The Charleston Daily Mail Wrote:Road through Camelot tough for Big East Conference power teams
Friday July 20, 2007
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor

http://www.dailymail.com/story/Sports/20...wer-teams/

NEWPORT, R.I. -- The other day on this resort peninsula at the Big East Conference's annual preseason football gathering, Commissioner Mike Tranghese repeatedly referred to last season as Cinderella.
Maybe the analogy the commish should have tried was Camelot.

After all, he was standing in the historic and stately Hotel Viking, up Bellevue Avenue from so many massive mansions, in a town where John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier were wed.

Actually, the 2007 season will tell Big East football fans whether 2006 was a Cinderella year, or whether the eight-team football league can remain Camelot.

"People ask if we can replicate last year," Tranghese said. "I'm not certain we can because I think this league is much stronger than it was a year ago.

"Somehow, trying to get through this league race is going to be very difficult."

As profile-rising a season as the Big East had in 2006, it didn't happen then, either. If a Big East team wants to play for the Bowl Championship Series national title, it's going to need a 12-0 entry.

Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers went a combined 34-5 last year. WVU fell at Louisville. The Cards folded at Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights left Morgantown after three overtimes with a loss that was the difference between the BCS and Texas Bowl.

"This year, Rutgers plays at Louisville," Tranghese said. "West Virginia plays at Rutgers. Louisville plays at West Virginia (and that schedule rotation was created when the league reorganized, before anyone knew they would be a trio of Big East beasts in 2006).

"Winning on the road in this league is tough. I thought the environment we had for the Louisville-West Virginia, Louisville-Rutgers and Rutgers-West Virginia games, in prime time, national TV, stadiums sold out, that atmosphere, is what makes college football special.

"It happened in the Big East. Three years ago, who would have thought that?"

What encourages Tranghese even more is that two of the programs who provided the underpinnings for Big East football creation in 1991 -- Pitt and Syracuse -- are struggling.

Who would have thought that when the Big East reached football credibility again following the Atlantic Coast Conference's purloining of three programs, that the Panthers and Orange not only would finish among the bottom three in the standings, but also would be picked there the following season?

"I thought when we started to rebuild, honestly, Syracuse and Pitt would be in the part at the top," Tranghese said of the only two current Big East members who have national championships (1937, '59 and '76) in their history.

"The thing is, you know Pitt and Syracuse are going to get better, and when they do, this is going to be a hard league. Really hard."

Tranghese said the rebuilding emphasis after the loss of Miami (Fla.), Virginia Tech and Boston College was through the strengthening of non-conference schedules.

However, some Big East schools lost foes (WVU lost the Hokies, and the long-running Maryland series ends in 2011) and it's only starting next season that the league is regaining its non-conference schedule oomph.

"Everybody is doing something to make their schedules better," Tranghese said. "We're pushing them, and some of them still need to push harder. ESPN is working hand-in-hand with some of them. That will help, but I like what we have down the road. The quality there keeps stepping up."

Tranghese has three years left on his contract, and said he is likely to retire then. Maybe, before the one-time sidekick to Big East founder Dave Gavitt heads off into the kind of New England sunsets they enjoy here, the basketball league into which he brought football will have its first national championship.

"Our hope was to get where we are now," Tranghese said. "Did we think we would get here this quickly? I don't know that any of us thought we would get here so soon, but we were hopeful of getting here as fast as we could."

Rutgers delivered the New York market to the Big East for college football last autumn.

Tranghese said the turning point for the Big East was WVU's 38-35 Sugar Bowl triumph (from a 28-0 lead) over Southeastern Conference champion Georgia -- in the Bulldogs' Atlanta backyard -- to cap the 2005 season.

"I think it's the single most important football game in the history of our league," Tranghese said. "It was a springboard to last season."

The Big East formerly staged its annual summer Football Kickoff session at freeway-surrounded Giants Stadium. With Rutgers struggling then, it was pretty much the New Jersey highlight for the league annually.

In 2005, with new faces Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati and a reputation rebuilding job ahead, the Big East brought its summer football gathering to this upscale resort mostly known athletically for yachting and tennis.

Chances are, the move was made somewhat because of the 25-mile distance from the conference office in state capital Providence. However, the Big East picked the right spot for another reason.

The state motto of Rhode Island? It's one word.

Hope.