Tulsa

Golden Hurricane · American Athletic

Head coach Tre Lamb Year 1 with Tulsa

Year-1 HCs (2015-2024) averaged -0.19 W vs SP+ expected · n=83

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims

5.1

Expected wins

5-7

Proj record

2 to 8

Win range (90%)

#106 (85–125)

Final rank (90%)

Make playoff

Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

Baseline projection.

vs Oklahoma State

Home · Sep 5
at Sam Houston

Away · Sep 12
vs East Texas A&M

Home · Sep 20
vs Army

Home · Oct 24

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

38 PCI

Quarterback 25% (2/8 players)
Offensive line 35% (6/17 players)
Skill (RB/WR/TE) 38% (11/29 players)
Front 7 (DL/LB) 50% (19/38 players)
Secondary 53% (10/19 players)
Special teams 55% (6/11 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

If QB1 is out (Baylor Hayes)

GIE projects a 0.7 rating drop and a 2.6pp shift in playoff probability if Tulsa loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=2 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank

3rd-down conversion 36.1% 44th — below avg
Red-zone TD rate 15.6% 60th — average
4th-down aggression 46.5% 89th — strong
Late & close 5.7 yds/play 67th — average

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

Stories about Tulsa will appear here as they're published. Check back during the season for analysis, hot takes, and game write-ups.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.