CUSA Week 11 Look Ahead

With this yesterday’s big shakeup in the standings, lets take a look at next week’s games and what they mean for the Conference Title race.

Interestingly, all of next week’s match ups will take place on Saturday.

Included are the predictions without knowing the betting lines. I’ll update this post when the odds come out for this week. Updated with odds from Oddshark.

11:00 am Central

UAB (2-6, 1-3) @ Marshall (5-3, 3-1) (-23)

A battle of East division teams, pits Marshall battling for the division berth in the title game. Marshall controls its own destiny, including a matchup with ECU in the finale that will decide who gets in. UAB needs to win out to get bowl eligible.

Prediction: Marshall by 15

1:00 pm Central

Tulane (6-3, 4-1)@ UTSA (4-5, 3-2) (-7.5)

The rare case of the better team being the one with the worse record. Tulane has had a magical run that has included some amazing deus ex machina plays. Florida Atlantic opened up the flood gates in the second half scoring 27 to come back from a 17-7 Tulane lead. The domination included 17 in the fourth. Most predicted Tulane’s magic run at the table to end before this. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Tulane win if this were in New Orleans, but I think UTSA wins handily. UTSA is still in the title race if they win out and Rice loses two more games.

Prediction: UTSA by 20

2:45 pm Central

Tulsa (2-6, 1-3) @ East Carolina (6-2, 4-1) (-14)

East Carolina fell into the magic pit that was Tulane but outside of that slip up they’ve been outstanding in conference play. They control their own destiny from here on in, and that includes getting home field in the CUSA title game. Tulsa is in free-fall. Fans are revolting (read: not showing up to homecoming games) and their team can’t score. UTSA jumped on them early 24-0 and the final score doesn’t reflect the beat-down Tulsa took.

Prediction: ECU by 20

2:30 pm Central

UTEP (1-6, 0-4) @ North Texas (6-3, 4-1) (-21)

Ah. Our game. UTEP is a mess and will be coming off a shellacking at the hands of Johnny Football and company. The only win for the Miners was against lowly New Mexico State — a team that has only beaten FCS Abilene Christian (and then only by 5). This is a team that Rice beat 45-7. UNT will be enjoying its place in the 3-way tie for first place for now and watching the scoreboard. The Tulane game will likely end right as this one start and UNT could be playing to keep first place in the West.

Homecoming prediction: Good guys by 24

3:00 pm Central

FIU (1-7, 1-3) @ MTSU (5-4, 3-2) (-17)

FIU is a team that was battling for the title of Worst In CUSA. Middle is having a strange season where they play to the level of their opponent (aside from the game in which we shellacked them). Middle needs two ECU losses and to win out to have a chance at the CUSA East title.

Prediction: MTSU by 21

6:00 pm Central

SoMiss (0-8, 0-4) @ LaTech (3-5, 2-2) (-14)

Amazingly, Louisiana Tech has a shot at the West title. They, like everyone else, is rooting for Tulane to lose one more. If they win out against SoMiss, Rice, Tulsa and UTSA that will give them the edge. Oh. They need us to drop one of our last three, too. Southern Miss is historically terrible, having allowed 55+ five times this year, including two 60 pointers. Right now Marshall has the highest point total against them with 61 this week. We are at the point where that is the drama in a Southern Miss game.

Prediction: LaTech by 35