animus Wrote:i usually agree with you omni but this time i'm not agreeing with you. sfla, wvu, uconn, pitt will compete for the top 4 spots. this is the year where you'll see pitt come out and explode on most of the teams. wvu is wvu speed at every position. the passing game yes i said passing game will break out and be great. uconn is steadily improving. i love their running game. and finally who i think is the best team in the big east. i wouldda put cincinatti in the mix but the loss of thier qb is too great. loiusville lost too many weapons.
After West Virginia, which is likely to go 12-0 or at worse 11-1, I am fearful of the 8-4 mediocre effect.
The Big East is likely to have a lot of average to good teams beating each other up, but losing to the Eers. As a result I foresee a lot of 4-3 and 3-4 records in the league. This means to be good nationally, these teams will need to win their OOC games.
I think Cincinnati may be the second best team in the league this year, but I don't see them beating Oklahoma at their place. I also think they will have difficulty winning their three BE road games. So, they would likely finish 8-4.
I think UConn is going to have difficulty beating UL, UNC, RU, and USF on the road. And as bad as SU has been playing, the Huskies still haven't beaten us at the Dome. Again, a likely 8-4 record.
Meanwhile Pitt will play Iowa and WVU at home and gets USF, ND, Cincy, and UConn on the road. UConn has Pitt's number, pure and simple. And I can see Pitt losing three of the other five games to also finish at 8-4.
USF plays at UCF. At some point, you would think the Golden Knights are going to break through the barrier and beat the Bulls. This could be the year, especially if USF is looking ahead to the Kansas match-up the following week. The Bulls play at Louisville, Cincinnati, and West Virginia, so again, an 8-4 record is not out of the question.
The key to the Big East's season may be Louisville.
The Cards, which may be the fifth best team in the league talent wise, actually has the best schedule of the contenders. They could actually finish 10-2 or 9-3 at the worse, if Kragthorpe learns how to coach. If they finish at the high end, it will definitely help, especially if there are 4 other teams going 8-4.
I hope my premonition is wrong and the league pulls out another great season to make it 3 in a row, but the ACC had two teams finish 11-3 last year along with 4 others that finished 9-4 and no one considers their season last year a huge success.
Of course the difference is that the Big East could have 6 teams out of 8 finish the regular season at 8-4 or above but still - that might not be enough of a factor to impress the media to declare the season a huge success, unlike two years ago when the league had three double digit win teams and last year when we had West Virginia and three 9-3 teams.
Cheers,
Neil