Posted by Part of the Doc’s Mid-Major Week.
• Houston and its point-a-minute offense is far and away the conference favorite and the only hope (albeit a distant one) of becoming C-USA’s first BCS crasher. The best bet in the other half of the championship game, though, is the only team in the league that might make its living off defense: Central Florida gets eight starters back from a unit that easily led C-USA in total D and finished in elite company nationally against the run despite playing in a conference that somehow produced nine different 1,000-yard rushers.
The Knights held every C-USA opponent except Houston under 28 points, and even then they managed to hold the Cougars reasonably in check (by Houston standards, anyway) while commandeering the ball for two-thirds of a 37-32 upset in November. If UCF gets out of a crowded East Division, it’s obviously in the best position to go cloud-of-dust on offense and reprise the turnover-fueled handcuffing East Carolina put on the Cougars to take the conference title.
• As for ECU, the Pirates will bear no resemblance whatsoever to the outfit that delivered back-to-back championships the last two years. Coach Skip Holtz, architect of the worst-to-first rise, is off to South Florida, leading an exodus that included veteran quarterback Patrick Pinkney, 1,200-yard back Domonique Lindsay and seven of the top eight tacklers on defense, four of whom were All-C-USA picks. New boss Ruffin McNeill inherits a lethal receiver/return man (Dwayne Harris), a couple solid cornerbacks (Emanuel Davis and Travis Simmons) and a lot of frustration as the Pirates begin drifting back to the pack.
• At least the drop-off from Pinkney at quarterback shouldn’t be a disaster, thanks to Boston College transfer Domonique Davis, but he hardly gives ECU a leg up in that department: Between Davis, Memphis’ Cannon Smith (Miami), Rice’s Nick Fanuzzi (Alabama), Marshall’s Willy Korn (Clemson) and Tulsa’s G.J. Kinne (Texas), almost half the league is starting a quarterback who began his career in a more high-profile locale. Rice, UCF and Memphis will all employ backup QBs who came from “Big Six” schools, too.
With high-flying Michigan transfer Sam McGuffie also coming to a complete stop as the top tailback at Rice, C-USA box scores will be a veritable who’s who of big-name washouts. (Willy Korn!)
• SMU doesn’t figure to start any transfers, but it hardly needs to after the emergence of Kyle Padron over the second half of his freshman season. Padron took the reins of a 3-4 team in late October, proceeded to go 4-1 as a starter through the end of the regular season and sealed his up-and-comer status with a 460-yard, two-touchdown barrage in a Christmas Eve ambush of heavily-favored Nevada.
That game should have put the highly flammable secondaries of C-USA on high alert: The Mustangs’ eighth win officially made them the most improved team in the country, up from one win in coach June Jones’ first season, echoing Hawaii’s resurrection from 0-12 to 9-4 at the beginning of Jones’ record-breaking run in the islands. His decade there produced three 10-win seasons, an all-out assault on NCAA passing records by multiple quarterbacks and finally a BCS bid for the undefeated Warriors in 2007. SMU may not make it that far. But with Padron entrenched for the next three years, it is going to light up some scoreboards.
- – -
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.