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Time for Tulsa football to leave Heartbreak Hotel
Published: 12/28/2012 8:21 PM
Last Modified: 12/28/2012 8:21 PM

I'm a moderate Elvis Presley fan, so in my only trip to Memphis, I wasn't going to miss visiting Graceland.

Probably the funniest thing about the tour was seeing the real life "Heartbreak Hotel." Of course, Memphis' Heartbreak Hotel, a real hotel across from the mansion, is down at the end of Lonely Street.

As part of its stay in Memphis for the Liberty Bowl, the Tulsa football team took in Graceland on Friday.

Hopefully the Hurricane caught a glimpse of Heartbreak Hotel and vowed this would finally be the week it checks out for good.

It's hard to believe, but Tulsa has lost 24 straight games against BCS conference opposition -- yes, the Hurricane beat a BCS-level foe in Notre Dame in 2010, but the Irish don't play in a BCS conference.

That includes two disappointing loses this season -- a blown early lead against Iowa State in the season opener and a squandered opportunity against a wounded Arkansas team in November.

It's been 1998 since TU beat a team from a BCS conference (35-20 over Oklahoma State). The losing streak started two weeks later when the Hurricane lost at West Virginia.

In that span, Tulsa has beaten three top 25 teams, won two Conference USA championships, played in eight bowl games and won four of them.

But another BCS conference win has been elusive.

As a point of comparison, Fresno State has played in 11 bowl games and won one conference championship since 1998. But the Bulldogs, who gained a reputation for playing anywhere, anytime, are 18-27 against BCS conference foes in the same time period.

If Tulsa wants to be taken seriously nationally, if it wants to take the next step in its evolution as a football school, it must start beating the big boys.

And Monday afternoon -- against an Iowa State team that has lost three of its last four games and will play without its top linebacker and top running back -- would be the perfect time.

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The Editor's Desk

Tulsa World Sports Editor Michael Peters has nearly 20 years of daily newspaper experience. A 1993 graduate of Texas A&M, he worked at papers in Bryan-College Station, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, and Galveston, Texas, before joining the Houston Chronicle as High School Sports Editor in 2008. While in Houston, he coordinated coverage of the 2008 Texas Class 5A state football championships and the 2011 NCAA Men's Final Four.

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