Conference USA now has enough teams to fill its six bowl positions. It’s a decided East slant, as four of the six are UCF, East Carolina, Memphis and Southern Miss. In the West, just Houston and Tulsa will play in the postseason. Here’s a look at Saturday’s action. Click on the link to go to the hometown paper stories.

MEMPHIS 25, UAB 9: In recent years, the Tigers have had problems with Southern Miss and UAB. Last week, the Golden Eagles fell in Hattiesburg. This week, the Blazers went down, giving Memphis six wins, enough for one of Conference USA’s bowl berths. UAB coach Neil Callaway couldn’t find the right formation to stop the Tigers’ running game.

TULANE 45, RICE 31: Matt Forte didn’t quite get to 200 yards, but he surpassed 2,000 for the season for the winners. Penalties and mistakes cost the Owls again.

HOUSTON 35, MARSHALL 28: The Cougars need some help from Rice this coming week. Houston returns to the C-USA championship game if the Owls can beat Tulsa. Thundering Herd coach Mark Snyder knows this one could have gone the other way.

UCF 49, SMU 20: Only UTEP stands in the way of the Golden Knights reaching their second C-USA title game. Kevin Smith caused all kinds of trouble for the Mustangs.

SOUTHERN MISS 56, UTEP 30: What would Conference USA football be like without an 80-point game? It was wild for the Golden Eagles. The loss was the fifth straight for the struggling Miners.

TULSA 49, ARMY 39: The Golden Hurricane was unfocused, but victorious.

- John Calipari returned from Boston, where he spent Saturday watching Tyreke Evans, the Tigers’ top recruit, play in a high school tournament. Evans, who is signing in the spring, will make his visit to Memphis later in the season. My sense is that the Tigers are in great shape with Evans and that one of the reasons he’s holding off on a commitment is that he wants to make sure of Derrick Rose’s plans for next season. It wouldn’t make sense for Evans to sign with Memphis if Rose is going to stay for a second college season (not very likely, in my opinion).

- Spoke briefly with former Tiger Clyde Wade. He’s starting graduate school at the U of M next semester. He said he just recently spoke to Jeremy Hunt, who is back in Poland playing with a different team. (Hunt signed with one Polish team but didn’t pass the physical due to his career-long knee issues.)

– Robert Dozier was feeling ill Sunday and didn’t practice. Joey Dorsey went through most of the practice but his shoulder flared up with about 15 minutes to go and he shut it down. Again, don’t panic about the shoulder. Obviously, it’s not an ideal situation, but this injury is something that Joey can play with and play effectively with. He just has to continue getting treatment and be able to deal with some discomfort. That’s part of playing sports.

– The two main emphases of the practice were preventing dribble penetration and transition defense, which were the most obvious problems for Memphis in New York. The latter is understandable, since Memphis hasn’t worked at all on its transition D. The former is inexcusible, especially since the biggest culprits were Antonio Anderson and Derrick Rose, who Memphis is counting on to be elite perimeter defenders. Memphis’ failure to contain the penetration of UConn’s guards was the main reason the Tigers’ big guys got in so much foul trouble.

– One little note, which illustrates (yet again) just how freakishly athletic Rose is. During a slow moment in practice, Chris Douglas-Roberts — a heck of an athlete in his own right — tried twice to dunk with his left hand and didn’t even come close. Rose non-chalantly went up to the rim and dunked it easily with his left.

I was just going to let this issue go because I felt that it is a positive time for us and our Tigers. But after pondering the issue of student attendance yesterday for quite a while, I have to say something.

Among 100 or so students at the game were members of the Tigers basketball team. They got back late Friday night but managed to get out to the Liberty Bowl on Saturday to support their brothers. Those kids had to make an effort to be there. I’m sure they were tired. I’m sure they had lacked some sleep. But they were there to show their support for their football team.
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After reading my Sunday story on “Spider Fishing for Crappie,” my wife asked a pretty thoughtful question - a question I probably should have addressed somewhere in the story.

Why do they call it Spider Fishing?

The answer is simple, really.

When the technique was first invented, most anglers used eight rods off the front of their boats - four to each side. From a distance, the rods look like the legs of a spider.

Today, many lakes have laws that limit anglers to three rods apiece, so the technique has been scaled back. But it’s the same basic idea.

With that out of the way, here’s a complete rundown of the equipment Kent Driscoll uses for spider fishing:
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I can’t explain to you just how good it felt yesterday when the clock read three zeros. It was, for me at least, one of the best moments I’ve ever had as a Tigers supporter. The first reason for this elation is because despite some very painful moments during the course of this season the Tigers became bowl bound. The reason I say bound (they weren’t technically until UTEP lost) is because of the Tigers fan base. We are the best travel team in C-USA which assures us a bowl bid every time we become eligible.

Secondly was removing the burden of losing games to the UAB football team. Despite having better teams for years the team wasn’t able to solve the Blazers under Tommy West. The case was cracked yesterday. I’m still walking on some sunshine.
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