For the second Friday in a row, Memphis will be on national television as they head to Oklahoma to take on the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes. The Tigers are ranked #22 in the country and have won 4 straight games. They look to get revenge on Tulsa from last year’s blowout loss and stay on top of the American Athletic Conference West division. Kickoff inside Chapman Stadium is at 8 PM ET and the game will be televised on ESPN 2.
Since 2005, Tulsa has posted a 5-2 record against Memphis including last year’s 59-30 victory.
Memphis (7-1, 4-1 AAC) beat up on Tulane last week and got back to their explosive ways 56-26. The Tigers are slowly climbing up the Top 25 rankings and an inevitable rematch against the UCF Knights who are undefeated, handed Memphis their only loss, and are currently ranked 15th in the nation.
Tulsa (2-7, 1-4 AAC) is coming into this matchup having lost 2 straight games and dropping to 1-4 in the AAC. Although they have a high scoring offense, Tulsa has one of the worst defenses in the nation, which doesn’t bode well for the Golden Hurricanes as they take on the explosive Memphis Tigers. Can Tulsa pull off the upset and win a second consecutive game against Memphis?
The spread opened with Tulsa getting 14 points, but it currently sits at 12 points. The Over/Under opened at 79 points and has come down to 78.5 total points.
In conference play, Memphis has outscored their opponents 211 to 162, while Tulsa has been outscored 142 to 168. Despite Tulsa’s losing record and poor conference play, they do play tougher at home with a 2-2 record. But, this week, it’s not going to matter much as the Memphis Tigers are not overlooking Tulsa this week. In fact, I expect Memphis to come out and put up at least 50 points on Tulsa as they keep moving up the rankings.
Tulsa’s defense gives up 37.7 points per game and over 550 total yards per game. They are equally bad in the pass game as they are in the run game. Tulsa gives up 270 pass yards per game and 279 rushing yards per game. This week, Memphis will light up the Golden Hurricanes with an excellent passing attack that features Riley Ferguson.
Ferguson averages 329 passing yards per game and leads this Memphis offense to 500 total ypg and 42.5 points per game. Ferguson has 23 passing touch downs to 7 interceptions, but is starting to heat up again. I expect Ferguson and his favorite target Anthony Miller to torch this terrible Tulsa defense. Miller has 61 receptions for 859 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns on the season. He will easily go over 100 yards this week and have at least 1 touchdown. I can see Riley going over the 400 mark and 4 touchdowns in this game.
Despite the Tigers having a bad defense, it’s still not as bad as Tulsa’s and it won’t give up more than their season average of 33 ppg to Tulsa this week. Look for Memphis and Tulsa to shoot it out for a half before Memphis starts pulling away. I see the Tigers, led by Riley Ferguson, winning this won 49-31 and getting revenge for last year’s loss.
Memphis is 6-2 ATS in their last 8 games when they are a favorite of 10.5 to 21 points. They are 4-1 ATS when playing a team with a losing record, 3-0-1 ATS in their last 4 AAC games, and 4-0 ATS in their last 4 Friday night games. The Road Team is 6-0 ATS in their last 6 head-to-head meetings. Tulsa is 2-4 ATS in their last 6 games.