Marshall football coach Mark Snyder wasn’t having his usual luck getting through to his counterpart in Houston early this week. Snyder makes it a point to check in regularly with Kevin Sumlin. Something highly irregular is happening in the Cougars’ second season on Sumlin’s watch.

“He hasn’t been returning my texts, so they must be feeling good out there,” Snyder said. “We normally talk once a week.”

Maybe Sumlin is wary of getting killed with kindness from the outside world. The Cougars are college football’s flavor of the month, ranked for the first time since quarterback Case Keenum was a toddler. The 12th-ranked Cougars (3-0) open Conference USA play tonight against the UTEP Miners.

To hear opposing coaches tell it, the C-USA sidelines aren’t safe to walk as long as the Cougars are on the prowl.

“I see one team in our league that looks like they are head and shoulders above everybody, and that’s Houston,” Memphis coach Tommy West said.

“By the time we play Houston, they can be a top-five team in the nation,” Tulsa coach Todd Graham said, eyeing a November meeting.

What next, raging debates about what it would take for the Cougars to break into Bowl Championship Series’ exclusive postseason club?

Actually, yes.

Talk shows and Internet message boards and Web sites are buzzing about UH’s chances of becoming the first C-USA team to play in a BCS game. Teams not affiliated with the BCS conferences (Big 12, Southeastern, Big 10, Pac 10, Atlantic Coast and Big East) become BCS eligible by finishing in the top 12 of the BCS standings. If multiple teams from outside the BCS conferences finish in the top 12, only one gets an automatic invitation to one of the lucrative BCS bowl games.

“You think about it every now and then, but we’ve got nine more games,” UH linebacker Marcus McGraw said. “It’s probably in the back of my head somewhere, but it’s not a real big deal. If we lose today or tomorrow, it’s not there anymore.”

A time for honesty

The first official BCS standings come out Oct. 18. In unofficial standings compiled by Jerry Palm of CollegeBCS.com, the Cougars are No. 13 in the nation. Two other teams from non-BCS conferences, Boise State (No. 5) and TCU (No. 7), are head of the Cougars in the pecking order. Sumlin considers BCS talk ridiculously premature, saying, “We’ve only played three games.”

No wonder Sumlin frets about the messages the Cougars receive.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” UH defensive tackle David Hunter said. “Sometimes when you let that stuff get in your head, you can almost get cocky. You definitely like to hear people say good things about you; nobody wants to hear bad things about you. At the same time, you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. You’ve got to look at it like you always have room to be better.”

UH has gotten to 4-0 only six times. The Cougars took it to 6-0 in 1973, when they finished 11-1 and No. 9 in the final Associated Press poll. An 8-0 start in 1979 led to an 11-1, No. 5 finish. UH started 8-0 again in 1990, finishing 10-1 and No. 10. In other words, it’s more than just a two-day drive through Texas Tech’s defense to the BCS.

“You can’t shelter guys from that,” Sumlin said. “It’s where we live right now. This is an information age, and people are loading information — good information, right now — because we’re winning. Their whole challenge, and they’ve handled it very, very well, is to be honest with themselves. If you’re honest with yourself, you know you’ve got some shortcomings.”

Assuming the Cougars make it through the regular season and C-USA title game unscathed, they’d have to hang their helmets on September victories over Oklahoma State (18th in the unofficial BCS standings) and Texas Tech (35th). UH’s remaining opponents have a combined 15-20 record. None are ranked in the Associated Press or coaches’ polls. The average unofficial BCS ranking of those nine teams: 87.

“It’s not about the team we’re playing or if we’re on the road; every field is the same,” Sumlin said. “It’s about us, how we handle things.”

Boise State’s track record over the past decade undoubtedly gives it a leg up in the rankings. The signature victory for Boise (4-0) came at home against Oregon (15th) in the season opener. The most formidable opponent left on the schedule, Tulsa (60th), will host Boise on Nov. 14. After today’s game, Boise finishes with eight opponents that have a combined 14-16 record and average unofficial BCS ranking of 87.

‘There’s no telling’

TCU, for its part, has eight remaining opponents that have a combined 14-16 record and No. 74 ranking. An Oct. 24 road game at BYU (24th) and a Nov. 14 home game against Utah (31st) have the potential to make TCU upwardly mobile in the rankings. Two other opponents, Colorado State and Air Force, are off to 3-1 starts.

“Man, it’s pretty early to tell about that sort of stuff,” Keenum said. “There’s no telling. When it comes to the rankings and all that stuff, I don’t think my opinion really matters. I couldn’t tell you what people think and why. That’s stuff we can’t control. We can control what happens on Saturdays. We have to come out and play every week like it’s our last week, like we have nothing to lose.”

C-USA’s Tulane won every game on its 1998 schedule, finished 10th in the BCS standings and got sent to the Liberty Bowl to play unranked BYU. As a C-USA member in 2004, Louisville (10-1 in the regular season) finished 10th — behind Utah (11-0) and Boise (11-0) — in the BCS standings. A 44-40 victory against Boise in the Liberty Bowl propelled Louisville to the highest AP ranking (sixth) of any team in C-USA history.

“To be a BCS buster, you’re probably going to have to go undefeated,” McGraw said. “We’ve just got to worry about teams week by week. Maybe we’ll get rewarded at the end if we do our job.”