Reading up on our C-USA foes

[outoftown]

So Bill Conelly at SBNation does IMHO quite outstanding previews of all FBS college Football teams.  They are bit stats heavy, but that is ok with me He tends to go from worst to first and has thus far gone through the Belt and the MAC and now started with C-USA. A bit less stat heavy but even more up to date are the previews by Paul Myerberg. I put it Up here for all our opponents and the c-USA teams we will not get to play (before the championship game that is).
Very interesting reads.

August 31

Idaho Paul Myerbergs writeup Athlon Scout
If we are loosing this one the suicide watch is indeed merrited.
Myerberg reall does not think much of Idaho, particularly as he thinks both lines will struglle mightily and receivers are not talented enough, a good recipe for disaster in other words. Conelly thinks even less of them and looking at what Personell Petrino has to work with, there really must be no way NT loses this game at home.

Cout does not Love them either, but does not have them as far down as the others.... on top of that coust has the game with NT as Idahos 'key game'.

coveragewise the blog http://www.thevandalnation.com/ seems interesting boardwise the scout site seems the most active

September 7
Ohio
Their record too looked better than it was, and run defense was not their strenght. But they do also return a decent batch of starters everywhere including the line, yet a ton of injuries might keep that from beeing as helpful as it would usually be (sound familiar NT fans?). I think this will be a tough game overall, partially because this is a game you have to beat the opponent with the pass, and how we will fare there this season remains a question mark

Athlon

Scout

Spetember 14.
Ball state Athlon scout
If Ball state had played a semi decent schedule last year, their record would have been much worse. their skill players on offense return generally, but nearly the whole offensive line has to be replaced and there will be little depth.... I take from that that this is the game where our DL has to come up big, if it does we do have a shot.
Also their DL is not big and the top 3 DTs are gone...cue NTs running game...I am optimistic about this one

Myerberg is really high on them though

Boards: it seems the independent site BSUfans.com is the way to go

September 21
Georgia Athlon Scout
Connelly has them as the possibly best offense in the country but only as average (by SEC standards that is) defense. This game will be extremely tough. NTs best hope is to completely get forgotten in the midst of a Georgia schedule that has 2super difficult games before and 1 after NT visits.
Talkwise - as you'd expect from a football school like Georgia, tere are many options. I like the independent DawgRun the best. Blogwise if you like it to be all text and very detailed go to get the picture. If you like it a bit more graphic and don't have time to sort through everything, the SBnation blog dawgsport might be your best option.

October 5th

Tulane
Less nervous here, even though they return a ton of starters, because it seems they were very dependent on their departed QB and their defense is awful against the run.
Myerberg thinks the are two years away from breakthrough, that their depth on DL is terrible but that their incoming QB is probably the answer.

Scout is not very high on them

Athlon
Boards: there is the independent one http://www.yogwf.com and then there is the rivals one.

October 12th

MTSU

Conelly is really high on them. Their offense does look scary. their defense was terrible, particularly against the run, but returns almost every one. This might be a tough game.

Myerberg seems a lot less high on them, and thinks even with everyone returning the defense was terrible.

Scout

Athlon

Almost all those reviews were made before MTSU had 3 players arrested.

Boardwise the rivals forum seems the best used, but not super impressive either

October 19th
La.Tech
Reading Conelly makes me surprisingly confident about this game. They lose sooo much production on offense and have to cope with a new coach. Other than medium class DT starters there is not too much left in defense either. I think they may struggle mightily this season.

Myerberg Thinks that a lot is gone but thare is still enoguh talent for 8 wins.

Athlon

Boardwise it seems you best go to http://www.latechbbb.com/

October 26th
Southern Miss
I don't know. Their recruiting rankings say there is still a lot of talent... but the 3rd system in 3 years, almost no offensive line returning, but otherwise an experienced team. really hard to judge before the season starts what identity they will have. I don't think they will be worldbeaters though.

Myerberg has the NT game as the one to watch for them. He blieves steadfast in the offensive coach but does not see greatness in their personell, particularly the line. Their OL against NTs DL might be the cruicial match up.

Athlon

Scout

Boardwise the eaglepost seems to be the best

October 31
Rice
Looks like a tough game for us. They are on a streak from last year and bring 19 starters of quality back. It seems their run defense is most probably their weekest spot, so if we can establish a good running game we have a shot. And NT will be sadled with the disadvantage of having only 5 days to recoup and prepare.

Myerberg does not like Rice very much, considering their stretch run was very good and how much quality they return. He thinks that the overall talent level is to little to really make more noise. Still: he has them clearly winning against NT.

Scout

Athlon

Boardwise their csnbbs site called the parliament might be the best place to go

November 9

UTEP

This spells interesting game. what I take from the article is that their deense ought to be terrible , 6 of the back seven starters are gone and the line was terrible last year, but their offense brings back almost everyone except the starting qb and they have some star transfer from A&M to mediate this. Might be a game that comes down to who fails to score first.

