Scout.com: 2009 CFN C-USA Expert Picks, Schedules, More

2009 CFN C-USA Expert Picks, Schedules, More

By Staff

CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Dec 2, 2009

Conference USA 2009 Game of the Week, Player of the Week, Roundup & Standings

2009 Conference USA ... Week 14

	CFN EXPERT PICKS	Fiu	Rich	Matt	Michael	Clucko	PICK
12:00	Houston -1 at ECU	UH	EC	EC	EC	UH	EC
	Straight Up	74-20	69-34	70-36	71-22	49-34	73-20
	ATS	41-41-3	41-41-3	42-40-3	43-39-1	41-41-3	41-41-3

East
	Conf.		Overall
ECU	7	1	8	4
UCF	6	2	8	4
So Miss	5	3	7	5
Marshall	4	4	6	6
UAB	4	4	5	7
Memphis	1	7	2	10
West
	Conf.		Overall
Houston	6	2	10	2
SMU	6	2	7	5
Tulsa	3	5	5	7
UTEP	3	5	4	8
Rice	2	6	2	10
Tulane	1	7	3	9
Players of the Week 11/28 T. Vittatoe, QB UTEP 11/21 Brynn Harvey, RB UCF 11/14 D, Buckram, RB UTEP 11/7 Case Keenum, QB UH 10/31 Case Keenum, QB UH 10/24 D Buckram, RB UTEP 10/17 Dwayne Harris,WR EC 10/10 Case Keenum, QB UH 10/3 Donald Buckram, RB UTEP & Case Keenum, QB UH 9/26 Case Keenum, QB UH 9/19 Albert McClellan, DE MU 9/13 Case Keenum, QB UH 9/5 Joe Webb, QB UAB Games of the Week 11/28 ECU 25, USM 20 11/21 Rice 30, UTEP 29 11/14 UCF 37, UH 32 11/7 UH 46, Tulsa 45 10/31 UH 50, USM 43 10/24 UTEP 28, Tulsa 24 10/17 Navy 38, SMU 35 OT 10/10 UH 31, Miss St 24 10/3 UTEP 58, UH 41 9/26 UH 29, TTech 28 9/19 USM 37, Virginia 34 9/13 UH 45, Ok St 35 9/5 ECU 29, App. St 24 Scoreboard Friday, Nov. 27 at Tulsa 33 Memphis 30 OT - Tulsa gets by the Tigers in OT - Memphis gets a huge game from Steele in loss CFN Prediction: Tulsa 35-24 . Line: Tulsa -15 Saturday, Nov. 28 at East Carolina 25 Southern Miss 20 - East Carolina beats the Eagles, wins the East - Southern Miss gets late kick blocked in loss CFN Prediction: East Carolina 28-24 . Line: ECU -3 at Houston 73 Rice 14 - Houston hangs 73 on the Owls - Rice gets ripped up by the Cougars CFN Prediction: Houston 48-24 . Line: Houston -28 at UTEP 52 Marshall 21 - UTEP & Vittatoe rip up Marshall - Marshall gets rolled up by the Miners CFN Prediction: Marshall 30-27 . Line: UTEP -1 at SMU 26 Tulane 21 - SMU & McNeal get by the Green Wave - Tulane loses late to the Mustangs CFN Prediction: SMU 35-19 . Line: SMU-17 UCF 34 at UAB 27 - UCF & Harvey get by the Blazers - UAB's Webb not enough in loss to Knights CFN Prediction: UCF 31-21 . Line: UCF-3

GAME OF THE WEEK

at East Carolina 25 … Southern Miss 20
East Carolina won the East and will host Houston in the Conference USA title game after C.J. Wilson returned a blocked extra point for a two-point conversion and Ben Hartman added a 47-yard field goal for a five-point run to close. Southern Miss was about to take the lead after RB Damion Fletcher threw a three-yard touchdown pass to Leroy Banks, but the momentum turned on the block. Dwayne Harris ran for a 34-yard touchdown in the second and Linval Joseph ran for a one-yard score to give the Pirates a 17-7 lead in halftime, but USM came back highlighted by a 41-yard Tory Harrison scoring run. Hartman finished with three field goals.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
UTEP QB Trevor Vittatoe completed 28-of-40 passes for 517 yards and five touchdowns in the win over Marshall.

CONFERENCE ROUNDUP

East Carolina… at East Carolina 25 ... Southern Miss 20 ... The Pirates might not be flashy and they might not put up huge offensive numbers, but they kept on winning, pulled off victories in its final five Conference USA games, and now gets to host Houston with a chance to win its second straight title. The team is doing the little things right with the special teams coming through week after week and the offensive line doing a nice job of keeping Patrick Pinkney upright. But to beat Houston it’s going to take more offensive firepower, and that has to come from Dominique Lindsay and the running game against the porous Cougar defensive front.

