Big East Among the Best
November 13, 2002 02:39 PM | General
November 13, 2002
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If you ask West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez which football conference he thinks is the best in the country, he’ll be happy to tell you the Big East.
 |
|
| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has no problem stacking the Big East up against the best football conferences in the country. |
“I think top to bottom -- and I know Rutgers has struggled a little bit and Temple’s record may not show it – but from top to bottom I think the Big East is the best in the country,” said Rodriguez during his Tuesday afternoon news briefing.
Certainly the Big East has the nation’s top-ranked team in Miami, which has won 32 straight games dating back to 1999, but the best overall?
“There are not as many teams as the SEC or some of the others,” said Rodriguez, “but you just look at Virginia Tech. Now they’ve had some injuries since then, but look what they did to LSU, former SEC champs last year and having a lot of guys coming back this season. Virginia Tech just dominated them.”
The coach also points out that Miami’s toughest time during its 32-game winning streak has come inside the conference.
“Other than Florida State, Miami’s hardest games the last two years have come from Big East teams – from top to bottom,” he said. “Other than Florida State, who else has led Miami going into the fourth quarter this year?”
The answer is Rutgers of course.
Although not quite on the same level as last year’s breakthrough year, the Big East has still maintained its status as one of the nation’s premiere football conferences this season.
Miami is the nation’s top-ranked team in both polls while Virginia Tech is 13th and Pitt is 21st in this week’s coaches poll. West Virginia, now 7-3, is inching closer toward the top 25.
Miami has defeated its top three non-conference opponents Florida, Florida State and Tennessee by a combined 95-46. Even though the Hurricanes are ranked second in this week’s BCS standings, if both the Hurricanes and the Ohio State Buckeyes win their remaining games, Miami will probably retake the top spot due to quality points.
The Hurricanes have two games remaining against nationally ranked Pitt and Virginia Tech while Ohio State faces Michigan to end its season.
Sandwiched between the top four and the bottom three in the Big East is Boston College, a team that defeated both Stanford and Notre Dame this year and owns a perfect 5-0 non-conference record.
“What’s Boston College’s record in the Big East,” asked Rodriguez. “They are 0-4 and they’re a pretty good football team too.”
Two of BC’s losses to Pitt and Virginia Tech have come by a combined eight points, and the Eagles played Miami close until the fourth quarter.
“We beat each other up in our league,” said Rodriguez.
Boston College was one of four Big East teams to win bowl games last year. The Eagles defeated Georgia, this week’s No. 7-rated team, 20-16 in last year’s Music City Bowl.
Pitt defeated North Carolina State in last year’s Tangerine Bowl and owns a 14-2 record in its last 16 games.
Syracuse, a team that has slipped to 4-6 this year, completely dominated Kansas State in last year’s Insight.com Bowl.
And of course Miami blew out Nebraska in the Rose Bowl to win the national championship.
“Being 8-2 in bowl games the last two years and having one of the best non-conference records among BCS schools the last two years, I think people are beginning to see how strong the Big East is,” said Rodriguez.
This year, the Big East is the lowest rated of the six BCS conferences in this week’s Sagarin Computer Ratings with an overall score of 75.34. However, the league has five of its eight teams rated in the Top 50 in Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Pitt and Boston College. That’s 62.5 percent of the conference rated in the Top 50.
Of the remaining three teams, only Rutgers has an awful Sagarin rating of 163 (Keep in mind I-AA schools are factored into this equation and there are only 117 I-A schools, meaning 46 I-AA schools are rated higher than the Knights right now).
By comparison, the Big Ten has just half of its 12 members ranked in the Top 50, while both the Big 12 and the SEC have 66.7 percent of its membership listed among the Top 50.
Using this logic, the top two conferences this year are the Pac-10 with 80 percent of its members ranked in the Top 50 and the ACC, which has 77.7 percent of its membership rated in the Top 50.
Having coached in both the ACC and Big East, Rodriguez declined to compare the two leagues saying he still has friends coaching in the ACC.
But he did comment: “I would venture to say that my peers in the coaching profession look at the Big East and say ‘well I don’t know about (scheduling against) the Big East. It’s pretty tough.’”
News and Notes
* There are only two Big East games games schedule this weekend. Boston College is still looking for its first league victory of the season Saturday at home against Syracuse while Temple and Rutgers battle in Piscataway to avoid the league cellar.
*Two key conference matchups take place mid-week next week when 7-3 West Virginia travels to 8-2 Virginia Tech for a Wednesday night game in Blacksburg, and 9-0 Miami hosts 8-2 Pitt for a Thursday night game to determine first place in the conference standings. Pitt actually leads Miami by a half game.
*If the season were to end today, it looks like the Big East is going to be safe once again with its bowl spots. Miami snatches the BCS spot, probably the Fiesta Bowl, and Pitt goes to the Gator Bowl. Virginia Tech plays in the Insight.com Bowl, West Virginia travels to the Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte, and Boston College goes to the San Francisco Bowl. Then again this could also change dramtically.
* Notre Dame, a team factored into the Big East bowl equation, is almost assured a BCS bowl spot once the Irish knock off Rutgers for their 10th victory of the season. If that happens, regardless of how Notre Dame fares against USC in its season finale, the Irish will more than likely land one of the eight BCS spots.
