I really love this play with Marshall hosting Tulsa as Marshall really impressed me scoring 41 points on the road against Purdue who has the best front 4 in the Big Ten. Marshall also nearly beat Ohio, the best team in the MAC at home and led 14-0 early. Rakeem Cato and the offense is clicking and if it wasn't for 3 interceptions and penalties on the road they could have upset Purdue. They out gained both Ohio and Purdue in their losses. Cato has three 400+ yard passing games already and has one of the best duos at WR in Tommy Shuler who had 19 receptions last game a school record and played high school with Cato and Aaron Dobson.
On paper Marshal's defense looks terrible and they will likely go back and forth with Tulsa, but one good thing is that they are home where they were able to contain Ohio's offense which was a good sign. It's also not like Tulsa's defense is any better after allowing 42 points in their road game to UAB and allowed their QB to pass for 337 yards and 3 TD while completing 67% of his passes. Looking at the QB's in this match up and Cato has been way way better completing 70% of his passes for nearly a yard better per completion than Cody Green who is completing just 51.2% and has thrown 6 interceptions. Cato's QB rating is also 30 points better than Green's.
Cato will face a team that's #1 in TFL and sacks, but he's already faced Purdue and Ohio's defensive lines and Marshall is 39th in sack % and is only getting sacked 2.99% of the time at home. On offense they are converting 53.4% of their third downs while Tulsa is ranked 80th with just 35.7%. Now Marshal's defense on third down looks suspect at 53.23%, but keep in mind they faced two top 10 third down offenses and nobody outside the top 54 while Tulsa faced off against incompetent offenses ranked 73rd, 92nd, 111th, and 64th in third down offense. I give a major edge to a Marshall team that really has turned their program around in recent years and brought in a huge recruiting class last year that is already paying dividends.
Throw out the stats in this game because both teams really haven't faced anyone. Texas Tech's stats are great on both sides of the ball and now they are ranked, but they are under dogs at home? Oklahoma off a bye week is huge and you best bet that they remember Texas Tech ruining their season last year when the Red Raiders upset Oklahoma at home as 29 point under dogs. Huge revenge spot here for Oklahoma and they get the extra week off to work on things.
Oklahoma was on a bye week last year going on the road to face a good Florida State team as a road favorite and won 23-13 and I think we see a similar score in this one. Oklahoma is 18-0 in the Big 12 road games coming off a loss which Oklahoma is against Kansas State. This is the first balanced offense Texas Tech has faced as Oklahoma is 30th in passing and 32n in rushing.
