Conference USA Week 3 Summary

WEEK THREE REVIEW

SCORES

Tulane 49, UAB 10

Florida International 17, Central Florida 10

Ohio 44, Marshall 7

Memphis 27, Austin Peay 6

Houston 35, Louisiana Tech 34

Southern Mississippi 52, SE Louisiana 6

UTEP 16, New Mexico State 10

SMU 40, Northwestern State 7

Oklahoma State 59, Tulsa 33

The big story of week three in Conference USA was the rout nobody anticipated. The Tulane Green Wave, one of the most regularly downtrodden programs in all of college football, smacked around the homestanding Alabama-Birmingham Blazers by 39 points at Legion Field. The tour de force performance did much to shore up coach Bob Toledo’s standing as the leader of the Green Wave. Meanwhile, the disastrous outing for UAB will make it very, very hard for coach Neil Callaway to remain on the job past this season. UAB has been trying to chip away at a .500 record in Conference USA during the tenure of Callaway, a former assistant to Mark Richt at Georgia and a decades-long assistant who finally got his big break with the Blazers a few years ago. UAB came close to beating a pair of SEC teams in spirited road games last year (Tennessee and Mississippi State), but could not get over the hump. This was the year when moral victories would not be accepted; a 6-6 season was a baseline minimum for UAB, and a 7-5 season was a general expectation in and around the program. Now, with this stink bomb looming over the program for the rest of the season, it’s hard to imagine how the Blazers will ever be able to deliver the goods against quality teams in C-USA. Tulane is a lower-tier opponent until proven otherwise; when UAB faces Central Florida and Southern Mississippi, it’s likely to have a very tough day at the office.   

A second story of significance in C-USA is that Houston, the co-favorite with SMU in the West Division, barely eked out a victory over Louisiana Tech in a contest that was not only surprisingly close, but a legitimate blowout in the other direction… well, at least for awhile. Through two and a half quarters, Louisiana Tech – which had struggled mightily to beat lower-division Central Arkansas the week before – amassed a 34-7 lead against the shellshocked Cougars. Somehow, though, Houston was able to shut out the Bulldogs over the final 20 minutes of regulation. That paved the way for UH quarterback Case Keenum to light up the night sky in Ruston, Louisiana, directing his team to four touchdowns – three of them in the fourth quarter – as Houston made the long climb and stole a one-point win on the road. Houston has to play a lot better to win a division crown against the challenge of SMU and Tulsa. The Cougars need to use this game as a wake-up call as league play approaches.

The third story from C-USA in week three was Tulsa’s double-whammy on Sunday morning. Yes, that’s correct – Tulsa and Oklahoma State played early Sunday morning, in a game that started at 12:15 a.m. Central time on the plains. Lightning delayed the game several hours, but that didn’t stop game organizers from going ahead with the contest. That was a downer for a Tulsa team which needed a fully juiced-up home crowd. The late start robbed the Golden Hurricane of that edge. Then, once the game started, Tulsa got hit with a terrible blow: Starting quarterback G.J. Kinne got injured in the first quarter, rendering his team helpless against Oklahoma State’s onslaught. If Kinne is out for any protracted amount of time, head coach Bill Blankenship will find it very hard to keep pace with SMU and Houston.