Building Tradition
November 20, 2006 10:13 PM | General
November 20, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Who would have thought that with two weeks left in the regular season that the possibility exists that two Big East football teams could wind up in BCS bowl games this year.
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| Having two teams in the hunt for a BCS berth is a testament to how far the Big East has come as a football conference, says West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez.
AP photo |
Exactly a year ago at this time, there were many complaining loudly that the Big East shouldn’t even be sitting at the BCS table. Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson was among the most vocal critics of the league, wondering what the Big East had that his conference didn’t.
As it turns out, two Top 10 football programs for starters.
But that doesn't mean all of the old-time, dyed-in-wool college football experts are embracing the Big East. For many folks in the south and southwest, it's simplay a matter of coincidence that West Virginia, Louisville and Rutgers are having outstanding seasons.
“The mentality of the national media is that we’re still fighting some things perception wise in the Big East and I think that’s unfortunate,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez on Monday's Big East coaches' conference call. “It may take a couple of years to fight that.”
That’s why a 42-39 Ohio State-Michigan game is considered a classic, and a 44-34 Louisville win over West Virginia is simply a battle of two bad defenses.
“Maybe it’s trying to find a reason not to like the Big East -- trying to find a way to justify other things,” Louisville coach Bobby Petrino said. “I’m not going to worry about it. I know when we played West Virginia it was two good football teams battling it out. We thought we played great defense to hold them to that many points. They score so many points all the time so it’s just an indication of what people want to write.”
“The high scoring games in our league is because there is no defense – not because there is great offensive skill,” Rodriguez noted sarcastically. “(The Michigan-Ohio State game) was an entertaining game and fun for college football but I think the Big East has played some pretty entertaining football as well.”
Two of the highest-rated Thursday night college football games ever involved Big East teams this season. West Virginia’s game at Louisville earlier this month drew a 5.3 share making it the second-most watched Thursday night game in network history.
And the Rutgers-Louisville game a week later came close to reaching that number.
Because the conference took a calculated risk of back loading its schedule, the league has reaped the benefits by enjoying a pair of Top-10 match-ups this year. Coming into this season it had only happened three times in the 15-year history of the Big East and all of the games involved Miami.
From that perspective, Petrino believes it could very well be a breakthrough season for the Big East.
“I guess for the new league maybe because there have been national champions come out of the Big East before and those teams left,” he said.
Rodriguez hasn’t studied the bowl situation that closely, instead concentrating solely on Saturday’s game against 7-4 South Florida, but he does believe it’s possible for two Big East teams to get into BCS bowl games.
“I think there is a good chance of that happening,” he said. “Without studying it and I really don’t care to or need to until after the season is over, but there is a chance there could be two Big East teams in BCS bowls and that speaks volumes for the growth of the league.
“A few years ago people were saying we weren’t worthy of one spot and now there may be a chance that we could get two,” Rodriguez added. “It speaks very highly of what the future could be in the Big East Conference.”
This year the Big East has three teams in the top 14 of the BCS standings with West Virginia at No. 7, Louisville at nine and Rutgers at 14. Last year, West Virginia finished 11th and Louisville was 19th.
“It’s been a good season so far but we still have two games to play,” Petrino said. “You see what West Virginia has done, what we’ve done, Rutgers, and what the entire league has done in non-conference games. We play very good football.”
Along the same lines, the Atlantic Coast Conference, which annexed three of the Big East’s top traditional football programs two years ago, has four teams sandwiched between 16 and 24 in the BCS standings.
Last year, the ACC’s representative in the Orange Bowl (Florida State) finished the regular season ranked 22nd in the BCS rankings.
One of the most persuasive arguments made about the Big East heading into last year was that it did not have any top-of-the-line football programs – just a bunch of solid, mid-level teams. The same argument made about the Big East last year could very well be applied to the ACC this year.
Will the Big East be able to sustain its success? Who knows?
But the conference has proven with West Virginia’s upset victory over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl last year and the fabulous season it has had so far in 2006 that it deserves to be at the BCS table for as long as there is a table.
And perhaps in a few years one of those West Virginia-Louisville or Rutgers-Pitt games will be called a classic.
“You can’t question the tradition of an Ohio State or a Michigan,” Rodriguez said. “Those are programs that have competed for national championships, won national championships and obviously have great programs. We’re still building those traditions in our league.”
