[Note: Click on the scores for game stories via the universities' web sites]

Houston 45, #5/6 Oklahoma State 35 (Stillwater; 50,875). The big story of the week. UH jumped ahead 24-7, then fell behind twice, finally going ahead for good when a Bryce Beall snatched a deflected 4^th down pass for a TD. Cougs’ QB Case Keenum earned National Offensive Player of the Week honors for his 32-of-46, 366 yard day.

#9/12 BYU 54, Tulane 3 (New Orleans; 26,224 [officially, though some reports claim little over 5K and this slide show looks kinda bleak). A laugher with little upside for the Green Wave, who failed to break double-digits in first downs while BYU never punted. The Cougars had two running back rush for over 60 yards each and passed for 321. For Tulane, QB Joe Kemp was 14-for-19 and 101 yards.

#14/15 Virginia Tech 52, Marshall 10 (Blacksburg; 66,233). 444 yards rushing for the Hokies, 171 in the 1^st quarter alone. Herd QB Brian Anderson managed an OK outing, completing 15-for-31 for 116. Darius Marshall rushed for over 100. The Herd only mustered 14 return yards on the game via 3 Hokie punts.

#24/25 Kansas 34, UTEP 7 (El Paso; 31,885). The Jayhawks simply manhandled the Miners. UTEP allowed 5 sacks and was shut out until early in the 4^th while Kansas scored in every quarter and piled up 576 yards of offense. Said UTEP head coach Mike Price, “They're a top 25 team, and it doesn't look like we are.”

West Virginia 35, East Carolina 20 (Morgantown; 59,216). WVU's defense kept the Pirates in check, but Mountaineer mistakes--including 2 muffed punts (sound familiar?)--kept ECU in it. ECU was shut out in the second half and their longest scoring drive was 31 yards. WVU QB and Pat White successor Jarrett Brown had a coming-out party, throwing for 334 yards and 4 TDs. Patrick Pinkney was sacked 4 times.

SMU 35, UAB 33 (Birmingham; 18,092). SMU dominated early, then gave up 20 3rd-quarter points to the Blazers before hanging on to win. The story of the game, both good and bad, was the QB play. For the Mustangs, B.L. Mitchell threw for 353 yards and 3 TDs, and for UAB, last week's one-man show Joe Webb threw 4 interceptions. UAB ran the ball well, with Webb rushing for 97 and Mark Ferrell adding 85.

Middle Tennessee 31, Memphis 14 (Murfreesboro; 28,105 [new stadium record]). Tied 7-7 after one quarter, MTSU rattled off 24 unanswered points before allowing Memphis a late TD. The Blue Raiders almost doubled Memphis’ total yards, 436 to 219. Scrub QB Tyler Bass led the final scoring drive for the Tigers, completing 4 of 4 for 33 yards. No one for Memphis rushed for over 50.

Texas Tech 55, Rice 10 (Lubbock; 48,124). The Rice defense held TTU to 14 first half points, but it got ugly from there as the Raiders rolled up 560 yards of offense against the Owls. For Rice, QB John Shepard went 14-for-19 for 109 yards and a TD to Taylor Dupree. Rice won the time of possession by a good 6 minutes, but since when does Texas Tech care about that?

Tulsa 44, New Mexico 10 (Albuquerque; 30,051). Tulsa opened the scoring early following a fumbled UNM punt return (noticing a theme?) and never looked back, leading 17-3 at the half and at one time 44-3. For the Hurricane, QB G.J. Kinne threw for 310 yards and 4 TDs, 2 each to Slick Shelley and Trae Johnson. Kinne also led Tulsa in rushing with 53 yards. New Mexico managed 5 sacks.

UCF at Southern Miss

Thursday’s line: USM -14.5

First meeting: 2005 in Hattiesburg

Last meeting: 2008 in Orlando (USM won 17-6)

USM leads the series 3-1

CUSA play starts early for the Golden Eagles as the Knights come to town in Game 2. UCF, which has at times seemed poised for greatness after winning CUSA’s Eastern Division and posting the best record in the conference twice since joining the league in 2005 and claiming a championship in 2007, limped to a 4-8 (3-5) record in 2008, continuing O’Leary’s alternating winning season/losing season streak in Orlando. The Eagles are comfortably favored at The Rock on the heels of their smackdown of Alcorn and the Knights’ struggles against FCS Samford.

