Yahoo! Sports blogger questions validity of the Big East as major college football conference

Yesterday’s post was a very blunt rant, as I questioned the comments—directed at the University of Cincinnati—as made by NAACP president Christopher Smitherman. Today, I question the comments of a Yahoo! Sports blogger, Matt Hinton, who goes by the moniker “Dr. Saturday”.

Before you go off and dismiss my comments and say that maybe I’m just mongering my hatred toward all of humanity this week, I invite you to read on. After all, had I not taken such offense to what Smitherman said, I doubt I would have found out all that I did about the University of Cincinnati and our African-American student enrollment.

Hinton, who is as entitled to bash anyone he wants, maybe even more so than yours truly, wrote about the Big East conference last Friday. When referencing college football guru Phil Steele’s rankings, which favor the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to win the Big East, Hinton says this,

“If the early consensus is any indication, either one team will separate itself from the rest and carry the conference banner high, or pundits (maybe even yours truly) will be holding their nose at the end of the year over another weak, disputed champion, a la 2004, and wondering exactly who let this league inside the high-roller's club, again?” (http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Rutgers-for-Big-East-champ-Makes-as-little-sens;_ylt=AoLAGmrrcun07jL9VdmKLfUcvrYF?urn=ncaaf,166844)

Yes Mr. Hinton, who let the Big East into the “high rollers club” again? Now, coming from the inside viewpoint of a Big East championship winning program, some may dismiss my views as blatant homerism, but I ask you to hear me out.

In 2003, when Ohio State played Miami (Fl) for the National Title, the Big East was in the National Championship game. That’s right, Miami (Fl)—“The U”—was a member of the Big East. Ok, so maybe that was such a long time age that no one—that isn’t an Ohio State fan—remembers it. So, even after Pittsburgh’s loss to Utah in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl (the so called low point for the Big East) we reached a string of BCS bowl victories.

West Virginia over Georgia in 2006, Louisville over Wake Forest in 2007, and West Virginia in 2008 beating up on Oklahoma—who was one year away from making the 2009 National Title game—all have made the Big East reputation go up. Maybe.

Pundits everywhere will always question the “new” Big East’s validity as a major conference. I guess they feel a conference that had to add the Universities of Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida in 2005 is a “weak” conference.

As the Big Ten—namely Ohio State—got beat up in BCS National Title games, the Big East rolled in BCS games. No love for the little guy. Even though the Big East Champion lost it’s bid to win their BCS game this year (I promise I’ll have photos and videos up here after school gets out. We’ll have a “football hangover” day in July) the Big East has shown year in and year out that it can hang with the “Big Boys” in college football.

Some recent examples of note: In 2007, my second game as a student video guy here at UC, we beat (soundly) Oregon State 34-7. Oregon State has beaten USC at home the past two times they’ve hosted Pete Carroll’s Trojans, a note I’ll be sure to reference before we fly out to Eugene in September. This past year, Pitt beat Iowa, a Big Ten foe that made a bowl game.

And, perhaps the best evidence of all, in that same 2007 season, West Virginia came into their last game of the season 10-1, ranked #2 in the nation. The goal was simple for Rich Rodriguez and the Mountaineers; win and go play Ohio State in the national title. They lost to their archrival Pittsburgh, 13-9, in the “Backyard Brawl” (a game that Big East guest columnist Jake Meyer attended) hence losing their shot to play for “all the marbles”.

LSU went on to beat up on Ohio State, leaving the media to bash the Big Ten and claim the SEC’s superiority over everything in this universe. We’ll never know what the West Virginia/Ohio State game would have been like, but I imagine that the Mountaineers would have won the National Title, using their speed and spread attack to breeze by the Buckeyes.

As Frankie Valli once sang, “Oh what a night.” It would have been a night that sealed the Big East’s fate once and for all, as a major college football conference. Then, ignorance like Hinton’s would be a thing of the past.

Hey, maybe UC will be in such a situation this season, ranked number two heading into our final game, and a win will take us to Pasadena to play Ohio State (a game they couldn’t buy their way out of). Maybe in that fantasy situation we’ll beat Pittsburgh and go on to play Ohio State, win a National Title, and cement the Big East as a major player in the world of college football.

Hey, I can dream, right?

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52 days until the green drops in Indy. Tomorrow you’ll get a few of my thoughts heading into the race at Pocono which is a great indicator of who will run well at Indy. Check back tomorrow for a few thoughts—and maybe another ill fated prediction—for the Pocono 500.