|
|
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.
UTEP (University of Texas – El Paso) had a 2009 season that made no sense whatsoever. After a 1-4 start, they handed Houston (#12 at the time) their first loss of the season in convincing fashion, 58-41. They grabbed other wins against quality opponents in Tulsa and Marshall, but had inexplicable losses to Tulane and Rice along the way.
Only 11 starters return for 2010, but they’re good ones. Trevor Vittatoe is among C-USA’s many prolific passers and returns for his senior season, while senior Donald Buckram finished second in the country in rushing yards last year among players returning for 2010. Even without some of the starters back, the two-deep is loaded with juniors and seniors, and the Miners could be ready to finally make a move.
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.
The UTEP Miners might be the strangest team in my jurisdiction. They opened the season with a loss to Buffalo, who has since nose-dived (more later- they’re on the list for today too). They got run out of the building by Texas and Kansas. This past weekend, they lost to a pretty bad Memphis team. Yet somehow, in week 5, they ran roughshod over Houston, who was sitting in between wins over Texas Tech and later Mississippi State. Eleven days later and that game still baffles me. It remains to be seen whether that win alone is enough to get Mike Price off the hot seat.
- Wins: C-. Normally, I’m giving a 2-4 team a D rating, but that win over Houston is worth something. If you take Kansas and Texas out of the equation, they’re 2-2 against non-BCS teams, which isn’t the worst they could have done. Read Post
Conference USA was dealt a big blow this weekend, by itself. UTEP’s shocking defeat of Houston blew the Cougars right out of the polls, the national picture, and any chance of getting into the BCS money. Out of conference was a 50-50 split, with Tulane upsetting Army and SMU falling to TCU after keeping things close in the early going.
In conference play, Tulsa handled Rice, East Carolina dispatched Marshall is a close game, UCF scored 23 unanswered to drop Memphis to 0-2 in the league, and of course UTEP brought Houston to 4-1 but 0-1 in the conference. 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
|
|