Welcome, Dennis – great post. Common sense would dictate that the Big East would now get more respect, but the so-called ‘experts’ that consistently bash the conference won’t stop…even after a 5-0 season.

Here’s a quick rundown of what will happen:

1. Big East finishes 4-1 or 5-0 in bowl games
2. So-called experts, with the bowl season practically over will have shifted their attention to the Championship game
3. After the bowl season, there will be some talk about conference records as there always is. The Big East will be recognized and some people will take notice…for a few days
4. Next year when all of this comes up again, Kiper and crew will still be saying, “Come on people, Louisville is not in the same class as LSU.”

The same sad story is repeated every year. For anyone who doesn’t believe it, just take a look at WVU last year. They beat Georgia, one of the top SEC teams, in a bowl game IN GEORGIA for crying out loud. There were a few pundits who took notice, then this year, the weak Big East talk continued (even when WVU, Louisville and Rutgers all had one loss near the end of the season).

So how is it that Louisville beat the best team in the ACC, yet the Big East is still inferior to the ACC? I’d like to see Kiper the snake weasel his way out of that one. That guy is a clown.

As much as I want to say the conference will be lifted up, I don’t think it will be remembered come next year.

Welcome Dennis.

PittHoops makes a good point about Louisville beating the “best” team in the ACC, however many will argue that the ACC had a down year this year (with traditional powers Miami and Florida State tanking, bad).

Reminds me somewhat of the Big East a few years ago. Pitt rose from that conference having a “down year” and went on as the sacrificial lamb to Utah. Everyone claimed the BigEast was doomed, and now look at us. ACC will be better next year IMO.

We have no right to take ownership of the conference’s good bowl record, having contributed nothing to it. In fact, we will be one of the reasons cited by the naysayers who continue to blast the Big East. Especially if (when) we don’t deliver against Michigan State and Virginia (or God forbid, Navy) next year … and frankly, who would expect us to?

Prove me wrong kids, prove me wrong.

You would think going 4-0 and possibly 5-0 would garner respect. But Beano Cook’s ESPN chat session today he called the Big East the weakest of the big 6. But they aren’t as weak as people think and are close to the ACC!!!

What the F* is that? Our two top teams beat there teams and yet we are weaker than they are…

Honestly folks the only way the Big East is going to get the respect they deserve is if they play in the BCS championship and win it.

It sucks but they have that stigma of being a weak conference and while the Big East has made great strides you still have people like Corso and Cook dissing the BE.

Dave D

The reason the Big East will always be regarded as the worst conference is that it is something everyone can unanimously come together on, thereby making their conference “not the worst one.” When an Big 12 and ACC fan get together they can both agree that at least we aren’t the Big East. Its BS. F um is all you can really say. We can go 5-0 10 years in a row in bowls and it won’t matter.

Good Skinner quote geeman.

Geeman, I think you’re missing the point of my post. Believe me, I realize when Pitt is bad, which they were this year. In no way am I trying to say that they (or us as fans) should lay some claim to the success of the Big East’s top teams this year. I’m talking about the respect of the conference in general.

Beano’s comments surprise me – as he’s from Pittsburgh, usually he’s one of our biggest supporters. I heard him say a few months ago that the Big East was the weakest of the 6 BCS conferences, but if he’s still saying that now despite the bowl success of the conference, that’s insane. What could that comment possibly be based on?

This bias against the Big East is nonsense and stems from when we lost Miami, Virginia Tech, and BC. Interesting…all three of our top teams were better than those teams this year. I understand we might not have some of the success winning national titles as some of the other conferences, but to say the Big East is the weakest of the six is to look at the facts and then completely ignore them.

I would love to hear the rationale of anyone who can make a logical case by saying the Big East THIS YEAR is the worst BCS conference.

Geeman – Just saw your comments came after Ryan’s so maybe they weren’t directed towards my post…my bad.

Final point for the naysayers – the Big East’s four bowl wins haven’t even been close with the exception of WVU’s 3 point win. Even including that game, their margin of victory is just under 15 points per game.

Sorry, I really didn’t mean to disparage anyone’s post at all … really just meant to note that we can’t afford to hope that the success of the other programs in the conference will lift our tide. In fact it might work quite the opposite. Kids we’ve gotten in the past that jumped at our scholie offers vs. that of (say) RU or USF (not to mention WVU of course) may now take the opposite view. I definitely agree with the others who note that the conference deserves more props, especially over the hideous ACC. Knowledgeable media types who continue on this have some obvious axe to grind, or demo to cater to. A guy like Beano Cook is probably approaching senility, plus since he once worked for Pitt, he feels he has to be harder on Pitt to avoid the “homer” tag (also why Smizik writes such negative articles about us, I feel).

The Big East is in my opinion one of the toughest conferences from top to bottom, there really were’nt any door mats in the league. Yes Syracuse is bad but Iowa found out what happens when you dont come ready to play. The problem with the Big East is tradition, we dont have the one or two powerhouse teams that win National Titles. I am just glad to see the conference getting stronger every year. It would be nice if Notre dame would give in and join the BE in football. I think that would give some instant credibility.

A lot of the negativity surrounding the BE from the national media stems from a perception that the after the defections there would be no way for the conference to strengthen itself. Well, we’ve see that is not true – and as a matter of fact we have become one of the stronger conferences – top to bottom, with our out of conference record and in post-season play – in the nation. Also, as stated in the posts above, we have had no recent National Champions. But, if one really looks at our situation, we have to concentrate on what really matters….

