Opinion: C-USA West is clearly superior

By: Ronnie Woodward

Posted: 11/6/08

Field goals and defense don't win Conference USA championships. The teams in C-USA's West Division have figured that out. The teams in the East are a little behind the curve, which was evident at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium Saturday.

In a game which featured the East's two best teams, an aggressive defense and conservative offense carried ECU to a 19-16 victory.

Ben Hartman kicked four field goals--including the game-winner in overtime--and ECU's defense limited Marshall to 137 passing yards. It was the second-straight week that ECU won with defense and a clutch field goal, which is rare of most C-USA games.

Holtz said this philosophy has not been made by choice, but as an attempt to balance his defense with his offense.
"Guys like Woody Hayes won a lot of football games with that old style of play," he said. "Right now, with the lack of playmakers and big-play ability on offense, that's how we have to win. I'm not saying that we tried to win that way, but we are playing a little closer to the vest and that's my call. That's my call because I think the offense has to fit with the defense, and that's the way that we've tried to approach these last two
games."

Saturday's game was a battle for East Division supremacy, as the two teams entered tied for first in the East. Supremacy for the entire conference might already be decided however. That title currently belongs to Tulsa, and it will be very tough for a C-USA East team to take that away.

Tulsa, which boasts the nation's top offense, has scored 45 points or more in four of its five conference games this season. ECU's highest point total of the season has been 30. The Pirates' low-scoring style has worked against teams like Marshall and UCF, but it's hard to win that way against teams from the West--which was evident in ECU's 41-24 loss to Houston earlier this season.

Despite the contrasting styles in C-USA, ECU's players believe they can unprecedentedly win the offense-first conference with their current style.

"Defense wins championships," said ECU safety Van Eskridge. "I don't think it's any different in Conference USA. If the defense continues to play the way we've been playing, we should be fine because we know we have guys on the others side of the ball who are going to make plays eventually."

Coming into this week's games, four of the top five scoring offenses in C-USA belonged in the West. On the other end of the spectrum, four of the top five defenses belonged in the East.

Defense does win championships, but C-USA is the exception to that rule. The records of C-USA's teams indicate that the offenses usually win games. Heading into this week, four teams in the West had conference records above .500. On the other side, only ECU and Marshall were above .500.

For some reason, the conference's best offenses reside in the West and the conference's best defenses reside in the East. In the conference which has been won with offense lately, I'll take the West.

This writer can be contacted at sports@theeastcarolinian.com