Picture this: It's the first Tuesday in December and the ESPN2 haulers have docked outside Houston's Robertson Stadium.

Southern Miss limped into oil country the day before after winning a tie-breaker with Memphis and Marshall for the Conference USA East crown. The host Cougars are sporting an undefeated league mark, having clawed easily through the West and squeaked by their two eastern opponents.

Neither team is ranked and ticket availability is at a surplus. The tension is so thin you can slice it with a plastic spreading knife.

Welcome to the 2005 C-USA championship game, sponsored by Nyquil. Not exactly the setting many would envision for a conference title game, but it is the potential scenario C-USA created with its East-West divisional alignments.

By placing the power structure of the league almost exclusively in the East, C-USA defied all competitive logic solely for the sake of geographic convenience.

"Geography was a huge factor," league commissioner Britton Banowsky has said. "It's hard to put UTEP in the Eastern Division. So, you balance the two."

Balance? Maybe on a planet that lacks gravitational pull. Otherwise, it's hard to pinpoint an angle from which the two divisions mirror the other.

The East is headlined by Southern Miss and Marshall, two programs with more hardware than your neighborhood Lowe's. Behind them, East Carolina gathered an impressive collection of bowl appearances starting in the early 'nineties and continuing through back-to-back-to-back holiday berths from 1999-2001.

Memphis could be in the beginning stages of establishing a respectable stretch of bowl runs of its own.

On the other side, Houston, Rice, and Southern Methodist have plenty of history from their days in the old Southwestern Conference. But aside from a C-USA title by Houston in the league's inaugural season in 1996 and Tulane's dream season of six years ago, you would be hard-pressed to find much recent gridiron girth in the West.

"Nothing stays the same in college athletics," Banowsky said. "All the programs cycle. That's just the nature of it.

"The census over time is that the balance will be there. You might even see a shift, and we can always re-evaluate it. That's the beauty of this."

By that logic, Duke and Wake Forest eventually will have their time atop the ACC standings.

But for the same reasons the Devils and Deacons won't rub elbows with Florida State and Miami, don't expect Rice or SMU to recapture their respective pigskin glory days. The academic demands at both schools will prevent the potential for sustained football success — that is, unless the Mustangs lower themselves to the level that landed them the death penalty in the 1980's.

Of the remaining Western outfits, both Tulsa and Tulane have similar academic missions that would limit the number of wholesale blue-chippers each could lure. That leaves Houston, which through the years has fluctuated more than the Dow Jones average, and Texas-El Paso, now led by a coach who experienced great success at Washington State but is more famous for his patronage of gentlemen's clubs.

Not to say that there aren't any positives in the new divisional configurations. The West's Texas flavor should intensify intra-division rivalries and boost attendance. ECU, Marshall, and Southern Miss share a common football culture that should produce its share of drama in the East.

However, C-USA could have established intriguing rivalries while still balancing the competition had it simply switched Southern Miss and Tulane. By doing so, there would have been no geographic compromise — and a much more competitive league.

Instead, C-USA created a set-up in which escaping the East unscathed isn't realistic. That more than likely will keep the league from ever breaking the BCS barrier.

But that's what C-USA gets for combining the programs with staying power exclusively in one division.

Army coach Bobby Ross won't be a part of the new-look C-USA. The Black Knights are one of the four programs that will exit the league following the 2004 season.

Though this will be Ross' one and only tour through the C-USA gauntlet, he says he's impressed by what he's seen from the league thus far.

"I think the USA league is very tough," Ross said. "Our first three games in the USA are with three bowl teams. They're very tough football teams.

"I've seen films of them of our games from last year to evaluate our personnel. That's mainly what I've looked at."

Ross noted that it is somewhat sad that C-USA will reconfigure given the strides it has made on the gridiron. However, in Army's case, the decision to reclaim its independent status was necessary because of the program's perception as one with a bigger geographic base than is typically associated with a conference.

"I know why we went the way we went," Ross said. "We look upon ourselves as a national school, not a regional school. And we are, we really are.

"It had nothing to do with anything else. We'd like to play somebody on the West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, South, Southwest. That's what we'd like to do, just for the sake that we're a national school."

Army's opener against Louisville will be one to remember. The September 11 showdown in West Point marks the three-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, as well as the coaching return of Bobby Ross.

It's a good bet the pre-game ceremonies will include a tribute to those lost in the 9/11 tragedy.

"To tell you the truth, I won't even know what we're doing as a prelude to the game because I will be so locked into the preparations," Ross said. "That part of it will be out of my hand.

"I do know this — it will probably be something that's part of the game. There's no question about it. But at West Point, it won't be to build the emotions for the football. It will be to recognize what happened on 9/11. I think it will truly be in memory of those people. I think it will be an emotional day from that respect."

But don't think for a second that Ross won't have a few butterflies before the game begins.

"Yeah, I'll be emotional," Ross said. "That's why I'm in the game — I enjoy that. But mine will more as it relates to the game than it will be there."