We're going to go out on a limb here and say that playing West Virginia ISN'T going to be the same as playing SW Missouri or even Oklahoma State. We expect Tulsa to have good success against our secondary and maybe even break a run or two when they catch us in the wrong coverage. But overall we think the Mountaineers will provide a much stronger challenge than what they have seen in the first two games.

     With that in mind, it seems imperitive that Tulsa lights up the scoreboard early and often. Their offense will give the Mountaineers fits in the early goings. They need to get as many points as early as they can, take the crowd out of the game and force West Virginia into a passing game to play catch up.

     Defensively, they'll have to contend with Amos and the WVU front line and that will be harder to do than what they have done so far in their first two games. Granted, they've limited the opponents to 78 yards rushing but some of that has been because the other team got behind early and had to play catch up and abandoned the run. Don Nehlen will run more than he'll throw as we all know. This could be a problem for the Golden Hurricane.

     We'll admit we never gave this game much thought before this week. Actually, last week after we saw the Oklahoma State score. But this team can play and it "appears" that they took advantage of a good Oklahoma State team that just overlooked them. This isn't to say the Golden Hurricane aren't decent and couldn't go back and whoop the Cowboys next week. But it's hard to believe that two teams returning basically the same number of starters could change that much. One becomes outstanding, and the other who competed in a post-season bowl game becomes so bad. Preparation had to come into play. We think!! No, really WE HOPE!!!

     Only a fool would overlook them now and we don't think there are fools in Morgantown. Well, maybe one and he got arrested this week for throwing golf balls during last week's game. So rule out the Mountaineers and coaching staff not being up for this game. They learned from the Maryland win and will build on it.

     Just as it is important for Tulsa to score early and often, it is equally important for WVU not to let that happen. If WVU wins the toss, they need to do what they did last week and put the offense on the field first and go to work. Establish the running game, use the short route passes. Marc Bulger needs another great game as he will most definitely be the key to this game. In short, the Mountaineers must grind out every possession and run the clock. The defense is going to be on the sidelines sucking oxygen and will need as much help as they can get.

     Defensively, this ain't going to be pretty. Without Stills we don't have the rush on the quarterback. Fitzgerald will be alot like Pennington from Marshall last year and Gary did a nice job on him. Without the pass rush you're going to give Fitzgerald time to find receivers and we're in trouble. He'll pick on Scooter and Perlo all day. They're gonna get beat and Tulsa is gonna score some points. We just have to score more.

     As for their rushing game, well their offense does spread the D to the point that if a back gets through the line he'll run for an Oklahoma mile. But we like the talent and abilities of our front guys and think they'll do a good job here. They're not playing Ohio State's offensive line by any means.