As Tulsa began the first weekend of football for Conference USA teams on a positive note, the tough out-of-conference games took their toll on Tulsa’s C-USA mates on Saturday. While East Carolina gave #9 Virginia Tech all they could handle on a emotional day in Blacksburg, the Pirates fell 17-7 in the end. UAB’s travels to face Michigan State were quite disappointing thanks to a 55-18 thumping by the Spartans, and Marshall’s visit to Miami and subsequent 31-3 loss was not what Thundering Herd fans were hoping for. Houston had high, but reasonable hopes, heading into a match-up @ Oregon, and while they trailed just 20-17 at the half, Oregon’s offense could not be stopped in a 48-27 loss. After a terrible 2006 campaign, Memphis fans should feel better about their team after a narrow 23-21 loss to Mississippi, but Rice’s loss to Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) member Nicholls State must have brought back memories of Rice from just a few short years ago.

The highlights for C-USA football programs came as the night wore on; UCF’s 25-point 1st half proved to be enough, barely, to fend off the NC State Wolfpack 25-23 and Southern Miss easily handled Tennessee-Martin, another Football Championship Subdivision member, by a score of 35-13. In the nightcap, UTEP and New Mexico had a defensive battle in a game that the Miners held on to win 10-6.

In then 10 games played thus far, C-USA team have picked up 4 wins (Southern Miss, UCF, Tulsa & UTEP) with SMU facing Textas Tech later today.