Seven Reasons Why You Should Root For The Big East (CFN Blog)

[crambone]

From http://cfn.scout.com/2/760961.html

There are likely few more thankless jobs than being the "guy who defends the Big East football conference as being something other than a borderline BCS participant". The statiscal evidence to that fact is pronounced: after all, numerous computer rankings claim that out of six BCS conferences, the Big East ranks sixth. That's last, and that's apparently not very good. And if you were unfortunate enough to watch the 2007 Sun Bowl or the 2004 Champs Sports Bowl - especially if you had money on the Big East participants in those games - your regard for the conference might be lower still.

But there are reasons to root for the Big East - and not just because they're normally the "plucky little underdogs" or because West Virginia runs an arcade-style offense. In fact, there are seven reasons why Big East football is worthy of your love and attention.

7. The 2007 Big East Heisman commercial. Yes, Matt Zemek hated it. And nobody is going to argue that it was anything other than pretentious or over-the-top and it was ridiculously premature to run said commercial in the second week of the season.

But c'mon, what other conference has the stones to do that? There was no dramatic voice-over in a commercial for Darren McFadden or Tim Tebow. Colt Brennan wasn't featured smiling uncomfortably for the ca.mera while touching the Heisman Trophy. Only the Big East had the combination of media dollars and complete insecurity over the chances of Ray Rice and Pat White to win the Heisman that they felt it necessary.

6. The Rutgers run in '06. Admit it, they reeled you in. The scrappy bunch of underdogs, playing as a team (as Kirk Herbstreit reminded you about 7,912 times during the Rutgers-Louisville game) and defying the odds to win 11 games and come within an eyelash of the BCS. Sure, other Big East teams have had big runs - South Florida got up to #2 in the BCS last year, for example. But everyone was down with Rutgers in a way that wouldn't happen to, say, Baylor. Even if you thought there was something not quite right about that Brian Leonard kid.

5. You can make really cool, quasi-bogus statistical cases for them. For example, take the "Big East went 5-0 in bowl games in 2006" gambit. It's hard to argue against a conference that went undefeated in the postseason, right? Well, if two of the five wins were over mid-major also-rans and another was over the eighth-best team in the Big 12, it might be easy to argue against them. But at the end of the day, the Big East won the Bowl Challenge trophy - and as long as the Big East plays mid-major also-rans and bottom-feeders from BCS conferences in the majority of their bowl games, contention for that trophy should continue.

4. They play 'em when, um, ESPN wants them to. Whether it's Thursday, Friday or even Sunday, the Big East is willing to satisfy the degenerate gambler/college football junkie in all of us. How many other major conferences agree to put their biggest traditional rivalry (West Virginia/Pitt) and non-conference game (Auburn/West Virginia) on days other than Saturday? And do so year after year? (Ok, the Big 12 puts Texas A&M/Texas on the day after Thanksgiving; but that's the exception, not the rule.)

It's this kind of fan-friendly approach (or money grubbing, if you're a heartless cynic) that can soften even the most hardened of hearts. Moreover, it lends itself to the weird dynamic mentioned above - the Big East has the clout to play in BCS games, yet thinks so little of itself that it sees the need to put its games on in time slots often reserved for the MAC and Conference USA.

3. You still take the Big East's side in the whole sordid Miami/Boston College/Virginia Tech affair. We all know that nobody likes to take sides in a divorce. At least not unless it's the Britney Spears/Kevin Federline dissolution, in which you should've been perfectly ok with the idea of classifying Spears (even before it was cool to do so) as a crazy freak. The reality is that the traitors/ACC member institutions left the Big East knowing that they would cripple the conference. And not only that, the defection was done in a backroom, middle-of-the-night, Colts-to-Indianapolis kind of way. All that was missing was the Mayflower moving van.

Now thankfully, C-USA and its Feeder Program For Other Conferences tm stepped up to save the day. And the misfortunes of Miami and banishment of Boston College to bowl ghettos have been the College Football God's payback for their sins. But the one most admirable silver lining to come out of the whole mess was the Big East's rise from the ashes...

2. ...because when those schools left - 2004 turned out to be a really, really, really bad year for Big East football that makes virtually any other season look good by comparison. Call it the premise of vastly lowered expectations, but Big East football was a dreadful sack of bad in 2004. Everyone remembers the absolute Fiesta Bowl phone-in by Pitt (it would be too generous to suggest they mailed it in, because mailing something generally takes some effort) but the entire Big East conference was awful in 2004. C'mon, remember Big-East co-champion...6-6 Syracuse? Only Sun Belt champions are allowed to have .500 overall records.

The good news, however, is that 2004's awfulness made West Virginia's run in 2005 and Louisville's ascension the following year even more surprising to the casual fan. Expectations for conference teams are almost permanently lowered, as evidenced by Big East teams being significant underdogs in two of the last three BCS games - that they won.

1. It's traditional Eastern football, baby. The Big East is real football, played by long-standing powers like Syracuse...uh, Pittsburgh...eh, Boston College? Gone. Penn State? Big Ten. Notre Dame? Never joining.

Ok, the "new" Big East is a bunch of former mid-majors surrounded by new I-A programs and the sloppy seconds of the previous incarnation. It isn't always pretty. It lacks the tradition and long-standing rivalries of the more established conferences. But someday, when one of these intrepid underdogs make the ultimate leap and win the national championship, the rest of the country will stand up in unision and shout with one voice, loud and clear...

...that it's time for a playoff.

[Matt]

sounds more like 7 reasons to make fun of the big east.

[Bull Martin]

Reason #1 is hilarious.

[Bullschmutz]

Booooooooooooooooooooooo!

[Mama_Bull]

It's just a blog there by J.P. Girouard, whoever that is. He's not a usual writer for College Football News.

[IncrediBULL]

He probably went to Ohio State with Kirk Herbstreit.... 

[bullman3]

Useless dribble.  Is this writer actually getting paid to write such irrelevant rubbish?

[crambone]

There was a pro-UCF writer that lambasted ECU's "Big East or Bust" article.  You could very much see his bias in that blog.

It's not so much that this article praises USF or the Big East, but something to read before football.

[Jihme]

Reason #1 is hilarious.

i was thinking the same thing

[BULLSHTR]

I actually think every point he made was accurate although hurtful. But at the same time the Big East hasn't proved that they don't belong. The top 4 teams in the big east are just as good as the top 4 in the big 12, big ten, and ACC in my opinion. The Beast just lacks depth (it sucks if only half your teams are good if there are only 8 teams!)