By Sofia Wright — Staff Writer
San Jose State football has not started a season 2-0 since 1987, and it couldn’t change that fact Saturday night.
SJSU (1-1) lost to Tulsa (1-1) 34-16 Saturday night at CEFCU Stadium. Tulsa had just come off a 28-7 loss to Michigan State.
The Spartans were able to keep the game close early, but the Golden Hurricane would wreak havoc by keeping the ball on the ground.
Last week Tulsa’s Shamari Brooks and Corey Taylor II had 13 carries for minus-1 yard against MSU. Saturday, Tulsa’s five rushers had a combined 53 carries for 256 yards.
By the end of the game, Tulsa had averaged 4.7 yards a carry; where 140 rushing yards belonged to Brooks.
“Just too many missed opportunities,” said head coach Brent Brennan. “We knew Tulsa was going to be a big physical talented team.”
Tulsa had 12 penalties totaling for 105 yards, along with a dropped pick by cornerback Nehemiah Shelton.
There was an obvious shift in the game after half. The first half saw only one punt, but in the third quarter alone Tulsa and SJSU combined for six.
“[We were] shooting ourselves in the foot,” Josh Love said about having to punt four times in the third quarter. “But you know we just got to keep sticking to the game plan and just executing what we know and what we can do.”
After being down 7-3 in the first quarter, the Spartans were still in the game fighting to keep it close. At half, Tulsa was only up by a touchdown.
It wasn’t until the third quarter that the Golden Hurricane began to pull away. Making great use of their possessions, Tulsa scored on six of its 10 drives.
The Golden Hurricane offense played smash mouth football.
This was shown throughout, but especially through their opening drive that lasted over seven minutes. Tulsa’s long drives, made possible by their running game, wore down the Spartans.
SJSU’s defense was unable to get off the field as it only forced Tulsa to punt twice the whole game.
Tulsa was able to convert 9 of 16 third downs, and was two of two on fourth down.
“Their backs ran really hard,” said defensive linemen Cade Hall. “I think it was more about us not doing our job. We had some hiccups here and there, gave up a lot of big plays and we have a lot of stuff to fix.”
Even with troubles on both sides of the ball, the Spartans scored in the fourth quarter cutting Tula’s lead to 18.
Instead of going for the PAT the Spartans went for two, which proved unsuccessful.
However, SJSU successfully executed the onside kick with over two minutes left in the game, but sealed their fate with a fumble just plays later.
The Spartan offense went down silently as Love completed 16/30 passes for 189 yards and one touchdown.
Tulsa’s running game proved too much for SJSU, yet they had a chance early in the game.
The Spartans have a bye next week and look to fix the persisting kinks of a troubled run defense. They will take on the Razorbacks in Arkansas on September 21.
Follow Sofia on Twitter @sofiagwright