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John Tamanaha

MSNBC.com contributor John Tamanaha tackles the hot topics in college football. From title contenders and Heisman hopefuls to coaches on the hot seat and recruiting battles, no issue is out of bounds.



Big East is Big Least among conferences

Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2007 8:20 PM

 “Setback Saturday” brought sadness to Norman, Gainesville, Austin, Eugene and Providence. Yeah, that’s right, Providence … or more specifically, an office on Richmond Street in Rhode Island’s capital that the Big East Conference calls home.

 

Leagues don’t root for any of its members over another, but Louisville’s early-season collapse, which included a shocking loss to Syracuse and South Florida’s 21-13 victory over West Virginia on Friday didn’t work in favor of the Big East. And, as if that weren’t enough, on Saturday, ACC also-ran Maryland went to Piscataway and left with a 34-24 victory over Rutgers.

 

He won’t admit it, but that leaves Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese with a huge headache … and hardly a Heisman contender.

 

The recent rise of Rutgers has been crucial to Tranghese, giving him an opportunity to build a foothold in the nation’s No. 1 media market. That project is on hold thanks to the Terrapins and we won’t be seeing the Empire State Building bathed in scarlet anytime soon.

 

West Virginia is also a not-so-secret favorite in Providence. After all, it was the Mountaineers who basically rescued the Big East two seasons ago with their 38-35 upset victory over SEC champion Georgia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, which was relocated to Bulldog-friendly Atlanta due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

 

Up until that point, the beleaguered conference was taking a ton of grief, especially after Pittsburgh, one of four mediocre teams that tied for the league crown in 2004, got blasted, 35-7, by BCS-outsider Utah in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl.

 

Today, the Big East standings appear upside-down. The cellar-dwellers are West Virginia, Louisville and Pitt, all 0-1 in league play. Sitting at the top are Connecticut, South Florida and Syracuse, all at 1-0. And despite its sparkling 5-0 overall record, Cincinnati is in the middle, having yet to play a league game, as is also the case with 3-1 Rutgers.

 

For the moment, South Florida is carrying the banner for the Big East and that’s absolutely remarkable when you consider the league’s previous history in the Sunshine State.

 

In 1991, the Big East’s participation in football was created for and legitimized by the Miami Hurricanes, who were in their prime. At that time, South Florida was still six years away from giving birth to a Division I-AA football program.

 

That’s not to take anything away from the Bulls, who are unquestionably the feel-good story of the season, having moved up to No. 6 in the AP poll and No. 9 in the USA Today coaches poll. Jim Leavitt’s squad certainly is worthy and has been very impressive, but all things being unequal, the Big East would not choose to be led by an 11-year-old football program that was hastily invited to join the league for the 2005 season after Boston College abruptly announced that it was following Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC.

 

More so than other conferences, the Big East schedules with television in mind. Its slate of primetime Thursday games and strategic series of late-season showdowns featuring its top teams are both examples of good business. However, when those games roll around in November, they’ll likely do nothing more than eliminate the remaining undefeateds and possibly even delete more than one team from the nation’s lucrative one-loss pool.

 

Last year, the first two months of the season worked out well for Tranghese as West Virginia and Louisville stayed unbeaten until they met on Nov. 3, ranked third and fifth, respectively. The Cardinals won, 44-34, setting them up another Big East clash of the titans the following week at undefeated Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights took that one, but dropped a pair of their own down the stretch.

 

In the end, Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers each went undefeated in non-conference games and in the postseason, but combined for five conference losses. Simply put, parity at the top of the standings isn’t a good thing for this conference, which is trying to recapture what it had when Miami ruled the roost and brought home two national titles.

 

This season, while the Pac-10 and Big Ten get set to beat each other up, and the SEC, ACC and Big 12 do the same before their conference championship games, the Big East was angling to slip one of its marquee teams into the national championship game and perhaps another into the BCS mix.

 

Nothing against South Florida, Cincinnati and Connecticut, which are a combined 14-0, but that’s not going to happen and the Big East is back to being beleaguered. And it’s only September.

