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North Texas — So look who’s sitting in a three-way tie atop the West Division. It’s the first-year conference member Mean Green after handling Rice in a 28-16 win. If UNT wins out (UTEP, UTSA and Tulsa remain on the schedule), and Rice can beat Tulane, then the division title heads to Denton, Tex. Not bad for a Sun Belt refugee picked to finish fifth in the seven-team West. Redd’s C-USA Title Game Prediction That’s Guaranteed to Fail: North Texas at East Carolina Read more:

Trending Up North Texas – Don’t look now, but the first-year conference member Mean Green is just a game behind West Division co-leaders Tulane and Rice. The Green Wave hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over UNT, but North Texas still has Rice on the schedule. And even if a surprise division championship might be out of reach, UNT is just two wins away from bowl eligibility in its inaugural C-USA season … and still has Southern Miss and UTEP to play. Trending Down Southern Miss – The new leader in finding trap doors at rock bottom. Apparently, there’s a quarterback controversy, as freshman Nick Mullens won the gig after two fourth-quarter touchdowns versus ECU. But does it really matter? The touchdowns didn’t really matter. USM was down 55-0 before the Pirates called off the dogs in the fourth. It remains absolutely mind-boggling that a team that was so good just a couple of seasons ago has fallen so far so quickly. Read more: http://blogs.dailymail.com/marshall/2013/10/22/conference-usa-in-review-post-vacation-edition/

The main goal of college athletics' Realign-mageddon, which mercifully came to a halt this past year following a lengthy reign of terror, was improving image. Sure, it had to do with increased revenue streams, better access to bigger bowls, greater exposure and a bunch of other stuff, but image essentially was everything. Improve your image and everything else follows. How does a college athletic program improve its image? One way is to move to a cooler neighborhood. So a bunch of teams with a chance to move did. Big 12 teams jumped to the SEC. Big East teams hopped to the Big 12 and the ACC. An ACC team even moved to the Big Ten. And a horde of Conference USA teams began an exodus to the Conference Formerly Known as the Big East, the American Athletic Conference. The University of Central Florida, Houston, Memphis and Southern Methodist went this year. Tulsa, East Carolina and Tulane leave next year. Their idea was that in pairing with the erstwhile Big East football schools they would earn the image boost they craved and felt they couldn't achieve in Conference USA. Now it's a tiny, tiny example of an athletic conference's public image, but when the Maxwell Award watch list came out Monday, the American's teams scanned it and saw just a trio of C-USA players among the names. Surely they breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in the satisfaction of their two names on that same list. Wait, what? Read more: http://www.dailymail.com/Sports/201307080160