The Big LEast

[Markeymark]

Gator Bowl tie-in isn't certain for embattled league

Make all the jokes you'd like.

Take cheap shots at the Big East while the conference is down.

Come up with whatever punch line best fits the question: "What do you get when you put Rutgers and Temple on the same football field?"

At least for the time being, there is not much the Big East can do to defend itself from the pot shots.

"It's something that we have to fight through right now," Boston College football coach Tom O'Brien said.

Of course, the Eagles won't be around for a possible Big East resurgence. As Miami and Virginia Tech did a year ago, they, too, are leaving what appears to be a sinking football conference for the Atlantic Coast Conference once this season is over.

This is what Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese feared 17 months ago when the ACC came looking to expand -- at the Big East's expense.

Not only has the conference Tranghese helped start in 1979 ceased to be a major player in college football, a league with a tie-in to Jacksonville's Toyota Gator Bowl has become all but irrelevant.

In recent years, there were schools such as Miami and Virginia Tech to add some legitimacy to the conference. That's not the case anymore. Nearly two months into the season, No.4 Miami and No.23 Virginia Tech are enjoying success in their first year in the ACC. In contrast, No.15 West Virginia is the Big East's only ranked team.

It has made for an unappealing scenario for the Toyota Gator Bowl. Typically, the Big East runner-up plays in the New Year's Day bowl, but officials could decide instead to take Notre Dame for a more attractive matchup. The bowl's only clause is that Notre Dame and the Big East runner-up must have records separated by only one win.

This could be a year to exercise that clause.

"I have a problem blaming the Big East conference for what has happened to it this season," said Ivan Maisel, a senior college football writer for ESPN.com. "This is blaming the victim. These people got hung out to dry."

Meanwhile, embattled Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris is dealing with life after first-round NFL draft pick Larry Fitzgerald, the best receiver to come through the school. And Syracuse, Rutgers and Temple have struggled to avoid losing records that could cost their coaches their jobs.

As a whole, the Big East is biding its time until No.15 Louisville (tied with West Virginia in the Associated Press Top 25), the University of South Florida and Cincinnati join the league. The hope is that the three Conference USA programs will restore some football glory to the proud college basketball conference.

Some college football experts say the Big East could sure use it.

"The Big East has got West Virginia, which is a borderline top-25 team. You've got Boston College that is not so good, and then you have five teams that are mediocre to awful," said Jerry Palm, who has independently computed the Bowl Championship Series formula for media outlets and his Web site, collegebcs.com, since 1998. "You don't have any other conference that has five teams that bad."

How bad has it gotten? The Big East's football coaches have had to defend their league, even as it has slipped in many people's opinions well below the other five BCS conferences.

"This year, of the six BCS conferences, I think [the Big East] ranks somewhere around eighth," Maisel joked. "It is a step, if not two steps, behind the other five BCS conferences."

Palm, in fact, ranks the Big East below Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference, two leagues consisting of "mid-major" schools.

Even though six of the Big East's seven teams have records of .500 or better, none is considered a legitimate contender.

When the first BCS rankings were released Monday, there were eight conferences that had at least one team rated higher than West Virginia, the Big East's lone representative, at No.20.

That is a far cry from when Miami and Virginia Tech represented the Big East in three of the past five BCS national championship games.

But West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez thinks the criticism the league has received so far this season has been unfair.

"The Big East has been taking a bashing from some of these so-called experts on TV and in the media that think they know about it," Rodriguez said. "But I think the Big East has been pretty competitive throughout the years, and we've been beating up on each other."

Rodriguez points to Syracuse's 17-13 loss to Florida State on Oct. 9 as proof that the Big East is not as bad as some people say.

"Syracuse very easily could have and should have won that game. So, don't tell me there ain't some good football being played in the Big East," Rodriguez said.

But it remains to be seen how the additions of Louisville, USF and Cincinnati -- as well as the subtraction of Temple, which the conference is kicking out after this year -- will help the Big East in football.

Louisville is considered a program on the rise, and its 41-38 loss at Miami in last Thursday's ESPN-televised game helped convince some around the nation of the school's potential.

"I think the game last Thursday was huge for perception," ESPN college football analyst Bill Curry said. "Not just pretty good, but monumental."

The same, however, could not be said about USF or Cincinnati. Army snapped its 19-game losing streak, then the nation's longest, with a 48-29 win over Cincinnati on Oct. 9.

Army followed it up last Saturday with a 42-35 win at USF, marking the first time the Black Knights have won back-to-back games since 1997.

"Cincinnati is pretty mediocre, certainly no better than the Rutgers, Temples and Syracuses of the world," said Palm, the BCS expert. "And South Florida isn't that good.

"You are talking about [the Big East] adding two below-average programs that would not get the time of day in other conferences."

But Curry thinks the additions of the three schools, plus a commitment to football by West Virginia, Pitt and the University of Connecticut, could help the Big East get close to where it was before the conference shuffling.

"In time, [if] you look five years down the road, there is no reason they [the Big East] can't be as good as ever," Curry said. "... I will be surprised if the Big East doesn't re-emerge as one of the power conferences," Curry said.

In the meantime, let the jokes continue.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102004/col_16963264.shtml