C-USA team coverage lacks depth

By Trace Johnson

Most of the stories by the various beat writers of Conference USA teams focused primarily on their certain team and did not give an outlook on the league as a whole. 

There were stories included that focused on weekly award winners and things of that nature. 

The coverage of the league by the teams’ various beat writers was weak.  There were too many details left out and most of the news outlets did not branch out far enough. 

From the Florida Atlantic University standpoint, the Boca Raton Tribune’s coverage was probably the weakest of all the different teams.  Their most recent story published was on Sept. 11 and if you were interested in learning about FAU football, that website would give you little to no information. 

Only about half of the various teams’ coverage included weekly award winners and things of that nature, which would ideally be something to include in a beat writers’ coverage of a team. 

The most surprising was outside of The El Paso Times, no other publication gave an opinion on the league so far through the first half of the season.  The Herald-Dispatch included a column about the Group of 5 getting no respect, but that doesn’t specifically focus on C-USA. 

The majority of the stories were focused on the team’s upcoming opponent and/or the team’s previous game.  None of the publications featured conference standings either. 

Overall, the information provided by the various news outlets was too vague and did not tell the reader enough about the team they were covering.  It was disappointing that if you are a fan of C-USA, you couldn’t find much coverage of the league from its various beat writers. 

The El Paso Times, the Bowling Green Daily News and The Herald-Dispatch were the best news outlets of the different C-USA teams, but even they could use improvements. 

Throughout the first half of the season, C-USA has been a solid Group of 5 football conference.  In the 2014 football season, C-USA had only one win over Power 5 competition. 

So far this season, the league has two wins over Power 5 competition already.  Western Kentucky defeated Vanderbilt of the SEC and Marshall defeated Purdue of the Big Ten. 

Several C-USA teams have played other Power 5 teams tough as well.  Middle Tennessee narrowly lost at Illinois of the Big Ten, 27-25.  MTSU also lost at home to Vanderbilt 17-13 and held a 13-3 lead in the fourth quarter. 

WKU’s only loss of the season was a narrow defeat at Indiana of the Big Ten by a score of 38-35. 

Louisiana Tech had a narrow defeat at Kansas State of the Big XII by a score of 39-33 in triple overtime. 

WKU was the preseason pick to win the East Division of C-USA and the team has lived up to the hype so far this season, sitting at 5-1 overall and 3-0 in C-USA play.  Marshall, the reigning C-USA Champion, is neck and neck with the Hilltoppers in the East and the team sits at 5-1 overall and 2-0 in C-USA play. 

La Tech was the preseason pick to win the West Division of C-USA and through the first six games of the season, the team is currently tied for first place in the division with the Rice Owls.           

The league has several quality teams, but the overall perception could improve.  C-USA does not get enough national coverage and the league is not respected enough nationally.