‘No limits?’
- Updated: September 25, 2023
First-year member Jax State set to enter meat of Conference USA schedule, and it’s mystery meat in a rebuilding league.
JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville State is set to enter the meat of the Conference USA schedule, and a few questions occur.
One, isn’t every conference “Conference USA” anymore?
Two, shouldn’t the CUSA office market itself as CUSA before becoming a “CUSA” was cool? Sprawling from Las Cruces to Miami, the league that touts “no limits on us” got slightly ahead of the curve.
Now, every other league shirks regional limits.
With tongue removed from cheek, the third question is, what to make of the 2023 CUSA race with all of the league’s newness, and what’s possible for Jax State as a first-year member?
Media picked the Gamecocks seventh in preseason, but they beat the team picked immediately ahead of them in their Football Bowl Subdivision and CUSA opener. UTEP is 1-4, with losses to Jax State, Northwestern, Arizona and UNLV and a victory over Football Championship Subdivision’s Incarnate Word.
A long day in the “horseshoe” aside, preseason CUSA favorite Western Kentucky still looks the part. Then again, newcomer Liberty is 2-0 in league play with victories over fellow newcomer New Mexico State and old regime survivor Florida International.
Newcomer Sam Houston State, Jax State’s Thursday opponent, is 0-3 after sparring with Brigham Young, Air Force and Houston in non-conference games.
The only knowable thing is, there’s not much knowable after a round of early season play-up and play-down games. Not in a conference that had to adopt four new family members after others married up.
Or married out, depending on one’s take.
What that could mean for Jax State and others is a loose ball.
This could be the season to throw out the model of what teams that just moved up from FCS can do in their new “Group of 5” conference. So much realignment means a spate of opportunities for program’s like Jax State, and they’re aligned with some like company.
What even is the line between high FCS and entry-level FBS, anymore? Jax State did plenty to blur it by beating seven FBS opponents before moving up, most recently Florida State in 2021.
Jax State coach Rich Rodriguez consistently pumps the brakes on crazy first-year expectations. He’s achieved quite a lot of roster turnover in the nearly two years since his hiring was announced, but there’s more speed and size to recruit.
Size, particularly on the defensive line, has been a season-long concern.
As for CUSA, he points to the league’s limit of 74-player travel parties for road teams and jokes about the league’s slogan.
“This visiting team has a limit, but the home team doesn’t,” he said. “It’s like, you’re disadvantaged already, and then you go on the road and can only bring so many guys, which is, I guess, a cost measure. We’ll deal with that, but I tease the conference.
“I don’t mind saying this publicly. We’ve got a lot of great people in our conference, and they’re doing a great job of building our thing, but I kind of teased them about our conference slogan, ‘There’s no limits on us.’ Except when it comes to visiting travel-squad size.”
All kidding aside, Rodriguez sees a better conference than perceptions say for a league rebuilding after mass defections.
“Particularly, you’ve got some teams that are really explosive, offensively,” he said. “Sam Houston, I mean, look at teams they try to play and scores of their games. Defensively, they’ve been outstanding.
“I think the league is better than it’s probably perceived to be, but I’ll tell you more in about four or five weeks, too.”
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