Which are two things: national exposure and remaining in a BCS designated conference. ESPN has greatly helped us (and them) by putting us on Thursday nights with no other college football games to draw away the audience. ESPN would do well to keep us as their conference tie-in. We command the largest geographical/population TV market share, which will grow even larger with Rutgers playing well, and they pretty much have us all to themselves. There has been a push from the WAC and the Mountain West Conference to have the NCAA replace us with one of them, based solely on the MWC’s Utah’s and WAC’s Boise State’s success over the past few years. But our overall strength and the fact that even our down teams, PITT and Syracuse, have strong football traditions – will hold off that threat. But, I don’t believe that we’ll see a non-BCS team win a National Championship until there is a playoff system, so our remaining BCS is the only venue we have if we want a BE team to be champions.

We do probably have to actively seek out some more members for our conference – probably two more to reach ten and be able to have a conference championship game. I don’t think Notre Dame will be one. I would like to see Navy in the fold though because they play good football and because they have a national following.

Beano Cook and Lee Corso are fast becoming dinosaurs in the CFB analysis game. If you actually listen to what Cook says on ESPN radio on Saturday mornings, and then compare it to what happens during the games you’ll see that he is almost consistently wrong. He is a shill for the old-line CFB programs (and sleeps with Notre Dame) and is given air time only because he comes up with a funny line or two. Corso I rather like, but he is entrenched in the past also.

Geeman – No problem, I certainly didn’t take it that way. I just wasn’t sure if you misinterpreted my/other’s statements.

Rex – I completely agree with the tradition statement. As bad as Miami was this year, when they have a good year, that automatically increased the credibility of the Big East.

Tangible facts show that Louisville has been much better than Miami the past two years. But a 10-1 Miami team is always going to be taken more seriously than a 10-1 Louisville team. Why? Because they’ve won some national titles before and were considered a major player for many years. Fair or not (obviously, it’s not fair), that’s the conception. Until we get a few teams that are consistently ranked top ten, we’re not going to get the respect.

But going back to the bowl records, as I said before, all of the Big East’s success (and the non-success of other conferences) will be forgotten in a month or so. By the time next year rolls around, I doubt anyone will even bring it up. If we have another set of teams like Louisville/WVU/Rutgers that are undefeated going late into the season, the lack of respect will still be there in my opinion…unfortunately.

I think that the tide has already turned on BE bashing. It is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Part of that has to do with economics. Last year ESPN (particularly Kirk H and his lapdog Tiricco) regularly called for the BE to lose it’s automatic BCS bid. This year, with a big new ESPN/ABC TV deal in place, ESPN has shown a lot of love for the BE. Tiricco is gone and Kirk H just gushes about BE teams (he even gave Pitt a lot of love early in the season.) Part of this change in coverage has to do with improved play on the field (WVU, Lville and RU are good, really good); and part of it has to do with the fact that ESPN/ABC has no vested interest in bad mouthing it’s own product (BE Football). In short, BE bashing will become a thing of the past, our BCS bid is not going anywhere, and the league as whole will continue to get better.

As for Beano, Corso and the like…they are going to always talk up the other power conferences because their fan bases are bigger which means more readers/viewers and like someone said since Miami/VT left none of those teams that stayed/joined the BE have played for a National Championship, as such it will reamin to be seen on their part as an inferior conference.

Frank, good point about the money aspect, something I hadnt considered. I cant stand corso and can barely tolerate Kirk H.

All good points – one point I would make about the BCS bashing. Right now, we’re not hearing as much about it because the focus is on other games. But look back several weeks ago when Louisville/WVU/Rutgers ALL were undefeated or had one loss and the bashing was never higher (except maybe when Pitt went to the BCS bowl a few years back). TV and radio shows were littered with Kiper, Corso, and the like all saying to anyone that would listen that the conference stunk.

Another very interesting comment I heard during the Big East bashing a few weeks ago: Someone made the comment about the Big East games comment being on Thursday night and was basically saying that those games aren’t really taken seriously because how many major games from other conferences aren’t played on Saturdays? I thought that was kind of a good point and while I personally think the deal is good for the Big East, I can see how others would look at those games as “2nd rate.” Most of the top teams in the NCAA aren’t doing that are they? I’m sure once in a while some big teams may do it, but I don’t think they’re doing it more than once a year.

I think the way to improve the BE reputation is to play high ranking teams out of conference. Obviously we would have to win a fair share of these games.

I was very pleased to see that BE teams beat two of the better ACC teams. Boston College unfortunatly won and Miami barely won. I could not believe FSU beat UCLA. Was USC asleep during the UCLA-USC game?

Finally one has to wonder whether USC is very good or is Michigan overrated?

I hope that Brohm comes back next year. It would be nice to see a BE team in the title game but there are no guarantees.

I took a look at PITT’s future schedule – we have a lot of good non-con games coming up as do other BE teams. Again, we have to remember what the national media chooses to ignore – that the BE teams were behind the 8 ball after the defections. Scheduling happens by projection out 3-6 years, so we couldn’t schedule decent teams so soon. That will be changing in the near future.

PITT got a huge commit today from WR Mo Williams – a 4 star kid and very highly sought after.