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College Sports in the Carolinas
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from the 'ville
Thursday,
November 10, 2005
By Al Myatt |
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C-USA parity produces
scramble for bowl bids
©2005 Bonesville.net
Two teams in Conference USA (Texas-El Paso and
Central Florida) have achieved bowl eligibility. Seven more of the league's
12 members still have a shot.
East Carolina remains in the game of musical
chairs for one of five C-USA postseason slots but the Pirates must run the
table in their final three games to reach the qualifying 6-win level.
Only 25 percent of the league's teams teams
(Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulane) have been eliminated from bowl
contention thus far.
After a week off, ECU begins its quest to
extend Skip Holtz's first season on the Greenville campus into December as
the Pirates visit Tulsa at 3 p.m. (EST) on Saturday.
Saturday's matchup also has bowl implications
for the Golden Hurricanes, who are seeking their sixth win after falling
short last week in a 41-38 loss at UTEP.
"I'm really not surprised (at the number of
C-USA teams still in bowl contention), simply because of the quality of this
league," said Tulsa coach Steve Kragthorpe. "It's a league that has a
tremendous amount of parity.
"I know all of us talked about that when we
came to Memphis for the media day. Right now, a lot of teams have knocked
each other off and everybody is kind of sitting in the same position ... and
there's still a lot of football left to play."
Kragthorpe thinks it may be well into November
before the bowl picture in C-USA comes into clear focus.
"I said a couple of weeks ago, I think this
thing is going down to the very end of the season,' said the former Buffalo
Bills quarterbacks coach. "It will be the 27th of November before this whole
thing is decided and that speaks highly for the quality of football that's
being played."
Kragthorpe doesn't believe the situation
reflects a shortage of football strength in the recently-realigned league.
"I don't think it's the lack of quality teams
being the reason that there aren't more bowl qualified teams," he said.
"It's the lack of teams that aren't very good in our league. A lot of times
when you're playing in a league when two or three teams aren't very good,
everybody is going to get two or three wins against those teams and now
you're bowl eligible. But, again, everybody seems to be kind of knocking
each other off."
Among C-USA programs, only UTEP, which has
wins over New Mexico State and New Mexico, and plays Texas Southern on
Saturday, has managed to avoid a non-conference loss on its ledger.
"The other thing I think you look at in our
league is people are playing quality non-conference schedules, so you're not
going to be in a position where you come out 3-0 in a non-conference
schedule," Kragthorpe said. "The combination of those two things puts a lot
of teams in a position where we're still trying to battle to get into a bowl
game.
"I don't think it's the lack of quality teams.
I think it speaks highly for the quality of football that's being played in
our conference."
Praising the Pirates
Kragthorpe is in his third season as coach at
Tulsa, compiling a 17-17 record with the Golden Hurricanes that includes a
5-4 mark this season.
Despite the 1,200-plus miles between Tulsa and
Greenville, Kragthorpe has done sufficient homework on the Pirates' first
season under Holtz to realize the deceptive nature of ECU's 3-5 record.
"It's going to be a big challenge because East
Carolina is a very good football team," Kragthorpe said. "They've played
solid football every week. All you have to do is look at the complexion and
the scores of the games every week. They've been competitive every single
week.
"They took West Virginia to the wire at
Morgantown. They took Memphis to the wire at Memphis. They had a fourth
quarter lead a week and a half ago against Central Florida. They have a very
talented team. Skip has done a tremendous job there and he's got a great
staff."
Timely bye week
ECU had an open date after the 30-20
homecoming loss to Central Florida in which the Pirates were beset by six
turnovers.
"It was really needed," Holtz said of the bye
week. "We've gone through seven weeks in a row. We haven't really had the
opportunity to play a lot of players. We just don't have a lot of depth
right now. Most of our starters have been playing 60, 70 and 80 plays a
game.
"As you get seven weeks in a row, especially
on your offensive and defensive lines, you take a little bit of a beating.
It was great to have the opportunity to kind of get a little bit healthy
again. Everybody's had shoulders and ankles and elbows we've needed to get
healthy.
" ... We've really gone back to trying to
create some depth. We've had kind of a spring practice atmosphere with a lot
of our seconds and thirds to try and create some depth on this team. It's
been an opportunity to kind of reflect back on where we are right now."
In addition to getting healthy and building
depth, it's been a productive two-week period for the Pirates.
"I think we've gotten an awful lot done,"
Holtz said. "Hopefully it will pay dividends for us down the road as we go
through these final three games."
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02/23/2007 12:33:45 AM
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