usa today

[smazza]

LOUISVILLE  Take a bow, Louisville. Now, prepare to be disbelieved.

It was the greatest night in the long and proud history of the new Big East, which is about a month. A brace of top-5 teams. Opera music from Carmina Burana just before the home team took the field. Nearly all the fans wearing black  Papa John's Cardinal Stadium looked like a judges' convention.

Since when does Louisville get this animated over a sports event in which the winner does not have hooves?

And in the end, a track meet of a football game, with four lead changes and 78 points and 1,008 yards and Louisville winning 44-34. And did we mention the six Mountaineer fumbles, three of them lost, one returned for a touchdown?

That means the Cardinals are 8-0, which means they have a chance to be 12-0. That should be good enough to play for the national championship, but maybe not. Soon to be the crux of the BCS matter.

"It showed we're for real," center Eric Wood said. "And we're here to stay."

Surely, the Cardinals know what's coming now, from every time zone. Florida, Auburn, USC, Texas, Notre Dame and all the other one-loss wannabes. There'll be more negative campaigning than a U.S. Senate race.

Some will grumble that you could count all the currently ranked teams Louisville has played on one hand and have four fingers left to hold the popcorn. Bashing Big East football is old sport, but the stakes have suddenly grown. They're not talking about the Peach Bowl.

And there's one conspicuous deed undone for the Cardinals. Six words that nobody  not even the most ardent Big Eastonians  would have expected to be important.

They still have to beat Rutgers.

So let's say they do on Nov. 9. They will have defeated a 7-0 team followed by an 8-0 team, which is pretty heavy lifting for one November. Should that not be enough?

"We can't control that," quarterback Brian Brohm said, "and we can't worry about that."

"There shouldn't be any question," Wood said.

"People want to yell and scream about their one-loss team, let them scream," Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said. "But I just don't think it's going to affect anybody. I just think it's almost protectionist."

But it'll come, gale force. Thursday was a contest between two unbeaten teams. The BCS may end up a referendum on the Big East itself.

In a way, the conference is the Detroit Tigers of college football. Three years ago dead and buried  as Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College asked for a divorce, packed and moved in with the ACC. And now, prime time. Thursday nights, anyway.

The entertainment value was high Thursday night, if not always the execution. It would have been nice had West Virginia not handled the football as if it were a live hand grenade (Steve Slaton's arm going numb from a hit on a nerve didn't help). Or had either team showed more steel on defense.

For their efforts, the Cardinals will probably be No. 3 in the next polls ... and Public Enemy No. 1 in the SEC, where many of the one-loss teams grumble about strength of schedule.

So in the end, what if the math does them in? And the BCS formula decides that Big East perfection is not good enough?

"We just need to worry about Rutgers," coach Bobby Petrino said. "Then everything else will play out."

"If we win all our games," running back Kolby Smith said "There's no way they should leave us out."

Clearly the world has changed, when the two most important remaining games in the regular season are Michigan-Ohio State ... and Louisville-Rutgers.

[smazza]

LOUISVILLE  The hometown kid imagined this when he took a leap of faith and signed with Louisville back when the Cardinals were still in Conference USA.

His father, Oscar, and brothers, Greg and Jeff, all played for the Cardinals, but when quarterback Brian Brohm decided to cast his lot with this up-and-comer, he hoped to take the team to places it had never been.

"It's been a dream of mine since I was a little kid that Louisville would be on this stage," Brohm said Thursday night after No. 5 Louisville defeated No. 3 West Virginia 44-34. If the Cardinals keep winning, they probably will land on the biggest of stages, the national championship game Jan. 8.

"One of the things in recruiting Brian was convincing him he would be on this stage," said Louisville coach Bobby Petrino of Brohm, who was USA TODAY's offensive player of the year when he turned down the likes of Tennessee and Notre Dame. "I think that was the one thing he wanted to make sure he could do."

Brohm shined in the most important game of his career, completing 19 of 26 passes for 354 yards and a touchdown. He threw long  he completed two 40-yard passes and another for 36  and managed the game with aplomb.

"He was awesome," Petrino said. "To execute like that, with more than 350 yards, and with his focus on not only dropping back and passing but also with his checks and reads at the line, really says a lot about him."

It was his eighth career 300-yard passing game and his second highest since throwing for 389 against South Florida last season.

The game was full of offensive fireworks  the teams combined for a Big East-record 1,008 yards. Louisville will face a better defensive team next week at No. 15 Rutgers (8-0).

"There's a little worry there," Brohm said of a possible letdown effect. "We can't afford to have a hangover or get too emotional."

The fact that Louisville has come this far without running back Michael Bush, who broke his leg in the season opener, is a testament to the team's resilience and depth.

Brohm himself missed two games following a thumb injury suffered in the win vs. Miami (Fla.), and Petrino wondered if putting him back in the lineup against Cincinnati on Oct. 14 was too soon.

Petrino took the chance because he wanted to get his QB ready for this game.

When the Cardinals only had 23 points against the Bearcats and then only 28 against Syracuse, numbers below their usual pyrotechnics, fans questioned whether Brohm would return to form this year.

"If we don't score more than 28 points, we feel that's struggling," Petrino said. "This team is motivated to be the No. 1 offense in the country. We were out of sync. Some of that was Brian. When he came back, he was a little rusty."

Brohm said that by last Friday he was feeling like his old self. And by Thursday night that old self took a team to a place it never has been.

[smazza]

Big East rises from ashes to title possibilities

By Kelly Whiteside, USA TODAY

LOUISVILLE  When Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese arrived in Louisville for Thursday night's game between No. 3 West Virginia and No. 5 Louisville, he said he turned on the TV and appropriately enough the movie being shown was Cinderella Man.

For a conference that's been counted out more than once and nearly dissolved after Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College bolted for the Atlantic Coast Conference, these are heady times. Still, if one of the league's two remaining undefeated teams finishes 12-0 and doesn't make it to the national title game, Tranghese said he isn't going to complain or politic.

"Three years ago, they laid the coffin out for us. Two years ago, we played in the limbo league. The year before, we were dead," he says. "So this is a nice story."

The next few weeks, which will serve as a playoff of sorts, is further proof the imperfect Bowl Championship Series works, at least compared with the old system, Tranghese said. Now, at least there's a chance that the nation's best teams will meet Jan. 8.

But will it be a Big East team vs. No. 1 Ohio State or No. 2 Michigan? "I don't know if one of our teams can get through, to be honest with you," Tranghese said. "They gotta go on the road and beat someone."

The league's next big game will be next Thursday with Louisville at No. 15 Rutgers (8-0). The final Saturday of the season, West Virginia hosts Rutgers.

If a Big East team finishes 12-0, the shouting from a one-loss team left out, especially from the Southeastern Conference, probably will get louder. "They blow smoke because they have to protect themselves," Tranghese said. "I'd just want to get there (12-0). I'd like to be able to have a problem."

As for the future of the eight-team league, Tranghese said he'd consider adding members, but "it's gotta be someone who would make us better." Notre Dame, which wants to stay independent in football, will help boost the league's TV profile with games against three Big East teams beginning in 2011. As part of the Irish's planned 7-4-1 model (seven games in South Bend, four on the road and one at a neutral site a la Texas-Oklahoma or Georgia-Florida), Big East teams could be on the Irish's schedule beginning in 2009 for those neutral-site games.

For a conference many thought might not even be around in 2009, that's heady indeed.

[bulls96go]

i wish UL the best, still i hope we beat them again!