First off, congratulations to all the C-USA teams that emerged victorious this opening week in college football, especially the new faces on the scene, UTSA & North Texas. So, based on the games you were able to gauge on TV and radio as well as the overall outcome of each encounter, based on a grade of A Thru F, "A" obviously meaning "excellent", how did Conference USA do after the first week of competition in your eyes in overall football body of work? Your indulgence is always appreciated, I'll be back within the hour with my "grade."

I'd give the first week a "D+". No teams I expected to lose were able to win (yes, UTSA upset New Mexico, but I expected that). But three schools I expected to win also lost. All the teams I expected to lose did lose. UAB lost a heartbreaker in OT. So.Miss lost to Texas State. And Tulsa, the favorite to win the West, got clobbered by a MAC team. Get those three wins and we go 9-4, but instead we finish 6-7. I would have given us a "C", but seeing how only 3 of those wins were against FBS schools, we were definitely below average.

Yeah I would agree with a grade of D.

Guess it's unanimous so far....Had UAB, Tulsa, Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss stepped up as I expected they would, this grade would obviously have been higher, but, they didn't...Good on the RoadRunners, taking down the Lobos in Albuquerque! North Texas handled their business, as did ECU in a barnburner against ODU, Had Rice not tried to slug it out with TAM, outcome may have been different, but, alas...That's what's sticking in my craw the most, the way that The Blazers, Golden Hurricane, and Golden Eagles just did not deliver in their first game of the season, they may as well face it, expectations were high for all 3 of them, and because of their colossal letdowns, my grade is a big fat, red D- for Conference USA in week number one.

Tulane: C+/B-. We looked OK. Many others lost to worse or = to FCS teams than JSU. I'm just happy for the W. We have a lot to work on which is great. If it had been a 50-0 game, what do you learn from that?


CUSA: C-. Teams lost that shouldn't have. AAC and MWC get D's. Could've been worse but should've been better. USM and Tulsa especially should have won. Rough. West is wide open.

F.

Tulsa isn't who we thought. Marshall really didn't have any competition to test out their defense. ECU faced a good offense that will be more than capable in CUSA play in ODU. Rice really was the bright spot with their ability to put 31 up on A&M.

Rice will walk to the west title unless somebody (Tulane maybe) catches them. ECU or Marshall will represent the east.

ODU and WKU look like good choices at the moment. Still too early to speak for UNCC, but they did look like they knew what they were doing.

D- it's never a good week when the school expected to win your conference gets curb-stomped!

(09-01-2013 05:52 PM)IceJus10 Wrote:  D- it's never a good week when the school expected to win your conference gets curb-stomped!

+1

(09-01-2013 05:41 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  F.

Tulsa isn't who we thought. Marshall really didn't have any competition to test out their defense. ECU faced a good offense that will be more than capable in CUSA play in ODU. Rice really was the bright spot with their ability to put 31 up on A&M.

Rice will walk to the west title unless somebody (Tulane maybe) catches them. ECU or Marshall will represent the east.

ODU and WKU look like good choices at the moment. Still too early to speak for UNCC, but they did look like they knew what they were doing.

I don't know about that

(09-01-2013 05:41 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  F.

Marshall really didn't have any competition to test out their defense.

Yeah, we'll get this from Certain ECU fans all year. They just aren't going to accept reality. We gave up a grand total of 55 yards in the second half. How often has ECU held any team to 55 yards in a half? Heck, how many times has any CUSA team held anybody to 55 yards in a half. Then consider that we didn't exactly burn clock. We scored 38 points in the half. Miami had 6 second half possessions and averaged 9 yards per possession.

So which Conference USA games were in your opinion, the most impressive and disappointing by a C-USA program this past weekend?

Most impressive: "Beep - Beep"!!! UTSA...To go into Albuquerque and knock off the Lobos, I tip my hat to you on that!!!
Most disappointing: I would pick UAB for the obvious reasons, but It's a dead heat between Southern Miss & Tulsa, because I'd been building them up all off-season, and neither was what I thought they were on opening day.

With week 1 being a big disappointment, the future does look bright as UNCC winning its first ever game was major achievement. WKU beating a SEC opponent was great even better that it was an in state rival of sorts. ODU hanging with ECU was impressive since ECU was picked by many to win the East.

