This was a remarkably busy weekend around the country in the non-BCS universe, including some big wins. One of the biggest goes to Houston, who knocked off Texas Tech with a brilliant last-minute drive, ending with Case Keenum’s scramble for a TD. Houston now has Mississippi State, Tulsa, and Southern Miss as the biggest obstacles in its schedule, but with 9 games to go, it’s too soon to get too excited about them just yet. Meanwhile, almost every team has a conference game under its belt, but the league race is still wide open.
Conference Standings:
| East | ||
| Conf | Overall | |
| Marshall | 1-0 | 3-1 |
| Southern Miss | 1-0 | 3-1 |
| East Carolina | 1-0 | 2-2 |
| UAB | 1-1 | 1-3 |
| Memphis | 0-1 | 1-3 |
| UCF | 0-2 | 2-2 |
| West | ||
| Conference USA – West | Conf | Overall |
| Tulsa | 1-0 | 3-1 |
| Southern Methodist | 1-0 | 2-1 |
| Houston | 0-0 | 3-0 |
| UTEP | 0-0 | 1-3 |
| Tulane | 0-1 | 1-2 |
| Rice | 0-1 | 0-4 |
What we learned this week:
Houston is very good, but maybe not unbeatable. Texas Tech almost got out of there with the win. I don’t know that anyone in C-USA has what it takes to beat the Cougars, but they’re going to get everyone’s best shot. They could find themselves in the top ten in a week or two.
Southern Miss is still a strong team- they went score for score with a good Kansas team all day, just couldn’t find the last TD to stay in the game.
East Carolina could lose another handful of games, so could UCF. They played a game that was loaded with mistakes and turnovers, despite having better weather than the rest of the Southeast saw all day.
Marshall looks ready to compete for the division title. They’ve beaten two mid-level non-BCS teams in a row, and its looking like they’re potentially the second best team in the East, behind only Southern Miss. Fortunately, we’ll see how it plays out on the field soon enough.
Conference USA Power Rankings
- Houston
- Southern Mississippi
- SMU
- Tulsa
- Marshall
- East Carolina
- UCF
- Memphis
- UTEP
- UAB
- Rice
- Tulane