Particularly disappointing vs. Samford was UCF’s offense, which only compiled 282 total yards. UCF returned 10 starters from last year, but they only continued the Knights’ struggles from 2008, when they ranked dead last in the nation in total offense as they struggled to settle on a starting QB. That particular issue also continued, as sophomore QB Rob Calabrese started vs. Samford after starting the final 4 games of 2008 only to be replaced in the game by redshirt senior and Wake Forest transfer Brett Hodges, who tossed what turned out to be the game-winning TD to Jamar Newsome with 11 minutes left. Hodges completed 10-of-17 for 129 yards off the bench compared to Calabrese’s 3-for-7 for 28, though Hodges also threw an interception that Samford ran 67 yards the other way for a score. O’Leary is expected to use the same plan on Saturday vs. USM, with Calabrese getting the start but both expected to play. Aside from Hodges’ late heroics, another (the other?) bright spot for UCF’s offense was Brynn Harvey’s 111 yards rushing on 33 carries.

The Knights’ pass defense didn’t fare a whole lot better than the offense, allowing Samford, led by 2008 Southern Conference Freshman of the Year QB Dustin Taliaferro, 208 yards through the air on 60% completions. Taliaferro himself threw for 141 of those yards, nearing his 2008 season average of 158.6, not good considering Samford only played one game vs. an FBS foe in ‘08. Taliaferro was also only sacked once. UCF fared better against the run, only allowing 78 yards on the ground. Leading the defensive effort for the Knights was DB Darin Baldwin, who claimed 7 tackles and 3 pass break-ups, and DE Jarvis Geathers, who recorded the lone sack. Should DeAndre Brown play for Southern Miss on Saturday, expect Baldwin to be the primary back charged with containing him.

Baldwin also played a big role in UCF’s high point of the day: kick returns. The Knights piled up 289 return yards on Samford, 190 on kickoffs and 99 on punts, for their best performance in that category since joining Divison I-A/the FBS. Baldwin returned a kickoff 72 yards to the Samford 11 late in the 3^rd quarter, but UCF squandered the opportunity by stalling and eventually getting a Jamie Boyle FG blocked. Leading the return game for the Knights was WR Rocky Ross, who compiled 91 yards on 6 returns, including a long of 39.

All in all, UCF was much less impressive in their opening game than Southern Miss, even after accounting for the different levels of competition. Given the fact that the Knights’ woes are the same ones they had last year, the safe assumption is that the Samford performance wasn’t just a one-game hiccup. It’s said that teams make their most improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 of a football season, and UCF better hope that’s true in their case and not so much in USM’s. While those kick returns should be of particular concern for the Golden Eagles, nothing much else should scare USM fans as long as the team shows up ready to play.

• The defense looked unbelievably better in every aspect. Sure, Boise State scored 24 points, but 1) Boise State does that and worse to everyone, and 2) Boise was given too many short fields to work with, which brings us to…
• The 4th-and-1 call early in the 2nd quarter was dumb as a box of rocks on Larry Fedora’s part. Yes, you have to expect to gain one measly yard. Yes, it’s a big boost if you make it. HOWEVER, the coach has to consider the consequences of not making it, which in this case was giving a superior opponent the ball on your own 45 yard line after your defense had put up a yeoman’s effort to kept them off the scoreboard in the opening quarter. That was a game-changing decision, and Fedora blew it, as I’ve seen so many new coaches (including future two-time National Champion coach Steve Campbell back in his first season at Southwest Mississippi CC) do in that situation. The good news is that you never see any of them repeat the mistake.
• The offense was just off. To spend that much time in Boise State territory and only score one TD was awful. How much of that was to Boise’s credit and how much was the proverbial growing pains, who knows? Specifically…
• The game still seems just a little too fast for Austin Davis, which is to be expected when you’re talking about a redshirt freshman (especially one who came to school on a baseball scholarship). His decisions aren’t bad overall, but against a quality team, he has got to make them more quickly. He could potentially become a holy terror for those on our remaining schedule.
• What in the WORLD is up with our FG kicking game? The woes there continued with a block of the potential go-ahead score to start the game.
• All props to the Boise State fans, who may have brought the largest visiting crowd so far this year. The only other possibility is UL-Lafayette. As much as we fuss about CUSA being so spread out as to discourage travel, all those folks in blue and orange Saturday proved its more just a matter of giving a damn.
• Two words on Reggie Collier’s jersey retirement: About time.
• I cried because I had CUSA refs, until I saw the man who had WAC refs.

