ESPN: Big East stinks, USF must carry the conference

[TheBullies]

Big East: Yep, it stinks

September 7, 2008 12:20 AM

Posted by ESPN.com's Brian Bennett

Three inches.

That's about how far the Big East came from not having a single legitimate BCS title contender after the second week of the season.

South Florida stopped Michael Greco on fourth down by that approximate distance to outlast Central Florida, 31-24, in overtime. If the Bulls had lost, the only undefeated team left in the entire conference would have been Connecticut, which hardly looked national title worthy with a 12-9 overtime win at Temple (though, the weather conditions made it tough on the offenses).

So, after two weeks, the Big East's best two victories have both come in overtime. Against Temple and Central Florida.

No offense to UConn, which might very well win this league, but it's probably on South Florida now to carry the banner for the conference. West Virginia bombed out with a 24-3 loss at East Carolina, a result so ugly that it's hard to imagine the Mountaineers climbing back into the national title picture.

Elsewhere, Pittsburgh pulled out a much-needed victory against Buffalo, but the Panthers hardly inspire as much confidence as they did in the preseason. Louisville scored 51 points but did so against a badly overmatched Tennessee Tech team. We won't really know anything about the Cardinals for another 11 days, when they play Kansas State. Cincinnati put up a fight for a while but eventually got clobbered at Oklahoma, perhaps exposing how far off the Big East really is from the upper echelon. The Bearcats also lost their QB to injury.

And Syracuse, well, there are really no words to describe how bad Syracuse is right now.

No doubt the Big East will get hammered nationally this week, and deservedly so. Probably no league team belongs in the top 15 right now. If there's a plus side, every team in the league must feel that it can win the conference title.

Well, everyone except Syracuse, that is.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigeast/0-1-51/Big-East--Yep--it-stinks.html

[Bulls On Parade]

I hope the big east gets better as the season goes on, alot of teams lost alot of good players.

Both ACC and Big East look bad. We need to kill NC State when we play them.

[Rocky Style]

The Big East totally stinks right now, luckily the ACC is blowing it more?  It scares me that we have to carry the conference after last night's crappy game.

[TheBullies]

We'll know a lot more about how good USF is after Kansas.

Yesterday was special... UCF had a lot of intangibles and played well above and beyond.

Winning over us was more important than winning the conference to them, and it showed.

They put up a good fight, I don't knock the Bulls. Except for special teams and clock management.

[Rocky Style]

Dude UTM was returning kicks on us pretty good.  I hope Kansas doesn't have athletes...  Or an offense.

[TheBullies]

Yeah we really need to work on special teams coverage. Good God.

I think we'll see a different look up front for the Kansas game... on defense.

I'm worried about our secondary.

[Rocky Style]

Yeah we really need to work on special teams coverage. Good God.

I think we'll see a different look up front for the Kansas game... on defense.

I'm worried about our secondary.

Yeah I think any good passing team will be able to dink and dunk us to glory.

[TRUTH D. Antagonist]

::yawn::

the media and the CFB world has been begging for an excuse to **** talk the league since the realignment.

now that *****-Rod has gone and WVU is replacing 2/3 of its defense and 3 key players on offense, WVU is in restructuring mode [yes, great teams don't rebuild they reload, but losing a coach on top of it all is a tall order].

Brohm left L'Ville and Krag is still finding his way.

Rice left Buttgirls, and unfortunately 1 great season does not an elite program make, so they are definetely reloading.

UConn was never any good, and Cinci is getting a bad rap--- why would anybody expect Cinci, a consistent 3rd or 4th place Big East team, to compete with Oklahoma, which is the best team in the Big 12... especially given the fact that they are running with a new QB.

YES, the Big East is down right now...

but the ACC is far worse, and the Big 10 doesn't exactly look like a stellar conference.  Michigan lost to Utah opening week and got all it could handle from MiamiOH, OSU took 3 1/2 quarters to put away the Bobcats, and Wisconsin had to rally from behind to beat Marshall.

the fact is, the Big East consistently gets a bad rap and it doesn't take but one or two missteps to put us in the basement.

the Big 10 consistently gets overrated, so even when their top teams play cake schedules and get blown out two years in a row in the BCS championship, or lose to FCS and midmajor teams in their openers, they never actually hit the basement.

SEC, Big XII and Pac-10 are 1,2,3 in terms of conferences... but i don't see much separation between the other three BCS leagues, other than the fact that the ACC is clearly the bottom.

[TRUTH D. Antagonist]

oh, and WVU was overrated from the start.

anyone that thought they were going to be an elite team this year with a new coach and all the players they had to replace on both sides of the ball was smoking hay.

i knew they would flop, and anyone with any sense knew they would flop.

[TheBullies]

^ agree, but I was hoping for a better performance from Cincy.

I understand they lost their QB in the game... Wonder what will come of that.

Clearly, USF has an opportunity here with the Kansas game.

With the BE the way it is, a win will give us even more exposure. It would be very good for the program.