The Big Least

Last year, the Big East was the media darling of college football. Experts routinely hailed the league as a potential power in spite of the defections by Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech, three of the conference's marquee teams previously.

I got thinking about this again as South Florida was holding down the West Virginia offense as the Bulls pulled out a 21-13 victory. Congratulations to South Florida for their victory (making them 4-0 on the season) AND the Big East for picking South Florida up before they were knocking off top 10 teams (WVU the last two years and Louisville the year before).

The problem, as I see it, was that WVU didn't dismantle the Bulls. No, I'm not a Mountaineer. But, looking back at the pre-season polls, West Virginia was solidly in the top 10 (3rd in AP, 6th in USA Today) and Louisville was right on the edge (10th in AP, 11th in USA Today). Rutgers was ranked 16th in both polls. USF was 35th in the AP. Not to place too much emphasis on pre-season polls, but people expected West Virginia and Louisville to run people over with their offenses (and Heisman Trophy candidate QB's Pat White and Brian Brohm). USF exposed WVU. Kentucky and SYRACUSE (which lost bad to Washington, Iowa and Illinois) both knocked off the Cardinals. Rutgers remains unbeaten, which isn't surprising considering the schedule (Buffalo, Navy, Norfolk State) and Cincy has cracked the top 25 with impressive wins against fairly lackluster competition, although they knocked off Pac-10 member Oregon State.

I respect USF for going to Auburn. They won, but Auburn is hideous by their standards. They easily could have lost to Kansas State (not exactly a Big 12 power) and did lose at home to Mississippi State (not exactly an SEC power).

Connecticut, Cincinnati, South Florida and Rutgers are all undefeated. West Virginia has just the South Florida loss. Getting back to that loss, it's a problem because it doesn't show that South Florida is a great, top 10 worthy team. It shows that WVU doesn't deserve to be that highly regarded, and that's a big blow for the conference on the heels of Louisville's collapse. There isn't a marquee win to prop the conference up.

Let's take a look at the Big East's non-conference results against BCS conference schools:
Connecticut beat Duke (ACC) in a match-up I'd rather see on the hardwood.
South Florida beat Auburn (SEC) and North Carolina (ACC).
Syracuse lost to Washington (Pac-10), Iowa (Big 10) and Illinois (Big 10).
Cincinnati flogged Oregon State (Pac-10).
Rutgers plays Maryland (ACC) tomorrow.
West Virginia beat Maryland (ACC) ... again, a match I'd rather see on the hardwood.
Pittsburgh lost to Michigan State (Big 10), although it was close.
Louisville lost at Kentucky (SEC) and has an upcoming game against NC State (ACC).

Funny enough, I'm watching PTI on DVR and they're talking about whether or not a USF win is bad for the Big East. Bob Ryan said it's bad if USF wins, while Michael Wilbon thought it would be good.

We'll have to see how the rest of the season plays out. And, while it looks like the race for the Big East title will be quite interesting this year (especially if Louisville gets it together), it doesn't appear that the conference will play a role in the national title race because there isn't a dominant team (or two or three) like exists in the SEC, Pac-10 and Big 12 (I hope there is one in the Big 12). The depth is great (especially considering it's an 8-team conference), but the next step has to be getting big wins over top teams in other major conferences ... and I don't see a single one this year (although the same can be said of the Big 12, which features wins over Miami (by OU), Iowa (by Iowa State) and Illinois (by Missouri) ... but the difference is that OU and Texas will probably show they are the cream of the crop in the conference).

P.S. It would be great to see a series of games between the ACC and Big East (match-ups based on the Sagarin ratings after from earlier this week).
West Virginia v. Boston College
Cincinnati v. Clemson
Rutgers v. Florida State
South Florida v. Virginia Tech
Connecticut v. Miami
Pittsburgh v. Wake Forest
Louisville v. Georgia Tech
Syracuse v. Virginia