Myerbergs preview: basically they get a big hope from getting showers at QB, but he better be mobile, cause the OL is a major concern. Defense lacks depth across the board.

Scout. Athlon

The miners have the only SBNation blog of C-USA: http://www.minerrush.com

minerillustrated.com is the rivals site and possibly the best forum for UTEP and seems pretty active.

November 23
UTSA
Makes me a bit anxious. What I take from this is that you beat em easily if your passing game is halfway decent... but I am not sure ours is.

Myerberg on the other hand is really low on them, saying that with the severly more difficult schedule they will have serious depth problems. That would bode well for NT, which plays them rather late.

Athlon
Seems the best fan board is http://www.rowdytalk.com/forum.php

November 30
Tulsa
A lot of people act as if Tulsa was gonna be a certified loss. I am not so sure, even less after reading this. The offense was actually not as good as it seemed last season, he contends it was more the defense that made the big splash. Now apart from loosing 3 OL the offense does not lose extremely much, but this great defense does. The DL gets a complete makeover, the best LB graduated and the secondary is a construction site too. Then again with this coaching staff the regression might not be that big and we might get blown out anyway. But right now I see NT having a shot at this one.

Scout does not agree with my feelings on Tulsa. Athlon
boardwise it seems really thin to me.

Previews of North Texas:
Connelly
Myerberg
Scout

Athlon

C-USA teams we don't play:

Eastern Carolina Athlon Myerberg
we don't play them. They are one of the favourites in the east; Quite a few people returning

Marshall
recruited well for a few years now, now the record might start really showing it. Offense comes back quite complete and the defense also only loses a lot in secondary (but is clearly worse than the offense).
Scout Athlon

for message boards it's been suggested below to go to http://www.herdnation.com

FAU: SBN ; Myerberg Athlon Scout
Boardwise owlsnest is interesting. owlaccess is less active but still ok it seems.

FIU
Conelly calls them a total wildcard, I on the other hand think we missed out on an easy game.
Myerberg seems to agree with me.

Athlon

Boardwise FIU's fans can be found at FIUGoldenPanthers.com

UAB
another interesting read... but we don't play them.

Myerberg

Athlon

Scout
Boardwise blazertalk the CSNBBS board- seems actually the most used for UAB</p>

Edited July 23, 2013 by outoftown

[VideoEagle]

Speaking of reading up on our foes, anyone have a list of the most-visited fan sites for our CUSA brethren? I know of the CSNBBS boards, but I don't think those are the most popular with fans of the various schools. I know the one they list for NT doesn't draw flies!

[outoftown]

And here is the preview on NT

The fact that we came in at this moment means he has us as nomber 5 in the west and number 10 overall in C-USA

He clearly did his homework on our team too

The perception I had that he challenged the most: I thought we had trouble defending the pass mostly, but according to him, NT is actually decent at it, but terrible at run defense, it's just that other teams did not notice and kept passing anyway.

Edited April 6, 2013 by outoftown

[Crownme]

www.herdnation.com for Marshall. Very popular site.

[outoftown]

Updated this, changed it to the order of the schedule and started adding Myerbergs previews too. I also added a few infos on fan boards (no claim to completeness or that I have not missed the best sites). I mostly do this for myself, but figure others might find it usefull too.

[emmitt01]

It just warms my heart to see UTSA fans predict NT as a win.

Oh, and they seem to have the same Cougar King cockroach issue.

[UNTLifer]

Loose vs. Lose. Beats me down

[outoftown]

Myerbergs Preview of North Texas is in. Surprisingly (negative) early. While I like Myerberg, who is quite unbiased and calls it as he sees it, and alsways does his homework - as he did this time - I can't help but think that he was a bit too negative. Yes all the issues he names (mainly QB play and ecievers, and D-Line) are there, but I do think he underestimates the strenghts of the team, which all return and allow to focus on adapting for the waeknesses, where we improve a lot if only one of the problems improves. I don't think the current situation should place NT at 113th, I think NT is considerably better than that.

Edited June 6, 2013 by outoftown

[outoftown]

Updated with the newest Georgia preview.

BTW:; fro those already caring about next years opponents and their development, here is Myerbergs SMU preview

edit: arghhh what happened to my post!!!!???

Edited June 6, 2013 by outoftown

[BeliefBlazer]

Here are the forums for C-USA.

Rice: rice.csnbbs.com

UAB: uab.csnbbs.com

ODU: odu.csnbbs.com & monarchfans.com

Charlotte: ninernation.net

FAU: fauowlsnest.com

FIU: fiugoldenpanthers.com

La Tech: latechbbb.com

MTSU: blueraiderzone.com

Marshall: herdfans.com & marshall.rivals.com

USM: eaglepost.net & southernmiss.rivals.com

UTEP: kyyotesden.com/Den/index.php & utep.rivals.com

UTSA: rowdytalk.com & utsa.scout.com

WKU: hilltopperhaven.com

Edited June 6, 2013 by BeliefBlazer