Big East Notebook
July 19, 2006 03:50 PM | General
July 19, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The big theme emanating from Tuesday morning’s Big East football media day in Newport, R.I., was the huge sand-save West Virginia made for the conference by winning last January’s Nokia Sugar Bowl.
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez talks to reporters at Big East football media day Tuesday morning in Newport, R.I.
AP photo |
How big a save was it? It was Seve-Ballesteros-coming-out-of-the-parking-lot-to-win-the-1979-British-Open big. That’s how big.
Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese explains.
“Over the last 27 years of the Big East, there have been some real watershed events,” the commissioner told Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs. “I think the WVU-Georgia game was one of those. That’s how important it is. For our league to succeed and develop, we needed to get this cloud of doom and gloom off our backs.
“One game took that cloud away,” Tranghese said.
Hear that silence? That’s the Big East's BCS critics with nothing to complain about. Connecticut coach Randy Edsall says its amazing how winning takes care of things.
“This time last year, the perception of Big East football by so-called experts was not very good,” Edsall said. “A year later, it has gone 180 degrees. People take their shots at you, they criticize you, ridicule you. The only way you can silence those people is by winning. West Virginia took care of a lot of questions and uncertainties.
“That win did more for our league than any victory all season,” Edsall told the New Haven Register. “It was a real shot in the arm. They had the opportunity and Rich Rodriguez’s club took advantage of it.”
South Florida coach Jim Leavitt, who battles with Florida, Florida State, Miami, Georgia and the rest of the SEC for prospects in talent-rich Florida, said the West Virginia win gave the Big East instant credibility in the Sunshine State.
“You could tell there was some separation (in recruiting) until West Virginia beat Georgia,” Leavitt said. “When that happened, it really changed things, I promise you.”
“It was critical,” added Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. “I can tell you this, there were seven other Big East coaches rooting for West Virginia that night.”
Including Louisville coach Bobby Petrino, whose Cardinal team could have been in West Virginia’s shoes if not for a collapse at South Florida and a triple-overtime loss to the Mountaineers in Morgantown.
“There was a pretty big microscope on our conference but West Virginia beating Georgia, a team from the SEC – highly respected that has won national championships – showed the legitimacy of the BCS bid,” Petrino said.
Rodriguez is uncomfortable with the savior label, instead evoking memories of the doom and gloom the Big East endured a decade ago when Miami was coming off probation, Boston College was in the midst of a major on-campus gambling scandal and Virginia Tech was pre-Michael Vick.
“I remember in the mid-1990s everybody had the same questions about the Big East,” he said. “Everybody said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about Big East football.’ All of the sudden in the late ‘90s and beyond the Big East was way up there. We’re kind of in a rebirth mode again, but I think last year the process got accelerated.
“I like to think the league was OK regardless (of the Sugar Bowl win), but it was a positive thing and that’s what we need more of,” Rodriguez said.
“You get tired of hearing the same questions, ‘What do you think about the Big East?’ Come on. Move on. What’s next?” said the West Virginia coach.
In order to finally get past the constant questioning, Bobby Petrino believes the conference has to have more victories like West Virginia’s to keep the critics at bay.
“I believe the league got a tremendous amount of respect from that,” he said. “But I think we have to do it again this year.”
Briefly:
“The football deal alone will surprise a lot of people because we weren’t supposed to be able to sell Big East football according to the doom and gloomers,” Odjakjian told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The football deal is very good. It will guarantee a lot of exposure for our programs.”
“We have high expectations here and we shouldn’t have to apologize for them,” he said. “You see schools like Texas and Florida and those other schools who are picked highly every year and nobody is ever surprised. We’re trying to get to that point where the surprise is when we aren’t ranked highly. We want to be in the top five every year.”
Another one may have gotten off the ground last season when West Virginia upset Louisville in triple overtime in Morgantown.
“It’s going to continue to grow,” said Louisville coach Bobby Petrino of the West Virginia-Louisville game. “You run into them on the road in recruiting. The crowds that you take to each other’s place play into it. But you have to continue to play good football and have close and exciting games.”
Rodriguez agrees.
“It's not a rivalry yet, but it's going to get there,” Rodriguez said. “When you start playing and it's a game like we had and it's triple overtime, then it accelerates the process. For us, the Pitt game -- the Backyard Brawl -- is the No. 1 rivalry, and people are talking about our game with Marshall being a rivalry, but the Louisville game will probably become a rivalry much quicker.”
“It feels great,” he said. “I’ve been working out with the team all summer. We have everyone in attendance for our summer workouts. We throw skelly every day and everyone comes to that. (We’re) real excited about the season and everyone is working real hard.”
Petrino has been pleased with the way Brohm’s knee has responded to treatments.
“They did a nice job on the operation and they did a great job with the rehab of it,” Petrino said. “The thing I’m happy about is anytime you injure a knee you start experiencing other problems on the other side of your body. He’s fought through all that and our guys did a great job of when to push him and when to pull back a little bit.”
“We’re going to be better this year because we’re going to be a year older, a year stronger; hopefully we won’t have as many injuries as we had a year ago,” said Connecticut coach Randy Edsall. “We’ve got a good nucleus coming back and I feel as though we’ve got good chemistry amongst the kids that have been in our program now for a few years.”
“It’s a season of ups and downs and you’re going to have to learn how to deal with adversity,” said the senior. “That is what the game is all about and how you deal with it is directly proportional to how successful you’re going to be.
“That’s part of the reason last year we had the record that we did,” he said. “We didn’t deal with adversity well.”
“It was tough getting to where we are now but to break into the elite is the hard part,” he said. “When we arrived there were some major infrastructural things that we needed to work on – everything from academic support to facilities to most importantly, the player that we were recruiting. We’re certainly not where we want to be and our players and our administration … everyone knows that. But it’s a lot better than not being in a bowl game.”
“In my mind I don’t think there is a team on our schedule that we can’t beat if we perform and play the way we are capable of playing,” he said. “All of that is determined on the playing field. I have expectations for the team and I know they have expectations for themselves.”
“It’s like our own reality show,” he joked. “We play on three Thursdays and a Friday. I just hope they don’t kick me off the island. But the exposure is great.”
Petrino replied, “Did you see last year’s game?”
Yes, there are going to be some fireworks in Louisville, Ky., on Nov. 2 when the Mountaineers face the Cardinals.