Other than my obvious pick, I was most impressed with UTSA because every road win is a good win. I was also impressed that ODU played ECU even on the road for 3 quarters. They really only faded when lack of depth (schollie inequality) took its toll. They are going to be a great addition.

Most disappointing was obviously Tulsa with USM being a close second. Tulsa looked slow and generally inept. USM, I thought, would look better, and they did, but just so mistake prone. I'm afraid that the players are still reeling from last year, expecting bad things to happen. Does not bode well since they may be looking at an 0-4 start. They need something good to happen and really needed that win.

(09-01-2013 06:49 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  With week 1 being a big disappointment, the future does look bright as UNCC winning its first ever game was major achievement. WKU beating a SEC opponent was great even better that it was an in state rival of sorts. ODU hanging with ECU was impressive since ECU was picked by many to win the East.

Agreed. I'd overlooked them, even though they're not in the conference yet, they will be, and congratulations to the Hilltoppers and 49ers!

I have decided that any loss that Tulsa incurs will be attributed directly to the aac, any win, will go directly to the Cusa win column. With that said, I believe Tulsa will go 2-0 maybe 3-0 this season.

It was good that utsa won, but the game the team that impressed me the most was ODU. The most disappointing was a tie between USM and UAB. USM cost me 110 points in the pickem contest..... UAB shocked me as they fell apart at the end

If I'm going to rank C-USA, I'm going to rank the whole G5. We didn't do too well as a conference but in relation to other conferences, we didn't do any worse.

MAC "C" NIU took down Iowa, everyone else was average. This week average is good enough
MWC "D-" Fresno over Rutgers, but Boise is down, and FCS program E. Illinois beat SDSU
C-USA "D-" No signature wins, Tex St. over USM was embarrassing. If USM would have won, I'd have given us a "C-".
Sun Belt "D-" Bright spot was WKU over Kentucky, 2 loses to FCS programs
ACC "F+" Both Rutgers and U Conn lost, U Conn's loss was to FCS program Towson. USF lost to FCS McNeese St. Cinci and Louisville looked good

The MAC and C-USA are the only G5 conferences that didn't have a team lose to an FCS school this week.

If you include WKU in the assessment, the grade goes up drastically. That was a very impressive win, and from what I saw they'd beat Kentucky 9 times out of 10. Charlotte looks to be ahead of schedule as well, from my completely biased point of view.

Good win by UTSA, and Marshall did exactly what they needed to do. Rice was competitive with a Top 10 team, and ODU took ECU to the brink even with the scholly deficit.

USM and UAB were disappointing losses, but I'd grade CUSA a solid C (including WKU in my grade).

(09-01-2013 06:34 PM)banker Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 05:41 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  F.

Marshall really didn't have any competition to test out their defense.

Yeah, we'll get this from Certain ECU fans all year. They just aren't going to accept reality. We gave up a grand total of 55 yards in the second half. How often has ECU held any team to 55 yards in a half? Heck, how many times has any CUSA team held anybody to 55 yards in a half. Then consider that we didn't exactly burn clock. We scored 38 points in the half. Miami had 6 second half possessions and averaged 9 yards per possession.

ECU has to be slobbering after seeing the competition they'll face next year. AAC is gonna be pretty damned bad. Ecu is a very, very early favorite to win the conference next year.

(09-01-2013 06:34 PM)banker Wrote:  

(09-01-2013 05:41 PM)200yrs2late Wrote:  F.

Marshall really didn't have any competition to test out their defense.

Yeah, we'll get this from Certain ECU fans all year. They just aren't going to accept reality. We gave up a grand total of 55 yards in the second half. How often has ECU held any team to 55 yards in a half? Heck, how many times has any CUSA team held anybody to 55 yards in a half. Then consider that we didn't exactly burn clock. We scored 38 points in the half. Miami had 6 second half possessions and averaged 9 yards per possession.

You need stop thinking everybody is trying to trash Marshall.

Why, you are one of the 4 ECU posters that have been doing it all summer. You need to stop acting like we don't notice. For the record it's you,r2, SJ and PirateMarv. So anything any of the 4 of you say will be taken in a way based on your history.