Conference USA Week 4 Recap

SCORES

BYU 24, Central Florida 17

SMU 42, Memphis 0

Duke 48, Tulane 27

East Carolina 28, UAB 23

Southern Mississippi 30, Virginia 24

Virginia Tech 30, Marshall 10

South Florida 52, UTEP 24

Baylor 56, Rice 31

Boise State 41, Tulsa 21

Houston 56, Georgia State 0

The big story of week four in Conference USA was the failure of its defending champion to get off the deck. Central Florida was an authoritative and appreciably dominant C-USA flag-bearer last year. The Golden Knights powered their way through the league and then decked Georgia in the Liberty Bowl to enhance C-USA’s reputation. UCF expected to beat both Florida International and BYU heading into those two games. The BYU game didn’t figure to be a win before the season started, but when Friday night’s game came around, the Golden Knights certainly appeared to have the upper hand. Brigham Young’s offense, which made such pronounced improvements late last season, regressed to a shocking degree in the first three weeks of the 2011 campaign. Quarterback Jake Heaps was lost, his receivers couldn’t hold onto the ball, and the Cougars’ running game was spotty. BYU had been thoroughly inept en route to a 1-2 start. It got crushed at home by archrival Utah, dragging down morale throughout the program and creating a sense of dread as UCF came to Provo, Utah, for a Friday night fight. This was Central Florida’s time to pounce and reassert itself after the stumble at Florida International.

Instead, it became a night of regret, missed opportunities, and gosh-awful special teams for coach George O’Leary’s lads.

Central Florida took leads of 10-3 and 17-10 against BYU, giving up a touchdown only after the Cougars started a drive at the Knights’ 37. BYU needed every bit of help to score points; the Cougars’ offense proved to be that anemic on Friday. The supremely frustrating aspect of this game for UCF, then, was the fact that Team O’Leary aided the Cougars at so many critical points. Right after UCF gained a 17-10 lead in the third quarter, BYU returned the following kickoff for a touchdown to tie the score at 17-all. Later, a BYU punt was going to give the Knights a chance to march downfield and break that very same 17-17 tie, but a muff by the Central Florida return man enabled BYU to start a drive on the Knights’ 23. The Cougars punched the ball into the end zone and gained the upper hand. Central Florida made one last foray into BYU’s red zone, but Knight quarterback Jeff Godfrey threw into a crowd on the run and was picked off at the 3. Brigham Young, despite its lack of sustained offense, was able to hang on for a seven-point win that was distinctly unexpected through the first two and a half quarters. This was a very big fish that got away for Central Florida. The Knights didn’t drop a conference game, but their morale isn’t where it needs to be with the C-USA season approaching.

The second-biggest story in the league was Southern Mississippi’s victory at Virginia. When USM lost at Marshall, the Golden Eagles gave away a game that figured to go into the win column. Therefore, this triumph against an ACC opponent – albeit a lower-tier one – allows coach Larry Fedora to say that his team is still on schedule. The key deficiency in USM’s profile is that its loss came in a C-USA contest, but the ability to bounce back in Charlottesville, Virginia, could wind up giving the Eagles the lift they needed. Perhaps underachieving is now part of this team’s past – we won’t know that for sure until the season runs its course, but this could become the weekend that turned Southern Mississippi’s season in the right direction.

In league games, SMU blasted a woeful Memphis team before a good minor-league baseball crowd in the state of Tennessee. Memphis coach Larry Porter is making a strong bid for one of the worst Football Bowl Subdivision careers of all time. In the other league game, East Carolina committed several turnovers but still had enough juice to fend off UAB, denying the Blazers the win they so desperately needed after their blowout loss to Tulane the week before. Speaking of Tulane, the Green Wave didn’t enjoy so much success this past weekend after crushing UAB. Coach Bob Toledo’s club fell by three touchdowns at Duke.