Memphis column ridicules C*USA and Comedy Central....
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Nothing like C*DOA getting ripped by one of its own hometown newspapers. Read on:
Old members shine early; Meanwhile, Tulsa and UCF among worst
By Gary Parrish
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September 8, 2005
Were you happy or sad? Excited or indifferent? Or did it just make you sick?
TCU upset Oklahoma.
Louisville remained a sexy Rose Bowl pick.
Even Cincinnati won.
Meanwhile, UCF ran its losing streak to 16 games, SMU lost to Baylor and Tulsa was destroyed at home by Minnesota.
Add it all up, this is what it means:
Old Conference USA had a good Week 1.
New Conference USA had a bad Week 1.
"There are some things we've got to get corrected in a pretty expedient fashion," said Tulsa coach Steve Kragthorpe.
No kidding.
None of this is to suggest any of this was avoidable. When the Big East raided C-USA, Louisville, Cincinnati and USF were going to accept its invitations faster than you can spell BCS, and the byproduct of that mass exodus was TCU bettering itself with a Mountain West affiliation. In other words, Britton Banowsky wasn't keeping the old C-USA together. Nobody could've, Dr. Phil and super glue included.
Still, Week 1 was salt in the wound.
Louisville didn't look great, but the Cards are ranked 12th in the nation. TCU did look great, and it's now ranked 22nd.
On the flipside, two new C-USA members -- UCF and Tulsa -- are ranked fourth and sixth, (dis)respectively, in ESPN.com's 'Bottom 10', otherwise known as the poll of the worst 10 football teams around.
That's not good.
"(Against South Carolina last week), we had opportunities to put the ball in the end zone," said UCF's George O'Leary. "We've got to start getting that done."
Sooner the better.
Or at least before TCU and Louisville play for the national title.
It's not all bad
On a positive note, C-USA will be well-represented at quarterback when the NFL season gets underway this weekend. Seven starting signal callers hail from C-USA schools. Two are from Marshall (Byron Leftwich and Chad Pennington), two are from Tulane (J.P. Losman and Patrick Ramsey), and there's one each from Southern Miss (Brett Favre), Tulsa (Gus Frerotte) and UCF (Daunte Culpepper).
No other college football league has even six starters. The Big Ten and Pac-10 each have five.
Louisville and TCU have none.
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