HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- East Carolina Coach Skip Holtz continued to receive congratulatory calls three days after his team set the tone for a season-opening college football weekend filled with upsets.

East Carolina rallied for a 27-22 victory over then-No. 17 Virginia Tech on Saturday to kick-start a Labor Day weekend that was anything but automatic for Bowl Championship Series teams.

Among the non-BCS teams that defeated BCS teams in Week One were Arkansas State (Texas A&M), Bowling Green (then-No. 25 Pittsburgh), Fresno State (Rutgers), Louisiana Tech (Mississippi State) and Utah (Michigan).

"I don't think this is just a special event or a one-win, one-time thing," Holtz said Tuesday during the Conference USA weekly coaches' teleconference. "I think you're going to start to see more and more of this."

Many of Holtz's well-wishers were conference colleagues, who couldn't have asked for a more timely reminder that anything can happen in the parity-filled world of college football.

"My hat's off to Skip," Marshall Coach Mark Snyder said. "What a great win for him and his program and our conference. A couple of us have a chance to go out and play some teams from some BCS conferences (this weekend) and that definitely helps."

"I was extremely excited for Skip Holtz and East Carolina with what they did last weekend," Southern Mississippi Coach Larry Fedora said. "I think that goes to show you anybody can beat anybody on any given day. Just because you're not in a BCS conference, it doesn't mean you can't compete at that level."

Of the 11 games involving C-USA teams Saturday, six are against nationally ranked BCS squads:

* Marshall at No. 11 Wisconsin at noon (Big Ten Network)

* Southern Miss at No. 9 Auburn at 12:30 p.m. (Raycom/SEC regional)

* No. 8 West Virginia at East Carolina at 4:30 p.m. (ESPN)

* Tulane at No. 13 Alabama at 7 p.m.

* No. 17 South Florida at Central Florida at 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

* No. 10 Texas at Texas-El Paso at 10:15 p.m. (ESPN2)

"We always talk about things like that," Tulane Coach Bob Toledo said. "It's like Appalachian State a year ago. We constantly refer to (Appalachian State's season-opening win over fifth-ranked Michigan last season). The Boise (State) victory (over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl two seasons ago) and the Utah victory (over Michigan last weekend). You talk about that.

"But in reality, Alabama is a team, I hate to say it, but they are superior to our football program. They are a Southeastern Conference team with a lot of tradition and a great coaching staff and a lot of super players. They are going to be very difficult to beat.

"The one thing we do is, you show up, you play the game and you let the chips fall where they may. If you play perfectly and they make some mistakes, it at least gives you a chance to be in the game."

Like Toledo, UTEP Coach Mike Price realizes his team's chances aren't good, but ...

"There's always a chance," Price said. "That's why they have scoreboards at the end of the stadiums. You see upsets all of the time. But this would truly be ... It's going to be a real competitive challenge for the Miners."

Holtz and the Pirates didn't get to celebrate their victory very long because they quickly had to turn their attention to Heisman Trophy candidate Pat White and the Mountaineers, who own a 17-2 series advantage that includes a 48-7 win in Morgantown last year.

"We have harped on it in our meetings Sunday," Holtz said. "We talked about, 'Where do we go from here? How do we handle success?' We kind of got a couple of battle cries with our focus and what we're trying to get across."

East Carolina beat North Carolina on the road last year, then lost to Southern Miss at home.

"There are a lot of examples here where we can talk about not falling into the trap of success of starting to believe how good we are and everything else," said Holtz, whose team received 108 points in this week's Associated Press poll and needed only 39 more to crack the Top 25.

"From an external standpoint, from the outside in, this was a huge win. (It means) tons for our national reputation and the conference's reputation and the brand of ball we play in this conference and all of the good football teams that are here.

"From an internal standpoint, it's one game. We didn't become bowl-eligible Saturday. We didn't get anything miraculous. We get one win. We still have to play 11 more games."

Contact sportswriter Jacob Messer at jacobmes...@dailymail.com or (304) 348-1712. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/marshall.