Week Five: Troy Retakes the Sunbelt Lead

Troy absolutely crushed Middle Tennessee on Tuesday in a statement game.

What was the statement? "The rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated?" "Unlike Arkansas State, Middle Tennessee still has a long way to go to be in our class?"

The first, sure.  The second, lets hold off that conclusion until the Nov. 21 matchup between MTSU and ASU.

Whatever the message, it is very clear Troy has now found their sea legs and having dispatched their two strongest contenders seems very likely to run away with the conference, barring injury.

Troy is now 2-0 in conference and 3-2 overall.  That is enough to put them into a tie for first with UL Monroe who managed to complete the Florida sweep by outpacing winless FIU 48-35.

Arkansas State gave another tough team all they could handle, this time losing to Big Ten power No. 13 Iowa by 3, 24-21.

Florida Atlantic was beaten at home 30-28 by a weak road team in Wyoming to remain winless. (I actually nailed that score dead on in last week's predictions...but I also bought into the Blue Raider Kool Aid instead of attributing their success vs. UNT to a really bad second quarter by the Mean Green...so...basically don't go to Vegas on my predictions.)

And UNT, WKY, and ULL sat impatiently through their bye week.

This week's slate:

It is another light week for the sunbelt with only three games as the Troy and MTSU take the week off.

FIU@ Western Kentucky—FIU SHOULD get off the snide this week and win this game by two TDs, but I am going to say they won't.  Western has kept the scores within a reasonable number—they are playing respectable defense when you look at the scoreboard—but offense has been a problem. 

(The Hilltopers cannot stop the run, but FIU cannot run the ball, making it less of an issue.)

In the last two games, the Hilltoppers may have found their offensive solution in freshman QB Kawaun Jakes, who has replaced senior Brandon Smith.  Looking into my Christobal (Ha! get it?!) I am going to call this 31-28 for Western Kentucky.

HOTSEAT: (This is a new feature in my weekly conference columns.  I'll talk about which coach might be in trouble.)

I think this may very well be the exact game that breaks the camel's back and gets Mario Christobal fired at season's end.  One of the Shula or Bowden boys would be a reasonable fit at FIU.

They can all recruit the region and have seen their stars dimmed to the point where they would accept a contract in the FIU financial realm.  Going 5-6 to 8-3 every year would keep any of them employed at FIU.

North Texas @ ULL—Based on what we have seen so far, the Ragin' Cajuns should win a low scoring game something like 24-20 with UNT scoring late to make the score closer.  The Ragin' Cajuns are the very definition of a conference spoiler.  You can look at their stats and get a false reading thinking they aren't very good. 

They fumble a lot.  Their QB is average the this point in his career.  They give up high percentage passing and are sometimes poor tacklers. That is just not looking deep enough. 

They have played a tough schedule that has their stats jacked up.  In spite of that they are good in a number of categories that translate into winning. 

They are:

Best in the conference in completing third down plays.

Second best red-zone defense.

Best in third down conversions

Second best in fourth-down conversions.

Allowed fewest opponent's first downs allowed per game. 

Allowed fewest sacks allowed per game.

Least penalized team.

Second in the league in interceptions.

...This team lacks talent at spots, but is just a well coached team that does what it needs to do to win.

UNT has a shot.  They match up well.  ULL has fantastic linebackers but a mediocre secondary.  ULL won't score a lot of points and UNT should be able to move the ball between the 20's all day long collecting FGs.  If ULL has one of their bad tackling days, UNT could score 3-4 TDs as well.  If that occured UNT would run away with the game as ULL would not be able to match those scores.

As much as I'd like to see UNT break some big plays and win this game (it is possible), I think on the road it is too much to ask from a young team that has some confidence, identity, and execution problems that probably were not adequately addressed during the bye week, that usually plays young players over upperclassmen to build for the future vs. winning now, and that rotates players in and out like it is the preseason thwarting team chemistry. 

ULL 28, UNT 22

Arkansas State @ ULM - We find out how good ULM is this week. Over the last four years the home team has won.  I am going to pick against that as I think ASU is very good this year and they have a lot of pent up frustration after the past two weeks.  I think ASU will shut down the ULM offense and win this handily, 38-14.