Kirk Herbstreit is on Crack

And probably a few other juicy narcotics. And I think I smell a hint of too much sun + White Russians.





Yup, Kirk is picking UConn to win the Big East in football this year. That UConn team that WV beat like a million to nothing when the Big East title was on the line last year. That UConn team that played the softest schedule in the known universe. That UConn team that needed a fake fair catch to beat Louisville.

Yeah, I got an eight ball this morning. When I get off work I'm going to do it all up and make a prediction that Syracuse is going undefeated and will beat USC in the title game. And people will still love me.....

Mens Top 25

Rivals releases projected top 25 for next year, with eight Big East schools in the mix. The Mounties are in at 17.

http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=795213

Week 6 Recap

Instead of watching 18 straight hours of college football like I have every prior weekend, I turned wrenches and cracked knuckles fooling around with my tranny fixing my transmission. With that being said, the WVU game recap won't be posted until after I watch the game on DVR at tummystick's house.

Briefly though, since I know this is the only site you guys visit:

Louisville lost to Utah 35-44. At several points in the second half, it looked like the defense was finally going to step up and stop the Utes, but alas, the Cardinals can only manage to play defense 2 plays in a row. Louisville is giving up 444.5 yards/game against competition averaging 310, 474, 260, 316, 350 (Murray St offensive stats not listed). Their opponents are averaging approximately 103 more yards per game against Louisville than their seasonal average. WVU is averaging 504 yards per game so far this season. Carnage? Perhaps.

A deeper look, however, at the defensive troubles at Louisville suggests that they are capable against the run. The problems seem to stem mostly from the inability to stop deep passes. Adjustments by the Cards to compensate for the deep pass then opens up the run game. Unfortunately, WVU has yet to demonstrate a willingness to take shots downfield (caveat: I haven't seen the Syracuse game yet). Regardless, I'm still anticipating 1100 combined yards and over 100 points when the Cards come to Morgantown.

South Florida didn't falter after their big win last week. The Bulls beat FAU 35-23 and moved up to #5 in both polls. A lot of talk over the last week has concerned whether USF can win out and if so, will they be in the BCS game. Well, we Bastards are of the opinion that at some point, the questionable USF offense will fail them at least once this season. The biggest remaining test for the Bulls appears to be Cincinatti. I suspect the Bearcats to force enough turnovers to be able to squeak out a close win in Tampa on November 3rd with a combined score of less than 30.

Speaking of Cinci, their resume continued to improve with a convincing win over the Rutgers in Puskateway 28-23. The turning point in the game occurred at the end of the 3rd quarter when the Bearcats scored 14 points in 19 or so seconds. Mike Teel, who had entered the game as one of the nation's leaders in efficiency was intercepted 3 times (Cinci forced 4 total turnovers) and Ray Rice rushed for only 94 yards. Cincinatti continues to lead the nation in turnover margin at +2.5/game. (WVU falls in at +0.83/game and USF is at +1/game.)

And in case you were in an alcohol induced coma all weekend, USC lost to Stanford and Florida lost to LSU. W00t!

Completely baseless Big East BCS projections: USF, Cinci and WVU each end up with one loss (WVU beats Cinci who then beats USF) with WVU getting the BCS nod with the highest BCS ranking, where we'll play Hawaii.

Rutgers loses twice more (USF, WVU) to come in fourth but bowl eligible.

UConn currently has 4 1A victories requiring 2 more to become bowl eligible. Their season becomes decisively more difficult from here out but the Huskies will probably win over Syracuse thus requiring one upset from the set of UL, WVU, USF, Rutgers and Cinci. Most likely: they score 154 points against UL to win by 3.

Louisville will struggle to become bowl eligible. They currently have two 1A wins (NC State and Mid Tenn) meaning they'll have to win 4 of their next 6. During that stretch, they play Pitt and UConn, two teams they should beat even with their awful D, but the other four games are against Cinci, WVU, USF and the Rutgers.

Again, please discuss in the comments.

Round of Reubens

Bad news for next week's opponent. Back-up/potential future first string Maryland QB, Josh Portis, got suspended for cheating. Some have suggested the punishment was too harsh, but we Bastards have uncovered that not only did Portis cheat on a quiz, he also stole some leftovers from Friedgen's personal fridge. A lesser player would not have survived such a transgression.

In Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun, Heather Dinich reported that Brandon Bullock, who now attends East Carolina, said that Portis cheated by looking on his paper during a quiz in American Studies 212 (Diversity in America) during the spring semester. Portis refused comment on Dinich’s article, which went into a few other details. Bullock, who is from Bel Air, told Dinich that he got a note back after that quiz to see the instructor who brought up academic dishonesty while showing him copies of his quiz and another quiz with the name covered up and the answers to the quiz were similar including one question that they were identical “word for word.” Portis reportedly sat behind Bullock and to the left. Bullock also told Dinich that Portis approached him later and asked him to say that there answers were so similar because they had studied together.

Speaking of Maryland, tummysticks and I will be in hostile territory next week thanks to some much appreciated generosity. We're packing extra sammies in case we cross paths with a wheezing, photon lensing mass of a football coach. Maybe we'll run into Steve Danneman and I can convince him to bet on Maryland again while tummysticks bums beer from Gavin Smith.

In other news, based upon Notre Dame's success last week not really picking a quarterback before its matchup with Georgia Tech, Pitt head coach Dave Wannstache has decided not to pick a starting quarterback for this weekend's matchup with Grambling. Wannstache will instead wait until kickoff to choose his starter by following his magical dowsing mustachio.

Finally, Cincinatti dutifully represented the Big East earlier this evening by easily defeating Oregon State 34-3. While Oregon State's performance was magnitudes worse than during its defeat of USC last year, the credit goes to an aggressive and hard hitting Bearcat defense. The Big East is now 9-1 in interconference play to start the season.

Hopefully this Blog Recommendation Goes Better than the Last

Sunday Morning Quarterback is doing a Big East Week. Its rather verbose, which means, in the parlance of our times, lots of words. As of today, posts include:

The History of the Big East featuring some video highlights of the WVU-'Cuse let's be more than friends stint of the late 80's and, unfortunately, a clip of PETA's favorite dope smoker rising to early prominence.

An indepth review of the Rutgers and whether its shortcomings at QB could spell doom to the pesky new upstart.

Exclusive quotes from legendary film maker Ingmar Bergman pointificating upon the travesty of Pornstache and the oddity of the spread option.

If, for example, [Brian Brohm] needs a certain number of yards for a first down, then he calls the simplest slant route to get the ball an inch past the damned stricks That is the attitude of an aesthete. He took great care over a single pass, but doesn't understand that a game is a rhythmic stream of plays, images, momentum, a living, moving process; for him, on the contrary, it was such a pass, then another pass, then yet another.

I'm presuming that they'll eventually put up a post about WVU. At which time, I'll be sure to notify AngryEER.

The Old Big East

Much has been written about the new Big East and the fact WVU has become an annual challenger for the league title in football. Many have pointed to the ACC raid as a catalyst for WVU because the three top dog programs. I did a little research as to how "top dog" the leaving programs were.

The Big East played a full schedule for 12 years with the 8 original football teams. The average finish (in terms of place) for Miami was 1.6, BC was 4.4, VT was 2.8. Miami was unquestionably the big dog. BC was an average team and VT was a top tier team. The remaining Big East teams averages were 3.1 for Syracuse, 3.5 for WVU, 5.1 for Pitt, and 6 for Rutgers (Temple had the Cos' but not a program so I didn't count their average finish so let's just say it was 7.5).

The numbers could lead one to argue that the leaving of VT and Miami opened the door for WVU, however, BC should not enter the conversation as the best finish for BC in a full Big East was third and they were an average forth or fifth place team. Of note for WVU is that the end of the Nehlen era and the beginning of Rodriguez may have sent the average down as WVU endured the 3 worst consecutive years in the Big East (4, 5, 7) in the last two years of Nehlen and first under Rodriguez. If those three years were eliminated WVU would have an average of 2.9. With VT, BC, and Miami still in the Big East WVU finished 2nd and 1st the final two years of the original conference with VT finishing 4th both years and BC finishing 4th and 5th (Miami was first both years). This helps to dispel any nonsense that WVU couldn't win with those three teams in the league with the current coaching philosophy. What the numbers do tend to refute is that Pitt was a standard or flag bearer for the Big East as the Panthers never finished higher than third and would rank sixth in the old Big East order of average finish.

