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{mosimage}After
the 2003 season the Big East underwent a Michael Jackson-like
augmentation when it lost Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC in favor
of UConn, and followed that with the loss of Boston College the next
year.  Donna Shalala and company pulled the moving vans
away so quickly it left Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese checking
his deodorant. 

Many in the college football community wondered how the Big East could retain its BCS title bid, and for good reason.  The departure of these three teams left the Big East with Pitt, WVU, Syracuse, Rutgers and Temple.  Or more accurately, Pitt, WVU and Syracuse.  Temple was kicked out soon thereafter and Rutgers was traditionally a doormat.

{mosimage} The
addition of Louisville provided a ray of hope for the conference, but
there was little light at the end of the UConn / Cincinnati / South
Florida tunnel.  However, here we are four years later and half the teams in the Big East are ranked, including three of those newcomers.  South Florida sits at #6, WVU at #13, Cincinnati at #20 and Rutgers at #21 all of this with 5-0 UConn receiving votes.
But are we really sold on #6 South Florida?  I guess we should be, they just beat #5 WVU and earlier beat then #17 Auburn who just beat #4 Florida. 
Ok, so are we really sold on now #13 WVU?  The
only remotely formidable opponent they’ve beaten this year is Maryland
and Heisman hopeful Pat White just sustained a potentially serious knee
injury. 
It would be a lot easier to tell if these teams played a decent game outside the Big East.  The
Big East teams who were ranked at the end of last season won’t play any
non-conference teams who were also ranked at the end of last season.  There
are a few Big East games this year against Virginia, Maryland and
Michigan State, but peppered in between is a litany of cupcakes like
Norfolk St., FAU and San Diego St. 
Is the
Big East being patsy about its non-conference schedule or are those
other ranked teams not quite ready to travel to Tampa and Cincinnati?  Pitt
vs Penn State was a terrific rivalry until Joe Paterno determined that
his program was so far superior that the teams shouldn’t play a home
and home. 

I don’t know the reason for the weak schedules, but they’re making it difficult to ward off the critics and sell the conference.  It will only take Lloyd Carr getting fired to make the names Jim Leavitt and Randy Edsall very popular.  And if they leave, so too may this resurgence.  USF
is in a hotbed of college football talent but UConn may have a
difficult time keeping the momentum, and it remains to be seen how
Cincinnati head coach Brian Kelly will do when Mark Dantonio’s players
leave.

WVU
surprised a lot of people when they took it to Georgia in the Sugar
Bowl, however these generous Big East rankings won’t last forever.  If these teams keep beating up on each other, they’re going to find themselves on the bottom looking up.