 

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Comments

Wow, one "bad" weekend, and all of a sudden Tamanaha thinks the Big East is doomed.  There's nothing wrong with having more than two or three great teams in your conference, and the Big East has four, maybe five (UConn).  If he wants a conference with two great teams and a bunch of also-rans, he needs to look no further than the Big 10 (or is it Big 11?  I'm still not sure).

Does Auburn's upset of Florida spell doom for the SEC?  I hardly think so.  Does the fact that we rarely see an undefeated team come out of the SEC by the end of every season mean they don't rate?  Puh-leeze!  The SEC is still the best conference in America, and every game means something.

What conference won all their bowl games last year?  Who has four out of nine teams in the Top 25 right now?  The Big East!  That is balance, and I can't see how that can be anything but good for a league that was dominated by only two teams in the past.  Now EVERY Big East game is worth watching, just like the SEC!

Maybe John is a graduate of an ACC school, and is angry that their taking three former Big East teams still hasn't made the ACC a good football conference.

Scott; Columbus, GA (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 9:51 AM)

I have been a UCONN season ticket holder for 8 years. UCONN footbal and its first rate on campus facilities have truely become the envy of the league and the nation. A 5-0 record has not received respect from the pollsters nor your column. UCONN will suprise you as the season progresses.There is tremendous chemistry on this team I see it in their practice and in their game day play. As far as South Florida, they are the real deal!! Talent rich Florida has been furtile ground for high level recruits who get a chance to play right away at South Florida .Team speed defense is their key!! If South FLorida is on any ranked teams schedule they better beware!!.
Thanks and lets not knock down a Conference that will make a lot of noise before the season ends.

Jeffrey Berger (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 10:06 AM)

Let's not get too carried away with the demise of the Big East.  When you have several good to very good teams in one conference, teams will lose to one another.  If you've ever watched college football, you may have noticed that happens in every conference nearly every single year.

S. Florida is a very good team with a great defense.  They should have been ranked coming into the season. People just weren't paying attention and they didn't get the respect they deserve because of it.

Let's try another spin: South Florida coming off a very good 2006 season and a lopsided bowl win went into Auburn and beat them.  Two weeks later, Auburn went to the swamp and beat the defending national champs. S. Florida then followed that up with a win over a very talented West Virginia team.   To me, S. Florida sounds like a pretty good team to be leading the conference.

The Big East did very well last season in the bowl games, winning most of them convincingly.  They probably aren't the SEC, but they still have some very good teams.  Let's see what shakes out before writing them off.

By the way, the flip side of the respect issue:  Sometimes, certain teams and conferences get too much of it and it takes getting destroyed in the bowl games to bring it all to light.  Just ask the Big Ten.

Sam Sprague (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 11:05 AM)

Yeah it's week 5 and the omnipotent sports blow hards are already poo-pooing the Big East.  One question, did you do the same last year with the ACC?  Still a long way to go this year before you start picking on the conference that went undefeated in bowl games last season.

Pete, Hartford CT (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 11:17 AM)

I don't know why Mr. Tamanaha sees fit to belittle the Big East as an inferior conference, considering the embarrassing turn of events that have befallen other so-called power conferences this season.  Any other conference with four teams in the top 25 (fully half of the eight Big East football schools, by the way) where the top team is upset on the road by a ranked conference opponent would be labeled a meat grinder.  In fact, two heretofore unbeatens who appeared to be unstoppable juggernauts (Oklahoma and Florida) both suffered rather surprising losses to *unranked* conference foes this past weekend.  Nobody is questioning the fortitude of the Big 12 and SEC as a result, are they?   Actually, the Big 12, Big Ten, and ACC have as much to be self-conscious about as the Big East.  Three of the Big 12's best teams (Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska) have struggled with unranked and unheralded teams.  Nebraska wheezed past unranked Wake Forest and edged Ball State by one point(!).  Texas barely beat Arkansas State and Central Florida before getting blown out by unranked Kansas State at home.  I already mentioned what happened to Oklahoma.  The Big East has more teams in the top 25 than the Big Ten (3) and the ACC (3) and as many as the Big 12 (4), in spite of being much smaller than any of those conferences.  Perhaps Mr. Tamanaha should direct his ridicule elsewhere.

