Big East's best merit title shot

[TyBull]

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Big East's best merit title shot

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I realize this won't be popular in Alabama or in the Southeast, for that matter, but I keep asking myself the same question: Why not West Virginia? For that matter, why not Louisville?

The winner of Thursday night's clash at Papa John's Stadium in Louisville will be undefeated and essentially on a crash course with a perfect season, so why not take the Mountaineers or the Cardinals and let them have a shot at the Ohio State-Michigan winner?

The Buckeyes and Wolverines meet on Nov. 18 and barring an incredible upset between now and then, that game in Columbus is essentially a national semifinal. Thursday's game in Louisville could be the other half of that final four, though many college football fans refuse to accept it.

Instead, they argue that the Big East isn't a strong league. They say West Virginia and Louisville played weak schedules and couldn't navigate their way through tougher conferences.

Sorry, I'm not buying that anymore. The SEC is a nice league. It has wonderful traditions -- there, I said it for those of you who can't make it through a discussion about college football without talking about dead people and games that were played before color television -- but the level of football in the SEC this year is average.

The most talented team in the league, LSU, is apparently one of the worst coached. The best-coached teams in the league, arguably South Carolina and Vanderbilt, aren't very talented and could fail to qualify for the postseason. Auburn and Florida, two teams in the top six of the BCS this week, are good but flawed in many ways. Arkansas and Tennessee, one-loss teams that are in the BCS mix to some extent, are far from dominant. Take away their prestigious names and histories, and Alabama and Georgia are middling Division I teams this year. Kentucky, Ole Miss and Mississippi State are just horrid.

Similar breakdowns could be done of the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and ACC, where the bottom half of those leagues are deplorable. One-loss Notre Dame is far from a great team. Whether it's parity or an overall decrease in the quality of the product, there are more mediocre and bad teams than there are good ones.

Still, people seem to want to disrespect the Big East at a disproportionate rate. One year ago, West Virginia beat SEC champion Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. The Mountaineers could easily beat this year's SEC champ, as well. So could Louisville. Rutgers and Pittsburgh wouldn't win the league, but they wouldn't finish in the cellar either. Neither would South Florida or Cincinnati.

I'm not alone with this sentiment. Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com agrees that the SEC is down this season. The former Georgia beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote Monday that an unbeaten Louisville or West Virginia would "be more deserving than the loser of the Nov. 18 game between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Michigan. And it would be more deserving than one-loss Texas, one-loss California or one-loss Notre Dame."

The debate didn't start in earnest until this past Saturday, when Oregon State beat Southern California, basically eliminating the Trojans from championship contention.

"Certainly, you keep your eye on (the BCS standings)," Louisville coach Bobby Petrino admitted. "When you saw USC lose, it's one more step for the winner of our game or the winner of the Big East having a shot at the BCS title game. Rutgers is sitting out there undefeated, so there's more to the season than this game."

Both Louisville and West Virginia have tough games after Thursday. The Mountaineers play at Pittsburgh (6-2) Nov. 16 and entertain unbeaten Rutgers on Dec. 2 in a game that could end up being that day's more important game, even bigger than the SEC, ACC and Big 12 title games. Louisville also has trips to Rutgers and Pittsburgh left on its schedule.

"We're a small league, but from one through eight, we're as strong as we've been in a long time," West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said earlier this week. "I think all of that talk about the demise of the Big East should be gone."

"We still have to prove the Big East is a force in the national title picture," said West Virginia center Dan Mozes, an All-America candidate who has done a fine job of protecting Daphne native Pat White and opening holes for Heisman candidate Steve Slaton this fall.

The winner Thursday night, if it can navigate the rest of the season without a mishap, deserves to be in Glendale, Ariz., playing Ohio State or Michigan for the national title. No one wants to see a Buckeyes-Wolverines rematch, and it would be a travesty to select from a pool of similar one-loss teams rather than reward an unbeaten club that had done everything that had been asked of it.

With each BCS failing, it becomes more obvious that college football needs a playoff. Computers can't accurately choose a champion and machines have no business telling Thursday's winner that it can't beat the big boys. Because for at least this season, West Virginia and Louisville clearly belong, and they deserve a chance to prove it.

Contact Neal McCready at:

nmccready@press-register.com

His column appears on Wednesdays in the Press-Register.

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[smazza]

wv turned into a pumpkin

they are terrible

no wonder they didnt schedule anyone good

their coach knew they couldnt stand up to tough teams week after week