|
|
Conference USA is now the only league in the country with a leader and a last place team (ECU and Tulsa, respectively), thanks to the Sunday showdown between the two. That game was a great showcase for the league in an otherwise dismal weekend- the conference has yet to beat a FBS team outside of their own.
UCF 38, South Dakota 7- UCF was the only team in Conference USA to hold a team- any division- under 10 points. Next Week: North Carolina State at UCF
Texas 34, Rice 17- Rice gave the Longhorns all they could handle through most of the first half, but Texas pulled away at the end of Q2 and never looked back. (Predicted Texas to win by more than 30.5. 0-1.) Next Week: Rice at North Texas
Mississippi State 49, Memphis 7- Memphis looked as bad as we feared as the Bulldogs ran all over them (Prediction: Mississippi State to cover the 21.5. 1-1). Next Week: Memphis at East Carolina
Read Post
We continue working our way across the country looking at games lined up for Saturday & Sunday. CUSA got off to a bad start Thursday night and will be looking to get things stabilized over the weekend. There are a bunch of FCS games lined up, but also a couple more games that could get ugly. All games are on Saturday except the last two, all times eastern, you get the picture by now.
3:30 PM, ESPN- #4 Texas at Rice (Reliant Stadium): Look out, this could get ugly. Rice should be better than last year’s 2-10 team, but this won’t be the time or place to figure out if they are or not. Line: Texas by 30.5. The question with lines like this one is not ‘can’ Texas win by that much, but ‘will they?’ Looking to last year, they won their first two games by 39 and 31, then won their other two C-USA games by 32 and 57. So yes, I’d say Texas will probably cover that line, let’s say 49-10. And that’s way more than I planned to write on this game.
Read Post
Conference USA has been featured in dozens of realignment rumors this summer, yet nothing has come to fruition. First was a rumor that Memphis and/or UCF and/or East Carolina were off to the Big East and it was a done deal. Nothing there. Then, with the MWC/WAC fallout was the rumor that Houston was gone to the Mountain West- nothing so far. There’s word that Louisiana Tech wants to join the league, but no indication that the league has any need for them. So, as of now, Conference USA looks exactly like it has since 2005.
Last year’s conference champs, East Carolina, have a new coach and lost a lot of their team over the offseason and look to be a dark horse at best in 2010. Meanwhile Houston, West division champs a year ago, is fully loaded and looks like they could make a splash nationally, and they assume the mantle of conference favorites. There will be no shortage of teams looking to take the Cougars down a notch, with UCF, Southern Miss, and SMU looking like the prime candidates to take their shot.
Football on the Fringe Season Previews were ranked, then delivered in random order.
The Rice Owls were inexplicably bad in 2009, coming off a 2008 campaign that featured 10 wins including the Texas Bowl. They came back to earth hard, going just 2-10- losing their first nine before knocking off Tulane and UTEP at the end of the year.
The question then becomes, just which Rice team is going to show up this year? No team in Conference USA has as many starters coming back (9 on offense including QB Nick Fanuzzi, and 8 on defense) as the Owls do, and their schedule is not an insurmountable one.
Read Post
Another eventful weekend in C-USA, as we now have the league championship game set, while at least one team saw their bowl hopes go up in smoke and another stumbled across the finish line, lucky that the league has a lot of bowl ties. Read Post
The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Rice is, in all honesty, mired in a nightmare season. Last year, they contended for the conference title, finishing 2nd in the West, and this year they’re off to a dreadful 0-6 start. The report card, well, it’s not good.
- Wins: F. There are none. That’s bad. And worse yet, they haven’t been close- their best margin of defeat is at 17 points. Read Post
Finally, we come to the conference games. Not every team starts conference play this week, but enough of them do that we’ll finally start to get a feel for how these guys compare to similar competition, instead of 1-AA teams or BCS contenders. Plus, without so many games per conference, I can now bring you a worthwhile weekend preview instead of having to deal with 12 different games at every corner of the country. So without further ado, here’s what to look for in C-USA this weekend: Read Post
|
|