As I’m sure everyone reading this already knows, the AP’s pre-season poll came out Saturday with the obligatory fanfare and ado. Unfortunately, no Conference USA team was even close to cracking the Top 25. Tulsa was the conference’s lone representative in the “Others Receiving Votes” category with 7 total points. In contrast, in the USA Today coaches’ poll, UCF not only joined Tulsa in the ORV, but the Knights finished ahead of them 2 points to 1.

Obviously, this is not a good starting point for CUSA, who has yet place a team in the final Top 25 of either poll since the 2005 reconfiguration, but that’s hardly anything new or worthy of a blog entry. It does, however, fall pretty much in line with where the 2007 polls ended (see previous link), with Tulsa landing 4 points in the AP and 5 in the USAT and UCF picking up 4 points from the coaches.

That last tidbit begs the question: just how much thought goes into these polls, especially when it comes to teams not in the BCS-AQ conferences? Apparently, the coaches who included UCF in their rankings are pretty optimistic about UCF picking up right where they left off despite the Knights losing their top running back—as well as the nation’s—in Kevin Smith, and his understudies having to work behind an offensive line sans 3 of last year’s starters. That’s a lot to overcome and expect to not miss a beat.

In Tulsa’s case, it can be argued that the Golden Hurricane didn’t get the love it deserved in the first place, having finished last season at 10-3 and walloping Bowling Green in the GMAC Bowl, but it’s easy to understand the sentiment when Tulsa in turn got almost equally walloped by Oklahoma early in the season and failed to beat UCF in two attempts, including the CUSA Championship game. Less-than-impressive showings vs. 2007’s CUSA dregs didn’t help their case, either, so it really was a stretch to argue them a Top 25 team at the end of last year (especially after UCF’s boredom-inducing loss to Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl). Nonetheless, it’s hard to explain how Tulsa gets nearly double the votes in the 2008 preseason poll than it did in the final 2007 poll when the ‘Cane is replacing not only its starting QB, but its CUSA Offensive Player of the Year starting QB in Paul Smith (who obviously had to beat out UCF’s Smith for the honor). Granted, for all we know Tulsa’s offense can make any decent QB a record-breaker (it seems like Smith had been there a decade), but still, that’s a big question mark when it comes to Tulsa being better than they were last season.

What FTF really doesn’t understand is the lack of love for East Carolina. Last year, the Pirates finished 7-5 (6-2 in-conference), started the season by playing Virginia Tech within 10 in Blacksburg, and ended it by stunning Top 25 Boise State in the Hawaii Bowl. They’re also easily one of the best-off CUSA teams (if not the best) in terms of returning personnel. While ECU does move into 2008 without Chris Johnson, who led the nation in all-purpose yards last year, the Pirates do return their leading passer and second-leading rusher in QB Patrick Pinkney, their leading receiver in Jamar Bryant, and also have a CUSA All-Freshman performer, Jonathan Williams, poised as the replacement for Johnson. They also return the vast majority of their defense. By all indications, if anyone in CUSA is in a position to make a run at the polls this year, it is East Carolina. That Tulsa and UCF are getting votes (which is reasonable in itself; don’t get me wrong) while the Pirates aren’t shows you just how much the pollsters actually do their “mid major” homework as opposed to just copying-and-pasting the previous season’s final standings and calling it a prediction.