Sun Belt Vs Cusa In '08 - Who Wins

[MeanGreen61]

Thread from the muts Scout board.

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=349&f=2388&t=2686707

[Mean Green 93-98]

My picks:

Florida Atlantic hosting UAB September 6th - Winner = Florida Atlantic

UL-Monroe at Tulane September 20th - Winner = UL-Monroe

UL-Lafayette @ USM August 30th - Winner = USM

UL-Lafayette hosting UTEP - Winner = UTEP

Arkansas State hosting USM - Winner = USM

Arkansas State @ Memphis - Winner = Memphis - ASU is losing too much to pull off what they did last year

North Texas hosting Tulsa - Winner = Tulsa - Prove me wrong. Please.

North Texas at Rice - Winner = North Texas in a squeaker

New Orleans bowl - Hard to pick without knowing who will play whom, but I'll go ahead and say the Belt wins it.

I guess that makes it 5-4 in favor of C-USA, but you have to give extra points to whomever wins the Bowl.

[MDH]

^^ Those were my picks as well. USM aint droppin those games

[stebo]

UL beat Houston in Houston last year and Houston was a lot better than UTEP. I know that UTEP was strong when Price got there but they have had a drop off (2 consecutive losing seasons) and I think that UL (at home mind you) can beat them thus switching that to a winning season for the third year in a row for the Belt. We have no idea how good USM will be - lots of changes there - those games are big question marks.

UTEP's losses the past two years:

2007-Texas-El Paso (CUSA) - 8 losses

9/8 @ Texas Tech (9-4) L 31 45

9/15 @ New Mexico State (4-9) L 24 29

10/13 vs. *East Carolina (8-5) L 42 45

10/27 vs. *Houston (8-5) L 31 34

11/3 @ *Rice (3-9) L 48 56

11/10 @ *Tulane (4-8) L 19 34

11/17 vs. *Southern Mississippi (7-6) L 30 56

11/24 @ *Central Florida (10-4) L 20 36

Final Record: 4-8-0

2006-Texas-El Paso (CUSA) - 7 losses

9/9 vs. Texas Tech (8-5) L 35 38

9/23 @ New Mexico (6-7) L 13 26

10/21 @ *Houston (10-4) L 17 34

10/27 @ *Tulsa (8-5) L 20 30

11/4 vs. *Rice (7-6) L 31 37

11/18 @ *Marshall (5-7) L 21 49

11/25 vs. *Memphis (2-10) L 19 38

BTW - their wins last year were less than impressive: New Mexico, Texas Southern (non-IA), SMU, and one quality win over Tulsa at home.

The year before, a little better but the slip took place last year: wins over - SDSU, NMSU, SMU, UAB, and Tulane - none of these wins were against teams with winning records.

Edited July 16, 2008 by stebo

[Mean Green 93-98]

UL beat Houston in Houston last year and Houston was a lot better than UTEP. I know that UTEP was strong when Price got there but they have had a drop off (2 consecutive losing seasons) and I think that UL (at home mind you) can beat them thus switching that to a winning season for the third year in a row for the Belt.

I agree that the UTEP game is very winnable for LaLa. I just don't see the home field advantage as being that big of an advantage with the crowds (?) they bring in. I had to give the slightest of edges to UTEP.

But LaLa may feel free to prove me wrong, and beat the feces out of UTEP.

[greenminer]

I agree that the UTEP game is very winnable for LaLa. I just don't see the home field advantage as being that big of an advantage with the crowds (?) they bring in. I had to give the slightest of edges to UTEP.

But LaLa may feel free to prove me wrong, and beat the feces out of UTEP.

UTEP is a good defense away from exploding on CUSA. It's a shame they can't hold onto leads, and collapse so late in the season against mediocre teams. They can be counted on to give the West leaders absolute fits. Most publications pick them to finish first....or last. Schizo would be a good adjective to use.

This year and next will say a lot about them with the infusion of Osia Lewis and the cool 3-3-5 from UNM. A couple things about the Miners this year:

TV at QB: following 4 years of record-setting stats by Carson Palmer's little bro, Jordan, and all this kid did was come in and shatter them as a frosh. Price says he was the best freshman he's ever had run his offense (think Leaf and Bledsoe)

FWIW (maybe not much?) This is the 5th year Price has been around, meaning his recruits fill up the entire roster now.

Under Price, UTEP has done considerably well in OOC. Most notably giving Tech all they can handle, and trading punches with the UNMSU schools year in and out (NMSU is another school which I am curious about this season.)

In LaLa's favor: they get UTEP in November, when Price's teams have consistently faltered. They're 5-10 in November since 2004, but only 1-7 since 2006.

Should be interesting. As a matter of fact, it's in LaLa...might be good cool to go since UNT is at FAU the same weekend.