Scott, Destin, FL (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 11:50 AM)

Really?  Lets revisit this topic again in November when both WVU and Rutgers finish in the top 10--one of which blasts their BCS opponent in January.  How is parity at the top of the conference a bad thing for the Big East, but just peachy wonderful for the SEC?  Finish your homework, John, and maybe mommy will let you go out and play this afternoon.

Big East, Almost, Heaven (Sent Monday, October 01, 2007 12:27 PM)

Maryland is a good team. You're going to figure that out by the end of the year, but for now, just try to stay close enough to the front of the crowd that you can pretend you were there all along when this "ACC also-ran" comment gets exposed for the superficial comment that it is.

Bill, Baltimore, Maryland (Sent Tuesday, October 02, 2007 3:39 AM)

"In the end, Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers each went undefeated in non-conference games and in the postseason, but combined for five conference losses."    

So, what your saying is that you can win every "non-conference" game and lose in your own conference and that, as a result, makes the Big East look bad?  Are you serious?  And then on top of it all, 5 Big East teams go to bowls and all 5 Big East teams win in 2006?  In the end, Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers each went undefeated in non-conference games and in the postseason, but combined for five conference losses.

Timmy, West Virginia (Sent Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8:39 AM)

Not to belabor a point, but clearly the SEC is the top conference this year.  Look at the SEC east: Florida, Georgia, Auburn, S. Carolina, Kentucky and Vandy.  No cupcakes here.

That said, I don't think there's too many cupcakes in the Big East either.  The early season favorites are finding that out the hard way.  The "old" Big East did have a lot of teams who weren't competitive.  The last two years I've been surprised by the quality of the league top to bottom.  Jeff Berger told the UConn story better than I can; USF is here to stay stealing top players from my Gators; Cincy looks terrific everytime I watch them; Louisville could use a defense but the offence is first rate; Rutgers lost but Maryland is not a bad team.  It's a small conference but pretty solid up and down.  More consistent that the Big 10, which has some really awful teams and nothing much at the top.

Art (Sent Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:12 PM)

Where is all the talk about a CFB playoff now? Week 6 showcases the reason a playoff will not work in college football. Simply put, depth and under writing additinal games. Where are the Gator, Sooner,and all the rest of the former Top 25 team fans that were screming for a playoff prior to week 1 kick-off? Ooops! The writers here remain so bias against the West Coast, particularly in FB. Had LSU been ranked #1 prior to last weekend and had done in Fla. what USC did in Seattle, they would have remained #1. I'd like to see Tulane in Seattle; Toledo knows better.

paul burch, Los Angeles (Sent Wednesday, October 03, 2007 1:25 AM)

 
WV will come back and win the Big East Title.

Don Bane, Eldred, Pa (Sent Thursday, October 04, 2007 6:41 AM)

I'll concede that the Big East is a "powerhouse conference" as soon as I see a Big East team that can play defense.

Yeah, the Big East has a few teams that excel at running up and down the field scoring touchdown after touchdown.  But if I wanted to watch a track meet, I'd go to a track meet.  High flying offenses are no good without a decent defense.  This is being proven with the string of losses that Big East "power programs" are suffering at the hands of conferences that play defense as part of the game.

Right now (and last season as well!) there are few teams in the Big East that can claim to have a half decent defense.  South Florida comes to mind as the only exception, and their rankings and wins are proving the point.

Brad, Syracuse, NY (Sent Monday, October 08, 2007 5:18 PM)

Well, what say you now, Mr. Tamanaha?  South Florida is #2 in the BCS and the Big East has two teams in the top 10.  That is more than the ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 and is equal to the PAC10 (even though the eight team Big East is dwarfed in size by each of those conferences).

How do you take your crow?

Scott, Destin, FL (Sent Monday, October 15, 2007 8:54 AM)



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