Smart analysis of what the Big East needs to do.

[Reliable Source]

I actually liked how he lays this out. We as a conference need to step up. Nothing short of taking down the ranked teams is gonna push us up in the rankings. First job, Beat Notre Dame. Then leave the work to other BE teams for a while. Then we need to dismantle the BE including WVU who we hope has run the table until we meet. I kinda choke on rooting for WVU but will do it for a couple of months for our ultimate benefit. The same for our pole dancing friends down south.

Mountaineers need;big season to help legitimize Big East

Jack Bogaczyk, Sports Editor, Charleston Daily Mail (West Virginia)

Updated Aug 19, 2011 6:23 PM ET

The Big East has endured 18 football coaching changes since 2005. Every school except Rutgers has made a move since December 2008.

Yet, with all of the necessary introductions, it's somewhat surprising that so many of these sideline swamis seem to be on the same page ... but it's not from the chapter the Big East needs.

I was re-checking some of the video the other day from the conference's preseason media gathering in Rhode Island. Almost to a man, the coaches - new West Virginia boss Dana Holgorsen included - preached the same subject.

They talked about how the Big East is the most competitive major college conference. They used words like "balanced" and "unpredictable" and "challenging" and "wide open."

The dean among these guys - 10-year man Greg Schiano of sagging Rutgers - borrowed from the late NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle's quote, going with "on any given Saturday" in a reference to parity.

OK, maybe Schiano forgot the Big East also plays on Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but you get the point.

However, considering the Big East's profile - already regarded at the bottom of the six BCS leagues and coming off its worst season in a 20-year gridiron history - that parity is parody to pundits.

The national perception of Big East football is a 180 from its basketball.

The Mountaineers, picked to win the league by 21 of 24 media members who cover the Big East, really need to make a statement this season, and not just for the sake of Holgorsen and the big-changes athletic director who ushered a rookie head coach into the job, Oliver Luck.

The Big East needs WVU to play large in 2011. If not the Mountaineers, then a Pitt or South Florida. Someone ... anyone?

(And if WVU does get back to double-digit wins, the sidebar is that it makes the Mountaineers just a smidgen more attractive to some of those other leagues that might be seeking expansion, doesn't it?)

The Big East really doesn't need another season in the ICU until TCU arrives in 2012.

In the last five seasons, the Big East has had five of its eight programs win or share a conference title. It has also had USF climb to as high as No. 2 in the polls in that span. It has had Syracuse starting to bounce back to respectability.

However, the Big East has been ebbing since the first of those aforementioned five seasons (2006), when Louisville, WVU and Rutgers all won at least 11 games and finished in the top 12 of the AP poll.

To put it another way, Cincinnati went 11-3 and 12-1 in 2008 and '09 as a Big East champion, yet the Bearcats managed more than seven wins in a season only once (8 in 1997) as a Conference USA member from 1996-2004.

The 2011 AP preseason poll will be revealed Saturday. If any Big East team cracks the Top 25, it will be West Virginia, and the Mountaineers will be near the bottom of that poll. No Big East team made the USA Today coaches' poll earlier this month (WVU missed by 12 points, ranked 27th).

That's those fresh-faced Big East coaches' peers doing the voting. As second-year UofL Coach Charlie Strong said:

"You look at last season, the winner of this conference lost, what, four games? There's no way that you're going to get the respect around (the nation). You look around some conferences, guys lose one game; they don't win the conference."

The Big East's best overall record last season was WVU's 9-4, closing with a Champs Sports Bowl embarrassment against North Carolina State. Connecticut, with the BCS bid, went 8-5 and was blitzed by Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

The conference finished with no ranked team for the first time in its history. That was no exception.

In 16 weeks of AP polling in 2010, there were eight weeks without a Big East team. Pitt was No. 15 in the preseason poll. UConn was No. 25 in the final regular-season poll. WVU was ranked eight weeks, but no higher than 20th. That's it.

In 2009, the Big East had no team in the preseason poll. When the Big East was without a poll spot late last September, it was the first time the league didn't have a team in a regular-season AP poll since a 1995 four-week stretch (Sept. 26, Oct. 3, 10, 17), until Syracuse entered at No. 21 the next week.

So, what's the answer? Beat someone, other than one another. That's been easier said than done.

The Big East was 0-6 against ranked outsiders last season. In fact, since West Virginia upended Oklahoma in (No. 11 over 3) in the Fiesta Bowl in January 2008, the Big East is 2-14 against non-league ranked teams ... and both wins were by one program. USF beat Kansas in 2008 and Florida State in '09.

There are four really major opportunities this season for the Big East against teams that will appear in the AP poll this weekend.

USF goes to Notre Dame on Sept. 3. Syracuse then heads to Los Angeles to face sanctions-saddled Southern Cal on Sept. 17 (the Trojans are eligible for votes in the AP poll, but not coaches' rankings).

The next Saturday, LSU makes a trek to West Virginia - incredibly, the Tigers' first trip to an Eastern football campus since it visited Boston College in October 1947. The same day, the Fighting Irish visit Pittsburgh at Heinz Field.

Someone needs to go no worse than 6-1 in the Big East and 4-1 in non-league games, and win a bowl game. That's 11-2.

The Big East needs that kind of beast, otherwise, when the league is referenced in December, it will be in dribbles.

Contact Sports Editor Jack Bogaczyk at jackb@dailymail.com or 304-348-7949

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/Mountaineers-needbig-season-to-help-legitimize-Big-East-82666299

[Reliable Source]

He does kind of show his WVU colors in this line though.

"Someone needs to go no worse than 6-1 in the Big East and 4-1 in non-league games, and win a bowl game. That's 11-2."

I hope he adds up his AP vote a little better than that.

[gobulls83]

He does kind of show his WVU colors in this line though.

"Someone needs to go no worse than 6-1 in the Big East and 4-1 in non-league games, and win a bowl game. That's 11-2."

I hope he adds up his AP vote a little better than that.

Six conference wins + four non-conference wins + one bowl win = 11 wins

One conference loss + one non-conference loss + zero bowl losses = Two losses

Put it together, and you have a record of 11-2.

[BULLSHTR]

yeah the math is good

[79 Bull]

Wow, LSU has not played a game in the east since 1947?

[BleedGreenAndGold]

[GaUSFBull]

He does kind of show his WVU colors in this line though.

"Someone needs to go no worse than 6-1 in the Big East and 4-1 in non-league games, and win a bowl game. That's 11-2."

I hope he adds up his AP vote a little better than that.

Six conference wins + four non-conference wins + one bowl win = 11 wins

One conference loss + one non-conference loss + zero bowl losses = Two losses

Put it together, and you have a record of 11-2.

LOL

[E.T.]

I want L'ville, UM & WVU to be undefeated coming to Tampolona at the end of the season.

[GaUSFBull]

I want L'ville, UM & WVU to be undefeated coming to Tampolona at the end of the season.

Is this a Tamplona remarketing campaign?

[Costa]

I want L'ville, UM & WVU to be undefeated coming to Tampolona at the end of the season.

Is this a Tamplona remarketing campaign?

Yeah man, you are the only person Ive seen or heard that says "Tamplona" regarding USF and Tampa. Time to drop it.