and WVU FINALLY won the damn Gator Bowl

Great year for the Big East! Congrats!

and people had written the conference off after Va Wreck, Crimami and the BC Buzzards flew the coop

I wonder if those schools are questioning their move now

Virginia Tech seems like they have adjusted as an ACC school. I never really thought they fit into Eastern Football fraternity. Their only connection was to WVU before the Big East was formed. WVU basically had to beg the Big East to accept Virginia Tech's woeful program. Va Tech has always wanted access to the ACC so it wouldn't feel like Marsha Brady in comparison to UVA. They are where they should be. Good riddance as the BE doesn't have to clean up their messes anymore and carry their basketball program that was on life support when it was in the Big East. I do find it comical that VT was almost the doormat of big east basketball and every year they've been in the ACC their always a team that's suddenly become an "NCAA tourney type team".

Miami and BC are interesting. It too early to say on Miami. We can't assess their demise on the ACC just yet. Possibly it was the conference move and coaching. Maybe the poor facilities also caught up with the Canes. THeir program was in the red again with football attendance dropping 8,000 agains this year to an all time low of 35,000 this season. Again, I doubt the Big East would even accept Miami back. USF is proving to be a better choice for the Big East. Tampa is a better sports market. USF has 40,000 students compared to Miami's small private enrollment. USF doesn't have the baggage of "Thug U" Miami does. USF and Miami were comparable in attendance this year.

Boston College without question made a mistake. Two striaght 9-3 seasons and the ACC sent them to bowl games to play non-bcs teams. IMO, there will come a time when BC will revisit joining back with Eastern football. VT and Miami to the old guard wasn't that improtant of losss. They were basically teams WVU, Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers, and UCONN has affiliations with to play football. BC was a different story. Look for some interesting shakedowns to happen in 3-5 years after all the dust settles. ND will eventually have to join a conference especially after their continous BCS losing streak. They will no longer be rewarded for their independant status. If the Big East continues the remarkable resurgence, Navy, ND, and BC could be added to the Big East football lineup after 2010.


BC alums in the Northeast are already fed up with not being able to watch BC basketball and football. Northeast affiliates aren't picking up the Raycom Jefferson Pilot ACC basketball feeds. Instead it was the Big East that signed a deal with ESPN to carry every single Big East conference basektball game on either ESPN, EPSN2, ESPNU, or ESPN Full Court while only half of BC's conference games were on television. Of those games that were none were shown in the Northeast where BC grads live. SUffice to say, BC is finding life in the ACC rocky. However, after BC's loss to Providence, Vermont and Duquense in Decemember, maybe its a good thing those games aren't being shown in New England.

"Four-and-oh, with one to go"



When asked at the post game trophy presentation following Louisville's 24-13 Orange Bowl victory over Wake Forest Tuesday night about the lack of respect the BIG EAST received during the regular season, Cardinals head coach Bobby Petrino had the perfect response:

"What's our record in bowls this season?"

Everyone knew the answer, including the Louisville faithful at Dolphins Stadium who let out a roar upon hearing Petrino's rhetorical question.

Four-and-oh, with one to go.






http://www.bigeast.org/sports/m-footbl/spe.../010307aad.html

Patrick White voted Alabama's Athlete of the year.

White beats out the Seattle Seahawk Running Back Shaun Alexander & LSU QB JaMarcus Russell for the award.




http://story.scout.com/a.z?s=451&p=2&c=606964

and Cincy took care of their game today-the BE is 5-0 in bowl games this season

it's a good time to be a BE fan!

It was a very good atmosphere at the International Bowl. A decent crowd of over 26,000 was on hand and really got into the game. There seemed to be about 7,000 fans from Cincy, about 10,000 or so from WMU with about another 10,000 or so people like me, from Toronto - not having a clue who to cheer for. Let's face it I'm not sure that either Cincy or Western Michigan have ever appeared in any televised games up here, so we had never seen either of these two teams play. It was kind of funny chatting with other Toronto area fans sitting near us before the game , as we all wondered who we should be cheering for.

Some around me started cheering for Cincy (I think only because we happened to be seated on their side of the stadium). But once they jumped out to a 24-0 league I think at that point everybody from Toronto started cheering for Western Michigan to make a game of it. And because of that it became very loud any time Western did anything good. And their band was great and had the Rogers Centre rocking! It ended up being an entertaining game to be at.

Between the two bands and the crowd, the noise level in the Rogers Centre easily was much louder than it usually is in there for Blue Jay games or Toronto Argos CFL games. The promoters of the game must be vey pleased with the result and hopefully the MAC and Big East will continue to support and grow the event here. It was fun and the three friends I went with yesterday would certainly be back next year and I think most others from Toronto who were there will be back too.

Current College Football Conference RPI's







1 Big East 60.56 55.28 3 8
2 Southeastern 60.15 55.58 2 12
3 Big Ten 57.22 54.33 4 11
4 Pacific-10 56.52 56.27 1 10
5 Big 12 54.44 52.67 6 12
6 Atlantic Coast 53.99 53.64 5 12
7 Independents 53.93 49.97 7 3
8 Western Athletic 49.48 48.98 9 9
9 Mountain West 49.31 49.52 8 9
10 Conference USA 47.28 48.75 10 12
11 Mid-American 43.93 46.88 11 13


http://realtimerpi.com/football/ncaaf_conf_Men.html

Guess he didn't like playing in a "rent-a-stadium."



