East Carolina at Tulsa

At the beginning of the year it looked as though this East Carolina team was going to be special. They had back-to-back eye-opening upsets over Virginia Tech, who's playing in the ACC Championship game, and West Virginia. It got them into the top 25, but it was all downhill from there. The injuries started cropping up, and this team began to lose games and  their swagger in the process. What was a 3-0 start and national ranking fell to 5-4 in their last nine games, and they needed OT to win two of the five. Tulsa has the top offense in the country averaging 579 yards and 49.3 points per game. QB David Johnson has thrown 42 TD passes for 3,671 yards. The Golden Hurricanes feature four players that have caught seven or more TDs on the season, so they have truly been impossible to defend. The Tulsa defense doesn't look that good, because the offense usually strikes quickly, and leaves the defense on the field for extended periods. The Golden Hurricane defense has 36 sacks on the season. The bottom line here is that the Hurricanes have too many options on offense and the Pirates don't enough firepower to strike back. The eventuality of this one is that the Pirates are going to wear out chasing this Tulsa offense. I see them winning going away and will play Tulsa here.