Opportunity Knocks
August 06, 2004 10:52 AM | General
August 6, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –- Opportunity is knocking in the Big East this fall. With the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC, all seven remaining Big East teams believe they have a legitimate shot at winning the conference and going to a BCS bowl game. The last team other than Miami or Virginia Tech to do so was Syracuse in 1998.
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| Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez says his program and the rest of the teams in the Big East are now out from under the shadow of Miami (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
“If you can win the Big East Conference championship you can go to the BCS. We’re excited about that,” said Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni. “We’ve won the conference championship three times in the history of the Big East and we go into this thing every year optimistic that we can compete to win the conference championship.”
Another team excited about its opportunity is West Virginia, picked by league coaches and media members as the preseason favorites to win the conference. The Mountaineers were league co-champs along with Miami last season and return 17 starters from a team that won eight games and played in the Gator Bowl. WVU coach Rich Rodriguez is aware of the lofty expectations and has spent this summer preparing his team for it.
“You want to get to that point where people expect you to do well and think you’re the guy that everyone is chasing,” he said. “That’s what every program aspires to be. But with that comes extra responsibility. Our guys have never been in that situation and I don’t know if West Virginia has ever been in that situation to this point? We’ve got to do a good job as coaches and certainly our players have to keep level headed -- keep working and being hungry.”
Expected to challenge the Mountaineers for league supremacy is Boston College, a program that has gone to five straight bowl games and has won four in a row to become the only team in the nation to win all of its bowl games since 2000.
This year represents BC’s swan song in the Big East and Eagle coach Tom O’Brien believes the high preseason conference rating could be a boost to his program.
“They haven’t been so high in year’s past at Boston College,” he said. “It’s a good step for us and our team has worked extremely hard in the off-season. I know our coaches have done a lot of hard work planning for this season so it’s time to start practicing and we’ll see what we have.”
O’Brien says it’s probably going to take an 8, 9 or 10-win season for Boston College to win the conference and get the coveted BCS bowl berth.
“I think this team understands that they’ve got something to gain by getting to another bowl game and we’d love to be able to play in a BCS bowl,” he said.
Pittsburgh was the team last year that everyone thought might challenge Miami for the conference title. But injuries, mainly to running back Brandon Miree, derailed Pitt’s hopes. This season the Panthers are picked to finish third behind West Virginia and Boston College and Pitt coach Walt Harris says its time for some of the younger players in the program to step up and make a good showing.
“We lost some real good football players,” Harris admitted. “We had six guys drafted and 10 guys go onto NFL camps.
“The exciting part of it is that we have players that have played. They haven’t started but they’ve played and now they’ve got an opportunity to be the man at their positions. We think we’ve recruited well and we’re looking forward to coaching those guys.”
Perhaps no Big East team is looking forward to this season more than Connecticut, which joins the conference a year early and is predicted to finish fifth behind fourth-place Syracuse.
Coach Randy Edsall led the Huskies to a surprising 9-3 record last year and has 17 starters back, including top-rated quarterback Dan Orlovsky. Some Husky supporters are already pegging Edsall as the school’s next coach to win a national championship.
“I’ve tried to tell them that football is a lot different than basketball,” he said in reference to men’s coach Jim Calhoun and women’s coach Gino Auriemma’s NCAA title seasons last year. “Believe me I hear it. They say, ‘Well, Gino got one last year and Jim got another one and now it’s your time.’ I say, ‘You people just need to relax a little bit and just root the kids on.’ We’ll play as hard as we can and see what happens.”
Perhaps the one team being overlooked in the Big East preseason rankings is Rutgers, which made considerable improvement in Coach Greg Schiano’s third season in 2003. The Knights won five games and defeated Syracuse to end the season. Rutgers has 15 starters and 48 letterwinners returning for 2004 and Scarlet Knight supporters have a bowl game in their sights. Schiano simply wants to make sure his program stays the course.
“As far as our program goes we need to keep doing (what we’ve been doing),” he said. “We’re building a program. We’re not building for a year or a season. We’re trying to build a program that is going to last. So we’re doing things exactly the same way.”
Schiano points to several experienced returners as reason for hope: “I’m excited,” he admitted. “For the first time since we’ve been here we’ve got some young guys that have a little experience starting with our quarterback (Ryan Hart) who has 16 starts under his belt now. That, to me, gives you a chance.”
Rutgers will get an opportunity to see where it’s at right away by playing host to Michigan State to open the 2004 season. That game will be televised nationally on ABC.
And like Boston College, Temple is playing its final season in the Big East this year. The Owls have long been the bottom feeders of the conference and must go it alone next year. Temple coach Bobby Wallace says it’s not out of the realm of possibility that his team could cause some problems for others in the league this season.
“There are some good football teams in this league and there is not an easy game and I hope we’re not easy,” he said. “When I sit in that room (Big East press day) and look around we’ve beaten every team in that room. We’ve beaten West Virginia at West Virginia. We’ve beaten Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh. We’ve beaten Connecticut and Rutgers on the road. And we’ve beaten Syracuse at home. Is it a possibility to put all those in a row? It’s going to be difficult but it is a possibility.”
West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez agrees, “Now people say its wide open (due to the departures of Miami and Virginia Tech). Well it’s wide open every year,” he said. “The biggest difference I think now is that the attention and focus is going to be spread out more throughout the league where as last year it was mainly on Miami first and then the rest of us were in their shadows.
“Can you handle the spotlight? I think everyone program wants it and needs it in some regards to take their program to the next level.”
West Virginia begins practicing Monday for the opportunity to find out.
