The 2013 football season came to a close today for Conference USA with North Texas beating UNLV, 36-14, in the Heart of Dallas Bowl, marking the beginning of another new phase in C-USA football.

It was a mixed bag for the league during the bowl season with a 3-3 record. Marshall, which beat Maryland in the Military Bowl, and North Texas had impressive performances while Rice struggled in the Liberty Bowl and Middle Tennessee coach Rick Stockstill had to apologize for his team's poor display of sportsmanship in a 24-6 loss to Navy (of all teams) in the Armed Forces Bowl.

In 2014, Conference USA will again have to deal with defections of key football members. UCF, Memphis, Houston and SMU left after the 2012 season. Tulsa, Tulane and East Carolina will join those teams in the American Athletic Conference for the 2014 season.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/01/01/5227...rylink=cpy

Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

(01-03-2014 09:42 AM)TTT Wrote:  Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

C-USA is a football conference. Basketball is great, but football will remain the crown jewel of the conference. Southern Miss football will bounce back. I look forward to y'all moving to the western division.

(01-03-2014 09:42 AM)TTT Wrote:  Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

No, we're a baseball conference!



Seriously though, I feel good about our future in basketball and baseball. Football, I think we'll have a number of solid programs, but worry that we may have too many in any given year for a team to break out into Top 25 territory.

or futbol.

Sorry, sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet.

Or raquetball

We need to get better out of conference so that a loss in conference isn't viewed as negatively by voters. We need to be over .500 OOC next year as a conference.

need some CUSA hockey up in here!

(01-03-2014 11:54 AM)banker Wrote:  We need to get better out of conference so that a loss in conference isn't viewed as negatively by voters. We need to be over .500 OOC next year as a conference.

And, we can't lose OOC games against the AAC, MWC, MAC, and Sun Belt. We dropped too many this season.

C-USA vs. the other G5 conferences:

AAC 2-4
MWC 2-3
MAC 2-3
Sun Belt 1-3

Too bad we couldn't count our multiple wins over Idaho and New Mexico State against the Sun Belt this season.

(01-03-2014 12:05 PM)NCowl Wrote:  need some CUSA hockey up in here!

Hell Yeah!

(01-03-2014 07:40 PM)Matrix Wrote:  

(01-03-2014 12:05 PM)NCowl Wrote:  need some CUSA hockey up in here!

Hell Yeah!

Seriously, who in or coming into CUSA does anything more than Club Level hockey?


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IMO, CUSA 2014 will be all about settling on divisions, then the divisional rivalries. Then, figuring out the best cross divisional rivalries.

Really, though, I'd like to see the conference become more impacting and frightening to opposing conferences, especially the so-called "power" ones. I think schools like North Texas, Marshall, UTSA, Tulsa & Louisiana Tech are poised to do just that for 2014. With all of the defections that took place over the last 2 years or so, the conference is at a crossroads. UAB is suffering in silence and Southern Miss is trying to get the "gree-gree" of Ellis Johnson off of them, only next year will tell for sure, but if they play anything like they did against the Blazers in November of 13, they will be a force to be reckoned with yet again. I'm already looking forward to it, and I've yet to put this season behind me. I've never had that problem with football until I witnessed all of the bull**** on display at "Lesion" Field this past year. I feel that next season will be more competitive than ever before. It will be fun to bear witness to it all when the time comes around.

(01-03-2014 09:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(01-03-2014 09:42 AM)TTT Wrote:  Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

C-USA is a football conference. Basketball is great, but football will remain the crown jewel of the conference. Southern Miss football will bounce back. I look forward to y'all moving to the western division.

I just hope that the subspace TV on my intergalactic cruiser is fixed in time to see that.

(01-03-2014 09:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(01-03-2014 09:42 AM)TTT Wrote:  Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

C-USA is a football conference.

From now on, Every FBS-level conference is a football conference, first and foremost. The old Big East was the last exception to that rule, and there won't be any new exceptions.

(01-03-2014 09:42 AM)TTT Wrote:  Who cares!? It's basketball season, and we are a basketball conference now!

Well I think we are off to a good start by going 2-2 in bowls and also had bowl eligible FAU and UTSA sitting at home.

I think one of the things we need to do is continue having multiple 9-10 win teams.

Now that we're finished stating the obvious.... I would like to see the whole conference make a conscious effort to increase attendance. To me better attendance could help boost the perception of the conference.

Biggest C-USA Headline Prediction for next year:

"USM gains 6th win and is Bowl eligible with 2 games to go!"

I agree with those that see us at a cross-roads with a bright future, but I think gettting USM back to prominence will be in the best interest of C-USA for the long run.

(01-03-2014 12:05 PM)NCowl Wrote:  need some CUSA hockey up in here!

Yes! UNT actually has great hockey!

......Look out for the LA Tech's bowling team.