Scout.com: C-USA Conference Roundup

Click on each team for game recaps, thoughts, schedules and more and scroll down for the games, results, players of the week and the conference roundup.

East UAB | UCF | East Carolina | Marshall | Memphis | Southern Miss
West Houston | Rice | SMU | Tulane | Tulsa | UTEP

Conference USA Game of the Week
Memphis 55 ... SMU 52 3OT
Memphis stuffed SMU on fourth and goal from the two in the third overtime, and then Matt Reagan ended the thriller with a 32-yard field goal. Reagan had a shot to win it in regulation, but a bobbled snap caused a 32-yard attempt to go wide. The two teams traded field goals in the first overtime, Memphis scored first in the second overtime on Martin Hankins' fourth touchdown pass of the game on a six-yard throw to Greg Hinds, but SMU answered with a one-yard Chris Butler scoring run. The two teams traded punches all game long with SMU's Justin Willis putting on a show with four touchdown passes and a 48-yard touchdown dash. The offenses combined for 1,103 yards of total offense and 49 first downs.

AND

Tulsa 48 ... Rice 43
Rice cranked out 700 yards of total offense with QB Chase Clement setting a Conference USA record with 601 yards of total offense, and lost. Tulsa clinched the West title helped by five touchdown passes from Paul Smith with strikes to Brennan Marion from 49 and 31 yards out in the first quarter and a 19-yard play to Trae Johnson midway through the fourth for a little breathing room. After a Clement pass to Chance Talbert for a 24-yard touchdown on the opening drive of the game, Rice never led the rest of the way.

Conference USA Player of the Week
Tulsa QB Paul Smith completed 22 of 39 passes for 441 yards and five touchdowns with an interception, and ran six times for four yards and a score, and Rice QB Chase Clement completed 40 of 66 passes for 541 yards and three touchdowns with an interception and ran 17 times for 60 yards

Conference Roundup

East Carolina … ECU came up with a nice, efficient day in the relatively easy win over Tulane to secure a bowl slot. Coming off the bad loss to Marshall two weeks ago, the Pirates needed a good game, and it got one thanks to Chris Johnson. While he might not be a first-team all-star in a league with Matt Forte and Kevin Smith, he proved once again that he's one of the nation's best all-around backs. The defense wasn't a rock, but it was good enough for three quarters to keep the Green Wave out of the end zone.
Houston … Nothing like a nice light scrimmage against a Texas Southern to close out a season. While this might not have been the Conference USA championship campaign of last year, winning eight games and going off to the Texas Bowl is still a nice accomplishment. The program missed Kevin Kolb, but as the win this week showed, it'll miss Anthony Alridge and Donnie Avery even more next year.
Marshall … As bad as the season was, closing out with two wins in the final three games, and battling hard in a tough loss to Houston, is a plus. The biggest problem was the lack of consistent defense. If Mark Snyder is supposed to be a defensive coach, there's no reason his team should've been so bad against UAB in the final game of the year. The offense simply wasn't good enough to keep up in Conference USA shootouts, so once the defense starts to improve, so will the Herd.
Memphis … Memphis flexed its offensive muscle against SMU, but the defense went bye-bye in the wild shootout. It didn't matter as the Tigers pulled off a key seventh win and will now be off to the New Orleans Bowl to face either Troy or Florida Atlantic. If the offense is as balanced as it's been the last few weeks, the Tigers should be able to outgun their way to a win. This might not have been a special season, but after last year's 2-10 debacle, going to a bowl is important.
Rice … Rice might have closed out its season with two straight losses, but it sure was a fun ride. Chase Clement has perfect command of the offense, spreading the ball around well on Tulsa and bombing away at will. The defense didn't have a prayer of slowing down the Tulsa offense, but the offseason will have to be focused around coming up with more defensive stops. With Clement back, it'll be shootout, shootout, shootout.
Southern Miss … A week after the offense was so explosive and effective against UTEP two weeks ago, it didn't do nearly enough against Arkansas State and had to rely on the defense to pull out the win. Jeremy Young was decent throwing the ball and Damion Fletcher did a great job of pounding away, but to get to eight wins with a victory in the Papjohns.com Bowl, the offense will have to be more effective.
SMU … SMU might have gone down in its final game, but it went down swinging. The offense wasn't a problem as the season went on, but the defense was awful from day one and there was a stunning inability to come up with a key late play in the close games. You don't lose five games by a touchdown or less without having a major fundamental flaw. The little things always proved costly, like 12 penalties against Memphis. If nothing else, Justin Willis showed against the Tigers what kind of a talent he is.
Tulane … The offense showed against East Carolina just how much it needs a passing game. Matt Forte had a great game, but this wasn't the Rice defense the Green Wave were going against. The defense wasn't awful, but it didn't come up with enough key stops and didn't do anything to help out the struggling offense. The 4-8 final record might not be impressive, but the Green Wave was competitive all year long. It might not take too much tweaking to be much, much better in 2008.
Tulsa … It's a good thing Paul Smith and the offense are unstoppable because the defense isn't even close. Because Smith always came through and because the attack is so explosive, Tulsa was able to get by lousy teams like Army and Rice in firefights to close out with a five-game winning streak and six wins in the final seven games. The one loss came to UCF, and to win the rematch in the Conference USA title game, there can't be any offensive mistakes. Kevin Smith and company will hang a monster number on the board.
UAB … This was a rebuilding year in every sense of the word for UAB, and with it were the expected losses. While dropping six straight to close the year isn't a positive, the passing game started to get going, at times, over the second half of the year. The running game never showed up and the defense had way too many problems, especially when it came to getting a big late stop. Marshall was able to drive too easily to close out UAB's season with a thud, and now there's lots of work to be done over the next several months.
UCF … UCF's bounceback season is complete with an all-timer of a game against UTEP. Kevin Smith gets 2,000 yards, the team wins the East outright, and now the season goes from being something special into a program-changer if it can beat Tulsa for the title. With Smith controlling the offense, Kyle Israel is taking advantage of the one-on-one matchups and is limiting his mistakes. To beat the Golden Hurricane, Israel will have to be flawless.
UTEP… There were positives out of the six-game losing streak to close out the year. QB Trevor Vittatoe had some strong moments throwing the ball and the receivers played well at times, but the running game wasn't consistent and the defense got ripped apart by everyone's running game. After yet another November collapse, the program has to go back to the drawing board and figure out why it's dying every single year. There were too many good players on this team to not go bowling.

Saturday, November 24
1:00 PM	at East Carolina 35 ... Tulane 12 CFN Prediction: ECU 30-20 ECU -12
2:00 PM	at Memphis 55 ... SMU 52 3OT CFN Prediction: Memphis 37-23 MU -7.5
2:00 PM	at UCF 36 ... UTEP 20 CFN Prediction: UCF 45-24 UCF -18
3:00 PM	Tulsa 48 ... at Rice 43 CFN Prediction: Tulsa 45-35 Tulsa -12
3:00 PM	at Southern Miss 16 ... Arkansas State 10 CFN Prediction: USM 31-20 USM -14
3:30 PM	at Houston 59 ... Texas Southern 6 CFN Prediction: Houston 57-7
4:30 PM	at Marshall 46 ... UAB 39 CFN Prediction: MU 33-13 MU -14.5

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