OT- How Bad Is The Big East???

at this point.  It's hard to argue that the automatic bids are still relevant.

Given the NCAA's stupidity in all things, I am sure they will find a way to make that argument.

Their motto:  Harm the most athletes possible, especially those at revenue producing schools.

It's scenarios like this that will spell the end of the BCS.  People can't take this system seriously when teams like Pitt and Va Tech are in BCS games.  There is no reason they should be leapfrogging teams like Boise St., or any high-quality teams from the Big Ten, PAC 10, Big 12 or SEC. 

An 8-4 Big East team in a BCS bowl is equal to an 8-8 NFC West team in the playoffs.

Un-De-Serv-Ing.

UM's 105th ranked scoring defense held UConn to 10 points. If UConn beats Syracuse next week and Pitt loses one more game, UConn most likely will win the Big East.

I have family that went to Syracuse and I do cheer for them, but wouldn't it be a pisser if Shafer makes a BCS bowl before us.

I like the idea that if you win your conference you get a good bowl game, conference winners should be rewarded somehow

You have to hand it to UCONN going for it on 4 and 1 at their own 20 late in the 4th Qtr.  That and their willingness to lose to UofM makes them my Big East favorites

The problem with the Big East is that it's gotten away this long with 2-3 good teams, and a few pretenders, and then a few really bad teams.   Pitt, WVU and maybe Cinci over the last ten or so years.  These good teams though, would not necessarily dominate in the Big 10, SEC, but might do real damage in the ACC.

All that being said, aside from the current BCS conferences... what conference should dethrone it?  (Assuming we need the additional BCS slot.)

I was going around laughing (while they still thought they could win in the 2nd half) and said you are in the big east!

I dont like automatic bids, but without them ESPN would push for an all SEC bowl year for the BCS.

the UofM defense - they be bad.

You can pick random 11 fans out of the stands and they could score 10 on our D.

Very Bad. 

All the years of the good coaches being poached and bad hires (or, in the case of my beloved Cards, both), are starting to really show. Or show more, at least.  It's sad, really, because it was a very strong, unfairly maligned conference a few years ago. Now all the maligning is fair; fair as can be. When Petrino was at Louisville and RR was at WVU, those teams were some of the most fun to watch, most inventive, teams in the country. The dropoff from those guys, both offensive geniuses, to f-ing Steve Kragthorpe and Bill Stewart was like the dropoff from Justin Timberlake to Kevin Federline (yay, dated pop cultural references!) while HC GERG was at 'Cuse and, you know, Wannstedt continuing his incredible "how does this guy keep getting hired?!" streak at Pitt. UCONN was basically building a program from scratch, South Florida being the Duggar Familiy "Little Brother." Brian Kelly looked like a genius but he was, probably, merely (slightly above) competent and he's gone now too. I know, I know it's the Decimated Conference excuse that we're all sick of hearing. But, dammit, it's true. I'm loving Louisville's turnaround in Charlie Strong's first season  (sometimes racism works out in your favor) and look forward to a) future dominance in an improved BE or, b) more conference expansion dominos fall and Louisville somehow lands in a 16 team ACC.

Adequately?

It's bad, but it's maybe better than it would have been without the BCS.  I'm sure a "major" bowl would have signed up to take the Big East champion, especially if they negotiated the contract when Va Tech and Miami were in the conference.  Say the BCS never happens, the Big East becomes somewhat legit, and the Orange Bowl decides to take the BE champ every year to play the Big XII champ?  Or what if the Fiesta Bowl gets nervous about not having any tie in, and grabs the BE champ?  At least in the current scenario, you can shuffle the BE champ to a place that minimizes the damage instead of having it disrupt a potential championship game.  Imagine if last year had Texas vs. Cinci in the Orange Bowl while Alabama played an at large or the ACC champ or something in the Sugar Bowl?

The BCS has problems, no doubt, and I would take a playoff in a heartbeat, but I think it's better than the previous scenario.

The Big East is having a down year, but still owns a very good record in bowls, and unlike the Big Ten and a lot of other BCS conferences, actually has a winning record vs. the SEC in bowls.

The BE having a BCS bowl slot has nothing to do with the Mountain West.  There's no reason we both can't have one, especially with now five BCS bowl games.

I personally favor a playoff where every conference champion gets an auto-bid.  In the NCAA tournament, the Patriot League champ isn't a strong team, but still deserves its shot or why bother having any conference outside of the current BCS ones play in Division I-A?

West Virginia never would have gotten its chance to beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, or Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl in the last few years if we went by popular opinion.

As Young Pretty already alluded to, about this bad:

But yeah, the problem wth the Big East is that it doesn't have a dominant recruiting edge in any region over any other conference.  The Big 12 has Texas and Oklahoma, SEC has the South east, the Pac-10 has California and the rest of the West, and the Big 10 has the Midwest.  If you look at the weaker conferences the past couple of years (ACC and BE), neither has a region of the country where they reign over recruits.  Sure, FSU, Miami, and VaTech pull in some decent talent in the South and around the D.C. area, but they are competing with the rest of the SEC and large swaths of the Big 10 in each region respectively, and the BE (unfortunately) sits in a region of the Northeast that simply doesn't produce enough significant football talent to power a whole conference.  Plus, lots of teams in the Midwest pilfer from Pennsylvania, NJ, and NY.  Unless some team manages to make significant recruiting inroads and then turns that into consistent winning seasons, don't expect the BE to improve markedly.