🏈 The Big East is Losing its Reputation as one of the Big Boys

[TerryP]

With no elite teams, Big East is bearish again


The Big East started this decade as college football's titan of the future. No player electrified the country more than Michael Vick, and Virginia Tech finally got a crack at the national title in January 2000.


When Miami walloped Nebraska to win it all two years later, the Big East, a toddler in college football, was a big deal for the first time in the sport's history.


The last few years have seen the conference realign (see ya, Canes and Hokies) and virtually resurrect. But as the decade closes, the conference is going out like a lamb. The jeers of Big Least have returned. And no problem looms larger than the lack of a juggernaut program in 2009.


As the season dawns, the conference's coaches are trying to celebrate the balance throughout the league. That's the sunny way of saying the top programs in the Mountain West and WAC rank higher and look sturdier than the Big East's leaders. This conference, supposed to be among the six best in the nation, won't field a BCS National Championship Game contender this fall.


Why the tumble? Who's to blame? What made the Big East uncool again? Let's go team-by-team to dissect how things got here, and what happens now:


Dave Curtis takes a look at the Big East—no longer a big conference?

 

[252BAMA]

"When Miami walloped Nebraska to win it all two years later, the Big East, a toddler in college football, was a big deal for the first time in the sport's history."

Sorry, but I remember reading and hearing the entire month of December 1952 how the 'Beast of the East" was going to teach those little boys from Alabama how to play football in the Orange Bowl.


http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin...rt=1952&end=2008&team1=Alabama&team2=Syracuse

 

[psychojoe]

A huge chunk of the football credibility that the Big East had came from Miami, VT and BC. When these guys ran to the greener pastured of the ACC the credibility went with them. You get this credibility by being a consistently strong team. W Va has been the most consistent of the current Big East teams, though the jury is still out on Stewart. He needs a good season this year to establish himself as a coach to be respected. U Conn may become respected, and they seem to be doing a lot of things right. Pitt and Syracuse are has beens, plain and simple. Ritgers is a "might be" but I'll have to be shown. Cincinnatti is intriguing. As the article says they have made a couple of excellent HC hires. I just don't see Louisville consistently being a player on the national scene in football.