Kickoff: Saturday, September 5 at 2:45 PM CT
Location: H. A. Chapman Stadium
TV: ESPNU
DraftKings line (Aug. 30): OKST -14
Over/under: 60.5

The setup

Tulsa and Oklahoma State are only about 72 miles apart, and meeting No. 78 comes with fresh scar tissue: Tulsa’s 19-12 win last year ended a 10-game Cowboys streak and was the Golden Hurricane’s first series win since 1998.

Personnel snapshot

• Oklahoma State: Eric Morris enters Year 1 as head coach. 4 starters return—1 on offense and 3 on defense. Key defenders back include Landon Dean, Iman Oates, and LaDainian Fields. Oklahoma State’s defense allowed 418.3 yards and 33.5 points per game last season.
• Oklahoma State quarterback: Drew Mestemaker is the new starter for Oklahoma State. Last season at North Texas, he threw for 4,129 yards, 31 TD and 7 INT and was one of the stories of college football.
• Tulsa: Tre Lamb enters Year 2 as head coach. 8 starters return—2 on offense and 6 on defense. Key defenders back include Tai Newhouse, William Alexander, and JD Drew. Tulsa’s defense allowed 396.7 yards and 28.9 points per game last season.
• Tulsa quarterback: Baylor Hayes returns as Tulsa’s starting quarterback. Last season, he threw for 2,158 yards, 12 TD and 6 INT.

Three quick analysis points

• The recent trend: Tulsa is 21-17-2 against Oklahoma State in Tulsa, but the Cowboys have won four straight visits. The long history favors the home city; the recent history favors the orange visitors.
• The opener trend: Oklahoma State has won 11 straight season openers, the fourth-longest active FBS streak. Tulsa is trying to stack consecutive rivalry wins while ending a streak that began in 2015.
• The turnover test: Baylor Hayes set Tulsa freshman records with 2,158 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, 2,346 total yards and six 200-yard games. One of those was a 219-yard, no-interception win at Oklahoma State, so the rematch quarterback already owns the blueprint.

Prediction

I make final predictions on my TikTok/YouTube/Instagram/Facebook pages @uthinkuknowsports.

Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.