Simplifying Things
July 05, 2009 09:03 PM | General
(9:03 pm)
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Sometimes we make things way too complicated. With apologies to Phil Steele, here is a simple way of looking at this year's Big East football race.
Which teams have the most starters returning? Which teams have their starting quarterbacks returning? Which teams have the most lettermen returning? Which teams have both coordinators returning? And which teams play the most conference road games?
Here are the charts:
Returning Starters
| Team | Offense Starters/Defensive Starters (plus specialists) |
| Cincinnati | 7/1 (plus kicker) |
| Connecticut | 6/6 (plus punter and kicker) |
| Louisville | 9/7 (plus punter and kicker) |
| Pitt | 7/7 |
| Rutgers | 8/6 (plus punter and kicker) |
| Syracuse | 6/7 (plus punter) |
| USF | 5/6 (plus punter and kicker) |
| West Virginia | 7/7 |
Returning Lettermen
| Team | Lettermen Returning/Lost |
| Cincinnati | 43/20 |
| Connecticut | 37/21 |
| Louisville | 49/18 |
| Pitt | 49/22 |
| Rutgers | 47/19 |
| Syracuse | 45/18 |
| USF | 40/20 |
| West Virginia | 33/23 |
Road Games
| Team | Total Road Games/Conference Road Games |
| Cincinnati | 6/4 |
| Connecticut | 6/3 |
| Louisville | 6/4 |
| Pitt | 5/3 |
| Rutgers | 5/3 |
| Syracuse | 4/3 |
| USF | 6/4 |
| West Virginia | 5/4 |
Returning Coordinators
| Team | Both OFF/DEF coordinators returning |
| Cincinnati | No (Jeff Quinn/Bob Diaco) |
| Connecticut | No (Joe Moorhead/Todd Orlando) |
| Louisville | No (Steve Kragthorpe/Brent Guy) |
| Pitt | No (Frank Cignetti/Phil Bennett) |
| Rutgers | No (Kyle Flood and Kirk Ciarrocca/Bob Fraser and Ed Pinkham) |
| Syracuse | No (Rob Spence/Scott Shafer) |
| USF | No (Mike Canales/Joe Tresey and David Blackwell) |
| West Virginia | Yes (Jeff Mullen/Jeff Casteel) |
Returning Starting Quarterbacks
| Team | Starting QB returning |
| Cincinnati | Yes (Tony Pike) |
| Connecticut | No (Zach Fraser) |
| Louisville | No (Justin Burke) |
| Pitt | Yes (Bill Stull) |
| Rutgers | No (Domenic Natale) |
| Syracuse | Yes (Cameron Dantley)* |
| USF | Yes (Matt Grothe) |
| West Virginia | No (Jarrett Brown) |
| * Ryan Nassib has been named preseason starter for Syracuse | |
Now you decide.
Who says you can't win the Big East with an unbalanced road schedule? The two times West Virginia represented the Big East in BCS bowl games in 2005 and 2007 the Mountaineers did so by playing four league road games.
In 2005, Rich Rodriguez's Mountaineers won on the road at Syracuse, Rutgers, Cincinnati and USF. In 2007, West Virginia was 3-1 in Big East road games, beating Syracuse, Rutgers and Cincinnati and losing to USF.
The league's other two champions, Cincinnati in 2008 and Louisville in 2006, had the advantage of having three league road games. In 2008, the Bearcats won at West Virginia and Louisville and lost at Connecticut. And in 2006, Louisville won at Syracuse and Pitt and lost at Rutgers.
The teams with three league road games in 2009: Rutgers, Pitt, Connecticut and Syracuse.
George Von Benko takes a trip down memory lane with former Mountaineer fullback Larry Krutko in Saturday's Uniontown Herald-Standard. A three-year letterman for the Mountaineers from 1955-57, Krutko, 74, still lives in Greene County, Pa.
http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20340887&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=468632&rfi=6
Although not available to regular online users, the Dominion Post's Drew Rubenstein had an interesting story in Sunday's paper about West Virginia's proactive approach to the ongoing recession. One of the strategies Senior Associate Athletic Director Russ Sharp has employed is a tightening of team travel. For instance, the football team is planning to bus to Cincinnati instead of using a charter flight, which should save the department about $40,000.
Sharp said the planned spending reductions will have no impact on the student-athlete experience.
Incidentally, Rubenstein is one of the young, up and comers covering Mountaineer sports today.
The Big East Conference released its weekly football game of the week lineup for 2009 and West Virginia is tentatively slated for three appearances against Syracuse on Oct. 10, against Connecticut on Oct. 24, and against Louisville on Nov. 7. Of course national television still could intervene and claim any of those games.
By the way, it is my understanding that ESPN Regional will also provide this year's telecasts in HD.
I know it's old news, but last week freshman quarterback Gino Smith suffered a broken bone in his left foot in an unspecified off-field incident. His recovery time is expected to be 6-to-8 weeks.
Remember, that is recovery time, not the time it will take for Smith to get his body back into football playing shape.
And now on to the absurd … ESPN's Pat Forde recently listed the nation's 10 most heated college football rivalries. Among honorable mention selections, he includes the West Virginia-South Florida game with the following blurb: One or both of these cultural opposites have been ranked in every meeting as Big East opponents.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4297677&sportCat=ncf
Jack Fleming just did a back flip in his grave.
I can just imagine hearing Fleming right now, "What these sportswriters need today is a little more adult supervision ..."
There is not a single person in West Virginia - or anyone even remotely affiliated with West Virginia University - that would ever place South Florida ahead of Pitt on its hit list. I don't care if South Florida wins the next 25 games against the Mountaineers Pitt is it and will always be it.
Just ask Bill Stewart, who learned a tough lesson last year while trying to be gracious in defeat to the Panthers. I learned a similar lesson a few years ago after writing some complimentary things about Pitt.
Here is the gist of the emails I got: "Hey clown, you will hate Pitt from the day you are born until the day you die. In between, you will hate them even more. Do you get it?"
I got it.
Forde's list of basketball rivalries also fails to mention the Backyard Brawl, which has become much more appealing with Jamie Dixon at Pitt and Bob Huggins at West Virginia.
Seton Hall-Rutgers?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4300036&sportCat=ncb
I was updating the list of college basketball's all-time winningest programs for a project I am doing and I came across something interesting.
This year West Virginia has a chance of moving up two spots in the all-time rankings with the strong season it is expected to have in '09-10.
Presently, the Mountaineers are ranked 24th in all-time victories with 1,550. Within striking distance of West Virginia is No. 22 Cincinnati with 1,553 wins and No. 23 Princeton with 1,552 victories.
The top Big East basketball program in all-time victories is Syracuse with 1,753 wins. The Orange are ranked fifth all-time behind Kentucky (1,988), North Carolina (1,984), Kansas (1,970) and Duke (1,876).
Have a great week!
