You look for trends, history and all those things that can help you in predicting an outcome. Utah has a very interesting little factoid might make you nervous.

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham doesn’t use a wand or pull rabbits out of his hat.

Whittingham does, however, have a practice model in place to prepare the Utes for games with extra preparation time. Since October of 2007, they’ve won 13 straight contests when given more than a week to size up the opposition. The streak includes three bowl victories and a pair of season openers.

“I don’t believe it’s any magic in the practice plan,” he said. “I think it’s the way our players go about it.”

Of course, after pausing to think about the 13-0 mark, that is a little skewed, to not count the season opening loss to Oregon State and another loss to Air Force with more than a week to prepare that followed. That 13-0 mark also includes a game played 8 days later — technically more than a week, but barely seems to count in my view.

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Not exactly sure why it is being reported like it is new information. The home-and-home and even road-home games for all teams were announced at the end of June., but the Big East home-and-homes were reannounced (or announced according to ESPN). I suppose there is some tidbits, like the possibly syphilitic induced dickery of Rick Pitino.

Pitt and Villanova received 13 of the 16 first-place votes. One of the three first-place votes went to St. John’s. Louisville coach Rick Pitino admitted he gave the Red Storm and new coach Steve Lavin a first-place vote May 14. “I was debating between St. John’s, Pittsburgh, Villanova and Cincinnati, but I didn’t want to put that on Mick [Cronin, Pitino’s former assistant] so I went with St. John’s.”

Pitino told ESPN.com Wednesday that he was sticking with St. John’s, saying in a text: “Nine seniors. Everyone but Pitt and Villanova lost key players.”

St. John’s was picked in the ballot to finish anywhere from first to 13th while Cincinnati’s range spread from fourth to 13th. Coaches couldn’t vote for their own teams.

Also worth noting that Providence mafia/Big East nepotistic associate commish Dan Gavitt’s comments about the tiers that go into setting the home-and-homes.

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Tabs piling. Week or longer. Time for a link-dump.

The Sports Illustrated Big East and top-25 preview was more than a week ago. They pick Pitt to win the conference, going 6-1 in the Big East and 4-1 in the non-con.

Here’s their co-branded preview with Athlon of Pitt at #16.

However, in order to reach that lofty goal, Wannstedt understands that Pittsburgh must first win the Big East Conference title, which has eluded him since his arrival in 2005. After corralling the top recruiting classes in the Big East in four of the past five seasons, this Pittsburgh squad is loaded with talent. A national title will be challenging due to a nonconference schedule featuring an opening trip to Utah, a home game against Miami and a visit to Notre Dame, but the Panthers should finally become the Beasts of the Big East.

Finishing the SI.com stuff, they have a good piece on Greg Romeus. It draws the parallel with his development to a potential 1st round pick with Pitt’s high expectations this year. Right now, I’d just be happy if I knew the true situation with Romeus and his “back spasms.”

Brian Grummell at FanHouse has a short primer on the Big East. Spoiler: he still thinks Pitt will win the conference.

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