I am among those skeptical of the comparative quality of the BE teams vis-a-vis the other BCS conferences. However, this article makes some interesting points. Below is a snippet which explains part of the BE strategy for gaining recognition and respect. I would say it has worked for the most part this season. Below the snippet is the link to the entire article. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/sports/ncaafootball/02bigeast.ready.html?ex=1163134800&en=803455725948d56a&ei=5070&emc=eta1
North Carolina, Miss. St. and Kansas st. Wow! You just can't gain any more respect than playing those BCS Conference Powers. In fact, their combined conference records are 2-13, it just doesn't get much better than that.
Good read, I didn't know that they had manipulated the schedule like that, but I do think they are overplaying those 6 OOC victories, I mean they beat Miss State a very bad team, Illinois a very bad team, North Carolina, Kansas State are also not good teams. So they scheduled the bottom of other BCS conferences, that maybe smart scheduling but not tough scheduling. thanks.
It's amazing how resilient the Big East has been. After losing BC,VT and Miami, they could have just folded up and disolved. What they are doing is showing the nation that they can do just fine without them. The weekday and sunday games have been enormous for their exposure. Rutgers has been on national TV more than it's ever been. They are using a great strategy and bringing respect in the process. There's a possibility Rutgers might face Georgia next year to fill a void when Oregon State backed out of it's commitment. The Big East has created an exciting finish to their season and Rutgers has been a sensational story. This is no overnight success but a carefully planned 6 years in the making. There are a lot of similarites between Schiano and a young Joe Paterno. Schiano went to Bucknell ( near Ivy league quality) was a star linebacker, like Joe wanted to go to law school but in his heart chose coaching. Built up the program not just bringing in any type of player but also achieving academic success ranking 4th in the APR last year behind Stanford and Duke. It is a great story and a huge inspiration for a lot of programs that have been dead in the water for years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrpQneTMUdM&mode=related&search=
Gip, no one on this board would dispute your comment. However, IMO, to focus on the opponents' records is missing the point, which is that to increase respect and recognition they are willing to put one foot in front of the other by scheduling teams from other BCS conferences. How do you know they didn't try to schedule the upper tier teams and get rebuffed? I would speculate with reasonable certainty that the upper tier teams in those conferences (FL, TN, LSU, OK, TX, etc.) don't want to risk an out-of-conference ambush by WV, L'ville, Pitt, or even up-and-coming Rutgers. If this plan works in the coming seasons, it can only help the BE recruiting and further enhance the competitiveness of the BE teams in the BCS picture. The name of the game is BCS $. It looks to me like the BE has put together a very solid business model for its football programs.
Sid, another thing to keep in mind is the disarray that occurred once they lost the Big 3 and booting Temple out. They went from a 10 team conference to an 8 team conference. Add the fact that everyone is now playing 12 games and they had to scramble to fill out their schedules picking up 5 non conf games.. What Gip also doesn't see is all the @'s. @ N Carolina, @ K-State. When you have so many games to schedule, you are not in a position of strength, can't pick and choose so easily and almost no conference leader wants to play more than 1 high quality non conference game. Sometimes you also have to be lucky. Pitt & BYU are much stronger this year than last year. They are not on your schedule. How do you predict when a team will be a worthy opponent and when they will not? There is so much parity in college football today. You don't see as many blowouts like we used to. You see a lot of teams up and down. great years, good years and bad years. Every school has decent weight training facilities and 300 lb linemen. Every school has a 4.5 speedsters. Miami & FSU can't just line em up and blow them out year after year like they used to. ND caught GT when they are a little better than the usual 6-5. You got Penn State in a rebuilding year. Next year it will be ND's turn to rebuild. These arguments about scheduling are useless. Just go out and win your games. It would be nice to have a playoff, but it doesn't look like BCS is going anywhere. For some reason everyone expects one of the Big East teams to come out unscathed, but they have their toughest games to play. If one of them rolls through, they deserve a high BCS ranking.
I see that the Tar Heels and Rich Rodriguez are being mentioned in the same sentence. I hope he stays at W.Va. It would be blow to the B.E. to lose him, he's a good coach.
I don't see it happening. Rod is from WV and a greduate of WVU. He has deep roots. The Tar hells will have to mortgage their program to get him . I agree he's an outstanding coach.
Also with UNC you always have to factor in their commitment level to football, supposedly when Mack Brown was approached by Texas he talked to the UNC AD and asked for a raise and improved facilities. They told him to go talk to Texas if he wanted more money. The rest is history. Terry
Sid My point was if you are going to schedule BCS conference teams and the top tier woun't play you, play the second teir teams if you can. I know Rutgers had a home and home with MSU. I'd like to see them match up with aTm or Missou. BTW I see where Ore. St. backed out of a game with Rutgers. Was that before or after Rutgers started to show big improvement? I give them credit for hanging in there after the rats deserted the ship. Still here we are nearing the end of the season and outsiders are talking bout undefeated WVa, Louisvill and Rutgers and asking "who have they played?" And the answer is "no one not even themselves." BTW that RB from Rutgers and Wolf from NIU are the two best backs I've seen this year. I've seen Wolf peerform vs. OSU and I know he's for real.
Gip OSU is backing out against Georgia. Rutgers is trying to fill in that spot. I don't know if GA will agree to it. The Big East tradionally have played solid non conference games. Syracuse had you last year, WVU I know several years ago. WVU has had Ohio State and recently finished up a 2 game series against Wisconsin. Same thing with Rutgers, they had Tennessee, Texas , ND when they shouldn't have been on the same field with them. The last few years MSU & Illinois. Louisville played Miami this year . Nothing can be done if Miami is not top 10 like they used to be. WVU had Maryland who were great 3 straight years stunk for a couple and this year are they contending with GT? @K-state, Kentucky, @Miss State@ E.Carolina. They could have done a lot worse and schedule the directional schools. They just have to play out their schedules which includes several big games against each other plus Pitt & Rutgers and would be no different from any other conference. Wolf is outstanding, He did it to Michigan too last year. Rice has great vision and patience. He comes from the same area as Hart. He gets a little more help than Wolf because the guy he took carries away from( FB Leonard ) is in his own right a great runner and blocker. Leonard would probably be the main man for most college football teams. He's got a great story. He could have left for the NFL and easily be the 1st FB drafted but he came back because he wanted to win even though he was losing carries to Rice last year. He's best friends with Rice. This guy is the ultimate team player and this is a guy with HIGH draft choice potential. They were saying 2nd round last year!
I had heard <t>some grumblings that ND was going to try to fill that game against Georgia, but Georgia won't come up North. And no, I'm not kidding.</t>