Pittsburgh's Top Recruit Mathews Leaves Team

Lesson One:

4 star recruit Mathwews was ONE of Pitt's top recruits last year. 5 star Dorin Dickerson was Pitt's top recruit. 5 star Recruit TE Nate Byham was Pitt's 2nd best recruit. Hell, there were 3-4 other 4 star recruits that were ranked higher than Mathews.

http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=336&p=9&a...674&yr=2006



Lesson Two:

Pitt's 2007 class is better than PSU's. As a matter of fact, Pitt, WVU, and Rutger are recruiting "better" than PSU this year.

http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=336&p=9&a...=14&yr=2007


Class Dismissed.

Lesson Three.
It depends on who you ask.

http://rivals100.rivals.com/teamrank.asp?SID=1014

Scout.com's system is of higher caliber.

I've heard a lot of bad stuff from Dolphins fans about Wannstedt, but the job he does recruiting players looks pretty good. I think last years Pitt class was the best ranked of the Big East, and was Top 5 on scout.com for a while.

Too bad Syracuse is so far behind the Top three of the conference.

That may be true. I have no idea about such things.
Besides, Rodriquez can turn mud into gold!

"That may be true. I have no idea about such things."

Truer words have never been uttered

Lesson One: The headline of the SI article said he was Pitt's top recruit. What they based that on, I don't know. Maybe his performance on the field this year, since he did play in 9 games, and not high school rankings. So, I suggest you write a letter to the magazine and author of the article.



Lesson Two: Recruiting is not over, so rankings are only a reflection of where things stand now, not the final say.



Lesson Three: I have stated before our recruiting class this year will not be ranked as high when all is said and done, because we don't have as many schollies to give. The ranking services often use the number of schollies as part of their formula. So, if someone has 8 five star recruits and 8 four star recruits and 5 three star recruits (21 total), they will be ranked higher than someone who only had 6 five star recruits (6 total). An argument could be made that the smaller class is better, as it has all five star recruits... but most of them (not sure if any) give you points for the number of five star recruits, not the overall average star ranking of the class.



Lesson Four: I believe you have said before WVU doesn't need 5 star recruits, 'cause RR and staff can coach any 3 star recruits into top players. And those 5 star recruits don't work out most of the time. So you better hope your ranking doesn't go too high.



Lesson Five: Wanny really knows what to do with those highly ranked recruiting classes he's had lately... bowl games the last two years and all. Oh wait, Pitt didn't go to a bowl game the last two years. My bad!

Since I'm a statistically inclined guy, I was curious how highly rated recruiting classes panned out. Reasoning that the 2006 season should be governed by the quality of the 2002, 2003 and 2004 recruits, with the seniors being most important, I added the Scout.com points for those three seasons with a weighting of 3x2002 + 2x2003 + 2004, for all teams with at least one top 50 ranking.

West Virginia's ranking based on that was #46. And that actually placed them above three other top 10 teams: Wisconsin (49), Louisville (58) and Boise State which didn't have even one top 50 ranked class but
beat the #1 recruiting team in the Fiesta Bowl. Some other fine teams outside the top 40 in recruiting include California (41), Boston College (43), Rutgers (53), Brigham Young (55), and Wake Forest (57). I'll grant that the very top teams--the top 10 consisted of Oklahoma, USC, Miami, Texas, LSU, Tennessee, Florida State, Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas A&M in that order--are mostly very good, and the top 4 teams in the country did all rank in the top 12. Still, beyond the handful of teams that can attract a half-dozen five star prospects every year, I wouldn't worry too much about these rankings. Quite a few teams with good recruiting classes failed to play in a bowl this year: Virginia (14), Washington (19), Mississippi State (22), North Carolina State (23), North Carolina (24), Colorado (25), Mississippi (27), Stanford (32), Baylor (35), and Illinois (40).

In short, I wouldn't worry too much about these rankings.

From a Philly Newspaper: Big East Football is the real Deal:



If you think this season was good wait until next year, when the Connecticut, Syracuse, and Pitt teams will be more seasoned. WVU and Louisville will be National Championship Contenders and top 10 teams. Rutgers and South Florida will be top 25 teams. Cincy will be a formidable team. The only question next season will be what other football conference will be their equal.

The ACC? Doubt it.


http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?ne...76361&rfi=6

Pitt grabs another 5-star player out of Pennsylvania. He chose Pitt over Penn State ( amongst others). The Big East's outstanding recruiting this year continues. Eastern Football has become quite the destination.


http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=141&p=8&a...amp;nid=2710886

Not so fast my friend...

http://www.pennlive.com/pennstate/patriotn....xml&coll=1

However, I think he ends up at Pitt. I'm hearing that there are some academic issues, and PSU has backed off because he hasn't held up his end of the deal.

This kid also verballed to Miami at one point, so who knows? We shall find out soon enough.

"I'm hearing that there are some academic issues, and PSU has backed off because he hasn't held up his end of the deal."



Got Damage Control?

Have your fun... but no. Just reporting what I've heard, but I can't verify it. He may qualify from an NCAA standpoint, but not a Penn State standpoint. I don't know if it's true, that's just the word that's going around. He's been on the fence for a long time, so who knows, but I'm told there was a press conference today to make the verbal official. He could still renege on a verbal and sign the LOI for PSU, for all we know.

If academics is the case, it wouldn't be the first time we backed off, or didn't pursue a recruit for that reason. Not that we don't give some kids a chance, but since Joe insists they actually go to class (Gasp!) and pass, he won't bring anyone in that doesn't show they are capable of doing the work in the classroom.

Being from WVU with your high standards, I'm sure you can relate.

"Being from WVU with your high standards, I'm sure you can relate."

Indeed. Its one of the few times recently you've made sense.

USF running back Dorsey dies after offseason workout