Conference USA Review - Week Four

Here's my quick rundown of the Saturday action in Conference USA, from the best games to the stinkers.

Game of the Week

Houston 38, Colorado State 27 – Slim pickin's for a game of the week hunt, but this one wasn't too bad, as Houston QB Case Keenum rallied the Cougars from a 14-point halftime deficit by accounting for four scores. Keenum was scary-efficient through the air, going 18-of-22 for 197 yards and two touchdowns. Neither team was very good running the ball (CSU: 3.3 ypc, Hou: 3.5 ypc), but Keenum out-dueled CSU's Caleb Hanie by being slightly more efficient, and making a few more plays with his legs. Houston has to do better on third downs than 3-of-12.

Best of the Rest

TCU 21, SMU 7 – What's not to like about a game where the winning team gets a special teams TD, a defensive TD, and just two first downs in the first 20 minutes? TCU posted just 250 yards and held the ball for only 24 minutes, but Robert Henson's 58 yard interception return of an errant Justin Willis pass and a tight TCU defense was too much for the Ponies. SMU was forced into punt after punt, and they failed three times on fourth down. These are the kind of games TCU has made a living off of finding a way to win; they could sure do without those 12 penalties for 110 yards.

Tulane 35, SE Louisiana 27 – The Matt Forte legend grew a whole lot larger Saturday in the Bayou, as Tulane's feature back tallied 303 rushing yards and five scores, both C-USA records, to lead the Green Wave to an out-of-conference win. Forte crossed 3,000 career offensive yards, and was really the only thing Tulane had going, as QB Scott Elliott continued his dismal start. Elliott is just 33-of-73 for 396 yards with a one-to-four TD-to-INT ratio this year, and its obvious that when Forte isn't on, Tulane is going to be brutal. But this day was all Forte's, and the Wave found a team they could play smashmouth with.

Ho-Hum

Cincinnati 40, Marshall 14 – The Bearcats are rolling, and the big question is how much of this success is Mark D'Antonio's foundation, and how much is Brian Kelly's overhaul? Last year's big Rutgers win indicates that the 'Cats already had a solid foundation, but this year they're rolling teams left and right, getting big efforts in the air, on land, and in the trenches. Marshall got off to a 2-0 lead with a sack of Cincy QB Dustin Grutza midway through the first, but the Herd defense went in the tank, surrendering 24 points in a 15 minute span that put Cincy up 26-2. Marshall WR Darius Passmore (what a name for a wideout) has gotten a bit better in every game this year, giving his best outing of the year with a 7 catch, 106 yard outing.

West Virginia 48, East Carolina 7 – Well, there are less exciting ways to see a C-USA team go down. West Virginia flexed its muscles on both offense and defense Saturday, limiting ECU's offense to just 160 yards, 67 of which came on the Pirates' final drive. So yeah, the Pirates logged 93 yards in the first 55 minutes, and when Pat White is 18-of-20 for 181 yards, that's a great recipe for disaster. ECU still should be one of C-USA's better teams, and we'll see if that's true in the next two weeks; the Pirates get Houston and UCF.

Texas 58, Rice 14 – I said "fun to watch", not "remotely close". Rice played sacrificial lamb for the in-state Longhorns Saturday, falling behind 41-nil before only losing the rest of the game 17-14! Rice only put up -22 rushing yards against the 'Horns, and that's inexcusable, even against an opponent this good. QB Chase Clement has already been sacked 12 times, and the Owls can't win with a 1.0 ypc average from their QB. He's thrown seven interceptions too. That's not good.

Booooooooooooooring

UTEP 52, Texas Southern 12 – The Miners laid the wood to Texas Southern, jumping out to a 38-0 halftime lead on the back of Marcus Thomas' two first half TD runs. Thomas finished with 106 yards on just 11 carries, and QB Trevor Vittatoe is looking better every week. His completion percentage and efficiency have improved every week since the rough debut against New Mexico in week one. I also just found out that Vittatoe and I share a birthday; just another thing he's got going for him. This is your early favorite for C-USA player of the year in 2010.

UCF 56, Memphis 20 – There's something going on in Orlando, and just because it leads to games like this doesn't mean the locals don't have big reason to be excited. Kevin Smith kicked in another solid ground game, going 22 carries for 124 yards and three scores. Not sure if he still leads the nation in yards, but his stat line suffered because of UCF's huge victory margin. Smith probably could have had 200 yards fairly easily. If the Golden Knights' double QB rotation works as well in the future as it did against the Tigers (Greco and Israel combined for 17-of-21 passing and 288 yards), UCF will be awfully hard to stop in C-USA.