Just because there are no games featuring winless opponents doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of bad football to be played!

It has been a wacky two weeks of college football to say the least, and lost amid the startling loses of top ten teams is the emergence of traditional BCS Conference doormats (and Game They Shouldn’t Play favorites) Illinois, Indiana and Kansas.  At a combined 15-2 each of these teams has a better record than Texas, Nebraska, and Michigan – all of whom started the season ranked in the top 20. There are two explanations for the sudden parity in college football. The logical school of thought is that as more money pours in to college athletics the athletes are getting bigger, faster and stronger across the board.  I on the other hand believe there is a conspiracy to eliminate the Game They Shouldn’t Play from the public consciousness. Fear not, for even though there is no match up of the winless this week there is still plenty of foul smelling football to be played.

Last week’s Game They Shouldn’t Play was another glorious display of rancid football in which two winless teams battled until someone mercifully had to win. In the end, after 941 yards of total offense, 6 turnovers and 17 penalties the Ragin’ Cajun’s of Louisiana Lafayette pulled out the 38-29 win over North Texas is front of just 9,464 fans. I think there were more people at my Bar Mitzvah.

True to form North Texas, who leads the Sun Belt in passing yards per game, did most of their work through the air (383 yards) albeit with a freshman making his first career start.  Nothing shows more confidence in your 0-4 team than pulling your starting QB in the middle of a game (against Arkansas in week 5) and following it up the next week by going on the road and starting a freshman for the first time in his career.  Giovanni Vizza, the freshman savior of North Texas’ winless campaign responded by throwing two interceptions and losing a fumble, all in the first quarter. It’s going to get ugly in Denton. “It’s hard, after a disappointing loss like this, on what you tell your team,” said North Texas head coach Todd Dodge. “This team has a lot of character. There are some better times ahead.” Coach Dodge I commend you.  You’ve got the golf clubs out in October. Character is a euphemism for short, fat and living with your parents. Thank you George Costanza.

For Louisiana Lafayette, the leading rushing team in the Sun Belt, racking up 300 yards on the ground was no surprise.  The odd stat of the day was time of possession.  While ULL ran all day they controlled the ball for just 19:24.  Is their running game that good or is North Texas’ defense front that bad? Let’s agree that these are two bad football teams.Week Seven starts with our friends from Division 1AA which features not one, but two winless match-ups. And there was much rejoicing in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Alcorn State (0-5) at Texas Southern (0-5) and LaSalle (0-5) at Marist (0-6) 

But which Division 1A game features the teams with the lowest number of combined wins? Look no further than our winless friends from North Texas who finally get a chance for that elusive first win at home after playing four of their first five on the road.  They’ll take on Louisiana Monroe who crushed the hopes of the Hammer for a week seven battle of the winless after notching their first victory of the season last week. I’ll concede the win, however, as I would prefer not to use the same team in consecutive weeks.  All of the bad teams deserve some lovin’.

Game They Shouldn’t Play:  Tulane (1-4) at UAB (1-4).

What We Know: It’s a shock that it has taken this long to pick a game from Conference USA.  Five schools (Louisville, USF, Marquette, Cincinnati, and DePaul) left Conference USA in 2005 for greener pastures. The Big East picked the best schools from Conference USA and kicked them in the crotch on the way to forming a solid football conference.  All three schools that left C-USA that play football (Louisville, USF, Cincinnati) have been ranked in the top 25 this year, including two in the top ten. 

Meanwhile, in order to combat the loss of five schools Conference USA lured Marshall (0-5), Southern Methodist (1-4),
Tulsa (3-2), UCF (3-2), and UTEP (4-2) to join the conference. The newbies have a combined record of 11-15 in 2007…yikes.  In fact, eight out of twelve teams in Conference USA have two wins or less. This was a decent football conference that was left for dead and it’s not getting better anytime soon.

The Teams: Tulane is best known this season for leading #1 LSU for a short time in the first half of their game in Week 5 before being shut out in the second half.  But what you should have taken away from that game is that Tulane’s inability to score has been the story of their season.  During their four loses the Green Wave have been shut out in 10 of the 16 quarters and haven’t managed to score more than 17 points in any of those games.  The problem for Tulane is that they don’t have a consistent passing game. They play two quarterbacks, Scott Elliott and Anthony Scelfo who have thrown for a combined 1 touchdown and 6 interceptions.  Sure enough, Tulane is last in the conference in passing yardage and overall scoring offense. They are the 107^th best passing team out of 120 in the country.  Their lone victory? Tulane managed to put up some points in a 35-27 win over 1AA Southeast Louisiana. Bring back Shaun King and quickly. Patrick Ramsey are you available?

UAB has football? Indeed they do friends. They just can’t beat anybody. But, rest easy Blazer fans, UAB has the best kicker (with possibly the best name) in Conference USA: Swayze Waters, who has nailed 14 of 16 field goals and all nine extra point attempts.  And there in lies the problem.  UAB has nine touchdowns in five games while their kicker has already attempted 16 fields good for fourth in the entire nation.  UAB might be able to move the ball but they aren’t putting it in the end zone. UAB’s only win came against….anyone? Bueller? You guessed it! The previously mentioned 0-5 Division 1AA Alcorn State.

The Match-up: UAB hasn’t played Tulane since 2004, a game in which over 100 points was scored and Tulane came away a 59-55 winner. Neither team has the offensive fire power to get close to that kind of score this year.

The Prediction: Tulane can’t score.  UAB can’t put it in the end zone.  The Blazers won’t miss the opportunity to pick up a win at home. This won’t be pretty.

Tulane 17

UAB 33