STILLWATER — In the center of the blue, white and gold chaos, Dominic Richardson hunted out his head coach.
Tulsa’s veteran running back found Tre Lamb, screamed, wrapped him in a bear hug and lifted the first-year coach into the air.
Pure joy.
Revenge had never been sweeter.
“Man, it just meant everything,” Richardson said. “I had a fire under my butt.”
On a night Tulsa pulled off a historic 19-12 upset of Oklahoma State at Boone Pickens Stadium, it was former Cowboys who led the charge.
Tulsa had not beaten OSU since 1998. It had not won in Stillwater since 1951, a time when color television was not yet widely available.
Yet, Richardson, once OSU’s lead ballcarrier, rushed the football a career-high 31 times for 146 yards to help put away the program that shunned him, forcing him to transfer and begin a college football odyssey that led him to Tulsa late in the offseason.
“He was a werewolf all week,” Lamb said. “He had a look in his eye because he sat in Coach (Mike) Gundy’s office and they said that he wasn’t quite good enough to play here. So, he had something to prove tonight.”
So did Tulsa.
The Golden Hurricane was coming off losses to New Mexico State and Navy. Tulsa was without its starting quarterback, turning to Baylor Hayes, a redshirt freshman who followed Lamb from East Tennessee State and was playing in just his second FBS game.
And with the series history mixed in, the odds were not in Tulsa’s favor.
The Golden Hurricane still outplayed OSU in just about every way possible.
“This team has lost close games,” Lamb said. “Obviously, the first three weeks, we lost two of them and in the last two years all these guys feel is losing around the program. And it’s hard to overcome that. But moments like tonight make our guys feel like it’s possible.
“We gotta let this springboard us this year but our program moving forward. We just beat a Big 12 football team with — I don’t know what their budget is but it’s a lot — and we took it to ‘em. And it wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t a turnover disaster.”
Lamb then read off the stats.
Tulsa outgained OSU 424-403 yards. It ran 79 plays to OSU’s 75. It possessed the football for nearly 10 more minutes.
“We beat ‘em,” Lamb said, “straight up.”
Tulsa opened the game by holding OSU to a field goal and responding with a six-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. The touchdown came on a 19-yard pass from Baylor Hayes to former Cowboy Braylin Presley, the younger brother of recent OSU star Brennan Presley.
“It was a little personal for us all week,” said Braylin, who caught two passes for 34 yards and rushed three times for 32 yards.
From there, Tulsa kicker Seth Morgan made four field goals and the defense held on late, even overcoming a fumble by Richardson by forcing a turnover on downs.
But even that hiccup did not damper Richardson’s night.
He entered the night with the game plan of 20 carries. He had never surpassed 27 in his three seasons at OSU. He had never approached 20 carries at Baylor in two years, even totaling 31 a year ago in four games.
And Richardson never even suited up at New Mexico State before transferring to Tulsa.
So, 31 carries added even more to the win.
“I was ready for this game, man, I’m not going to lie,” Richardson said. “I was looking past the first game, second game. When it came, I was like, ‘Man, I gotta be ready.’
“I feel like coming here today and seeing all that orange, it brought back memories. It just meant everything, man.”
Which is why Lamb embraced revenge all week.
Friday morning at the team hotel, he asked players to raise their hand if they had played at OSU. Then he asked for the hands of those who had been recruited by OSU but did not receive an offer or were told to look elsewhere.
He told them this was their opportunity.
Then, they made the most of it.
“Presley having the first touchdown and Dom having 149 yards is karma,” Lamb said. “I’m so proud of our team, I’m so proud of our guys that played with a chip on their shoulder tonight.”
Jacob Unruh is the deputy sports editor for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Jacob? He can be reached at ju****@*******an.com or on X/Twitter at @jacobunruh. Support Jacob’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tulsa RB Dominic Richardson led revenge win vs Oklahoma State football
