The Golden Hurricane are but a small ocean swirl as Kevin Wilson enters his second season as head coach.
Tulsa went 4-8 as Wilson started his rebuild in 2023 – its fifth losing campaign in the last seven years – then suffered a landslide of losses in the transfer portal. Question marks are rampant on their downtrodden defense.
Still, the former Ohio State offensive coordinator has a core of key pieces returning, especially at his offensive skill positions, bolstered by a solid portal haul in response.
“I think we’re working together better,” Wilson said in March. “I don’t think we’re pulling guys. There’s a good esprit de corps, I think we’re working hard. There’s a lot to do, but there’s a good vibe with the team right now.”
Tulsa started its 2023 campaign strong, getting off to a 3-2 start with its lone losses coming against ranked power conference teams. The Golden Hurricane beat Temple 48-26 to open 1-0 in American Athletic Conference play.
What followed was a six-game losing streak. Four of those defeats were by one possession, though blowouts came against Rice (42-10) and SMU (69-10). Tulsa rallied to close its first year under Wilson with a win at East Carolina in two-point fashion, but that left it with a 4-8 overall mark and a 2-6 record in the AAC.
Perhaps the biggest bright spot for Tulsa in Wilson’s first year was its running game. The squad ranked fourth in the AAC with 180.8 yards per game, picking up 4.1 yards per carry to finish eighth in the league in that stat. The team’s top two running backs from a year ago return in Anthony Watkins (889 yards, 4.5 yards per carry) and Bill Jackson (414, 4.5).
Reminiscent of the Buckeyes, there’s an ongoing competition to decide who will play quarterback alongside their established running back duo. Cardell Williams started as a redshirt freshman in 2023, completing 59.8% of his passes for 1,149 yards, with 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions to go with 198 rushing yards. He sustained a season-ending shoulder injury on Nov. 4, however, and Kirk Francis posted a 345-yard performance in his first week filling in. He completed 56.2% of his throws for 967 yards with six touchdowns and three interceptions in four total games.
Williams never reached full health this spring, giving Francis the first-team reps and a leg up in the competition. They’ll get a chance to battle it out fully this fall.
“He’s doing good,” Wilson said of Francis. “We have, right now, a signee that’s not here and Cardell – he doesn’t have a shoulder problem, he has an injury we thought would heal and it didn’t, so they went in and did a little cleanup (in surgery). So he’s gonna miss the bulk of spring, be kind of full go as we get into (fall). ... Kirk’s looked well. He’s got good feel, good intelligence, he’s young, he’s growing. I’m just disappointed we’re missing Cardell because I’d like to give him the same opportunity.”
Whoever wins will primarily throw to Kamdyn Benjamin, who returns after pacing Tulsa in receptions (47), receiving yards (727) and touchdowns (six) in 2023. Stalwart blocking tight end Ethan Hall is also back as a repeat starter.
What’s lacking is depth in the weapons department. Their second, third and fourth-leading wideouts from 2023 all hit the transfer portal this offseason. UTEP transfer Jeremiah Ballard hauled in 34 passes for 551 yards in 2023, and he and Braylin Presley will be counted on to produce this season.
There are only 36 starts combined in terms of experience for the offensive line, but there are enough pieces on offense for Tulsa to make things interesting.
“I think our running back position will be solid. The two leading carriers are back, I think Greg Frey and the offensive line, we’ll be well-coached up front,” Wilson said. “I think we’ll hopefully run the ball better than we did last year.”
"There’s a good esprit de corps, I think we’re working hard. There’s a lot to do, but there’s a good vibe with the team right now."– Kevin Wilson on where his team is at
The far bigger concern is on defense. Wilson hired four-year UT-Martin defensive coordinator Chris Polizzi as his DC before 2023. The Skyhawks won back-to-back conference championships in 2021 and 2022 and led the entire FCS in turnovers the latter year, though they ranked just 77th in scoring defense.
Year one of Polizzi’s system yielded the sixth-worst total defense in the FBS, giving up 444.7 yards per game. That included 279.8 yards through the air, the fourth-worst passing defense in the country.
That already beleaguered group got shelled by the transfer portal. Only four starters return. That’s why defense became the top priority in Tulsa’s portal recruiting, and the centerpiece of the team’s transfer class is a trio of linebackers in Gavin Potter (Arkansas State), Zach Marcheselli (TCU) – who were high school teammates – and Chris Thompson Jr. (USC). While they only combined for 37 tackles in 2023, all have played at the Power Conference level, with Potter formerly at Kansas.
“Those three guys got a nice vibe, nice look, they’ve got good natural energy,” Wilson said. “They look good on special teams. I think the two (high school) teammates like being together, having some fun, they’ve got a nice little vibe about them, they’re learning.”
Champ Lewis (TCU) and Zion Steptoe (Purdue) are former Power Conference athletes who will search for breakout years in the defensive backfield while Myles Jackson (Indiana) will do the same at defensive end. Defensive tackle Amieh Williams had 47 tackles with eight tackles for loss for D-II Angelo State last campaign.
A good portion of those transfers are going to have to make big impacts for Tulsa’s defense to take a step toward serviceability this season. The star of last year’s ball-stopping unit, safety Kendarin Ray – who doubled up the team’s next leading tackler with 131 takedowns on the year – exhausted his eligibility. Sack leader Ben Kopenski is also gone, as are eight of the squad’s top nine tacklers. Demarco Jones will be a key piece at cornerback, back after intercepting two passes in 2023.
“In this day and age of the transfer and ‘Who’s in, who’s out,’ you can go from looking like you’re pretty good, pretty fat to looking pretty thin and out of bodies real quick,” Wilson said. “So we’ve got a lot of (position) groups that have to get better. But it’s more about the individuals getting better than the groups to me.”
"We’ve got a lot of (position) groups that have to get better. But it’s more about the individuals getting better than the groups to me.”– Kevin Wilson
On the recruiting trail, Tulsa signed the No. 54 overall class in the 247Sports composite and No. 2 class in the AAC, headlined by a pair of top 900 wide receivers in three-stars Joshua Smith and Alex Green. In 2025 the Golden Hurricane hold just six commitments, placing them 91st nationally and sixth in the AAC.
Wilson trumpets that Tulsa doesn’t pay any NIL dollars to recruits, with the only money offered beyond a scholarship to players being incentivized on academic merit. Wilson said that there is around $10,000 extra per year athletes can get from cost of attendance and university funds, but it must be earned.
Regardless, the Golden Hurricane will hope to stir up more of a storm in year two under Wilson.