Houston … at Houston 73 ... Rice 14 ... Houston’s defense still isn’t doing much to stop anyone, it gave up 377 yards to Rice, but whatever. 59-0 in the first half?! The Cougars are humming on all cylinders scoring 128 points over the last two weeks, while Memphis and Rice each only scored 14 points. To beat East Carolina, the Cougars will have to make it a shootout from the start and do something, anything against the run and can’t turn the ball over. ECU can’t keep up a scoring pace is Case Keenum gets hot early, and considering the Cougars are eighth in the nation in turnover margin, they have a great shot to get to 11 wins with a title.

Marshall … at UTEP 52 ... Marshall 21 ... Marshall is hardly a lock for a bowl game at 6-6 and needed a seventh win over a bad UTEP team to be assured of a 13th game. After losing three of their last four games, the Herd is struggling at the wrong time with the offense sputtering and turning it over way too much, but the real problem is a defense that couldn’t stop UTEP’s Trevor Vittatoe and isn’t improving. Brian Anderson might throw too many interceptions, but he’s looking solid enough to get excited about for next year.

Memphis … at Tulsa 33 ... Memphis 30 OT ... Tommy West’s team didn’t catch much of a break this season, but give it credit; it never gave up. This is a team that could’ve packed it in, but it kept fighting in the finale with Curtis Steele coming up with a whale of an effort to almost send West out a winner. In comes Larry Porter from LSU to give the program a new direction, but West had a solid career. His team, though, simply didn’t play any defense this year.

Rice … at Houston 73 ... Rice 14 ... This was a bad season to begin with, but to lose in a disaster like this against Houston, even as good as the Cougars are in just embarrassing. After beating Tulane and UTEP, the program appeared to be turning things around a little bit and started to look far more competitive, and then came this. The Owls didn’t show up in the first half against the Cougars, and now the hope has to be that they can find something that works defensively this offseason and more playmakers have to emerge that the team can count on.

Southern Miss … at East Carolina 25 ... Southern Miss 20 ... Southern Miss was right there with a chance to pull off the win over East Carolina to get to the Conference USA championship, but the secondary continues to struggle and the offense wasn’t able to pick up the slack. It was a dead even game, though, and the Golden Eagles played well enough to win. They’ll go to a bowl game, but they’d certainly would’ve liked to have had a second shot at Houston.

SMU … at SMU 26 ... Tulane 21 ... It might not always be a smooth ride, but June Jones has been able to lead the team to key win after key win as SMU finished the year winning four of its last five games. SMU knows close games with eight this year decided by seven points or fewer. The team should be battle tested going into the bowl game, and for a young team in need of experience and more practices, getting a 13th game will help immeasurably going into next season. The passing game is fine, but it could be more explosive, while Shawnbrey McNeal has come though with balance and production when needed.

Tulane … at SMU 26 ... Tulane 21 ... Tulane battled hard coming off an ugly, lifeless, 49-0 loss to UCF and almost pulled off the win. Ryan Griffin came up with a nice performance and appears to be the type of player the team can work around next year, while Andre Anderson did his best to carry the offense with a strong 105-yard rushing day. But the defense couldn’t come up with a late stop and the run defense got gouged yet again. To have any hope of improving under Bob Toledo, the defense has to get better this offseason.

Tulsa … at Tulsa 33 ... Memphis 30 OT ... This might have been a disappointing season for the Golden Hurricane, but it rallied past the six-game losing streak and the struggles against Curtis Steele and the Memphis running game to pull off a clutch overtime win. The offense wasn’t bad this year, and for the first time in weeks the team caught a few breaks after suffering close losses to UTEP and Houston. The defense has struggled for the last few years, and it has to be better against the pass to improve and get back to a bowl next year.

UAB … UCF 34 ... at UAB 27 ... Case Keenum will be the first-team Conference USA quarterback pick, but Joe Webb might have had an even better year. He carried the team and came close to pulling off a huge rally to get the Blazers bowl eligible. Instead, this has been a nice 5-7 season that came up just short. The job this offseason will be to boost up the rest of the team to make up for the loss of Webb, and that starts with a pass defense that finished the year dead last in college football allowing 312 yards per game.

UCF … UCF 34 ... at UAB 27 ... UCF makes things interesting on a regular basis, and allowed UAB to get back into the game, but Brynn Harvey and the Knights pulled out the close win for the fourth victory this year by seven points or fewer. The defense is the best in the league but struggled against mobile QB Joe Webb; everyone struggles against Joe Webb. With the win, the Knights will get no worse than Conference USA’s No. 4 bowl slot and could be No. 3 with the right break.

UTEP… at UTEP 52 ... Marshall 21 ... After losing four straight and five of the last six, UTEP came up with its second best performance of the year, after the win over Houston, with a tremendous game from Trevor Vittatoe that should make everyone fired up about 2010. If Donald Buckram returns, the Miners should have a tremendous backfield and one of Conference USA’s most dangerous offenses. UTEP finished second in the league in yards, but that didn’t matter with the defense struggling. It came up big in the second half against the Herd.