in the FCS playoffs, including a win in 2022. Lamb is also a former Tennessee Tech QB and an extremely energetic leader, his campaign this offseason has centered around the Golden Hurricane program being “Tulsa’s team.”
Program Outlook: Tulsa is in a unique situation. They have the smallest enrollment in FBS, and very limited resources as a whole. There’s very few football only facilities, not even an indoor practice facility, but somehow more often than not the Golden Hurricane get it done. At a minimum, they typically expect to make bowl games and sometimes they win big. Even recently Tulsa finished ranked in the top 25 in 2020 and have 5 10+ win seasons since 2007. Let’s also not forget, this is a program that holds a 1-0 record over Notre Dame! They’ve fallen on tougher times recently but we know the right hire can get this program back to winning once again.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: There’s not a ton returning as you can expect with a coaching change, Tulsa ranks 85th in the country returning 51% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players for the Golden Hurricane starts with QB Kirk Francis, he’s shown some promise at times and appears established as the starter, Lamb’s past teams have often had a running QB so Francis will be a differentiation from that. He will have some nice targets to throw to Zion Booker is an explosive receiver who came in from Western Carolina, Mekhi Miller will get the tough yards and if Texas A&M transfer Micah Tease comes on it would be a massive bonus. They have a nice stable of backs too, Viron Ellison Jr. is a solid back that returns and he’s joined by 2023 Myrtle Beach Bowl star Rickey Hunt Jr. from Ohio. Senior linebacker Chris Thompson will lead the defense, and ETSU transfer Ray Coney could be a great running mate next to him, he was everything to ETSU’s defense last year. DT Tai Newhouse is good on the inside but otherwise the defense has a lot of question marks. The good news might be that the pass defense has literally nowhere to go but up, they ranked dead last in that category last year. Can Florida State transfer Byron Turner Jr help take pressure off the secondary? He was a highly touted recruit that hasn’t panned out at this point but maybe he could emerge to be a leader here. The offense as mentioned before has a lot of weapons but how far they will go will be determined by an offensive line that’s basically a new group.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: The schedule is pretty tough. Tulsa’s non-conference schedule opens with Abilene Christian a FCS team that was really good and reached the playoffs last year, they might be rebuilding this year but I’d still recommend Tulsa to be careful with this one. The game at New Mexico State will be critical for both teams. Then Tulsa wraps up their non-conference slate with two OSUs. They have the Turnpike Classic at Oklahoma State which will be tough and then there’s a mid-November home game against Oregon State that is really awesome but also delightfully random especially because they have never played before. Tulsa’s AAC schedule is challenging, they get 5 contenders and only 3 programs that are in a similar position to them. This schedule will make stacking wins difficult but there’s at least some winnable games on here.
Final Thoughts: There’s already a new energy around Tulsa’s program this offseason and that’s great to see. This revamped coaching staff has some good ideas to help get this program back to its winning ways. It may not happen right away, the schedule will make it difficult but the future looks great for Tulsa. Improving upon last year’s -6 turnover margin could help the Golden Hurricane adds some wins in 2025.
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