Is the new Big East appreciably easier with USF, Louisville, and Cincinatti? The numbers are too few for clarity. WVU has moved up to an average of 1.5 and Rutgers to 2.5, but Syracuse has fallen to an average of 8 and Pitt has stayed steady at an average of 4.5. The fall of Syracuse has hurt Big East, but the improvement of Rutgers may be able to offset the down times for the Orange.

The old Big East had Miami and everyone else. A team would rise up for a few years to challenge and then fall back down. People tend to make arguments that it had Miami, VT, Syracuse, BC, Pitt, and WVU, but those teams were rarely good at the same time. Every team, including Miami if only for a year of probation, had some down years during the history of the old Big East. BC went 5, 4, 6, 6, 6 in a five year span; VT went 7, 4 to start and 4, 4 to finish; WVU went 4, 5, 7 during the change of the guard; Syracuse went 6, 6 to finish; and Pitt finished 6th or worse 6 times. However, there was always a challenger for Miami. Early and late it was WVU. During the McNabb years Syracuse took the reins, and VT made some serious noise from '95 until '00. Syracuse and VT each won or shared 3 titles while WVU won two. It is too early to tell if the new Big East will have a Miami or if it will be more competitive. From a competition standpoint the top four old Big East teams were Miami, VT, Syracuse, and WVU. The new Big East must be able to offset the losses of two and the fall of another with WVU, Louisville, Rutgers, and USF. The second half of the old Big East was BC, Pitt, Rutgers, and Temple. The new Big East has a second half of Pitt, Cincinatti, UConn, and Syracuse. There are two automatic wins in each and two teams with potential (OBE = BC/Pitt; NBE = Pitt/Cincinatti). The biggest question about the Big East is whether the new configuration will last long enough to find out if it can stack up to the old Big East.

Tough Schedule?

Well, we're a little late on this one. I mean, for crying out loud, the Stateline Statewide Automotive Sportsline Show (or whatever its called) beat us to it. Nevertheless, mad props to Hoppy...

WVU was ranked by CNN/SI to have the 21st toughest schedule entering the 2007 football season. For Chist's sake, SI's website is slooooow. But I really have nothing to add at this point, so I'll just throw up a quote from the article.

Why they're No. 21: Big East bashers might argue that West Virginia only has to play a couple of tough games all year, but the Mountaineers' schedule suggests otherwise. West Virginia didn't schedule any Division I-AA foes and faces three nonconference games against teams that went to bowls last season. That includes a Thursday night nonconference road game with a Maryland team that went 9-4 in '06. West Virginia does get Louisville at home this year, but the Mountaineers also must travel to South Florida and Rutgers. South Florida won at West Virginia last year in one of the season's biggest upsets, while Rutgers lost to the Mountaineers in triple overtime.

WVU's ranking means they have the toughest schedule of any Big East school followed by Pitt and Louisville. Rutgers, meanwhile, has a relative cakewalk of a schedule. Two of their tough 3 are at home (WVU and USF), but must travel to Lousiville.

That's all I have. Apologies to our readers, two of us are buried in paperwork and one of us is on vacation.

Small Order of Reubens

Johnny from the Mountainlair, and frequent commenter hereto, has a nice post over at the Fanhaus considering break out players this coming season in the Big East. Among those listed, he includes Wes Lyons, our skyscraper of a receiver. I might have to disagree a little with that one, as his hands still looked suspect and his route running was a tad sloppy during the Blue-Gold game, but with that height and a 50 gallon drum of stick-um, he might be unstoppable.

Additionally, for the USF component of that list, I would include Mike Ford, RB, over Grothe. Ford is, as of yet, relatively unknown at the D-1 level and will add that much needed second dimension to USF's offense. Grothe, on the other hand, was Big East rookie of the year in 2006 isn't exactly an "unknown". With the addition of Ford, USF could be a serious contender this coming season in the Big East and moves my expectations of USF from middle of the pack to a contender for the Big East title.

Secondly, the almighty EDSBS has taken a bit of a fall from grace in the eyes of the Bastards, but through no fault of their own. After all, if we weren't WVU fans, we certainly would have ran with this video as well. (We have not posted said video for the sake of maintaining *some* dignity.) Some advice to all of you out there, the next time your buddy says, "Hey, lets post this on youtube." Kick him in the balls.

Updated Big East Bracket

I'm pretty worthless right now... well, actually most of the time, but exceptionally worthless right now because I'm too busy trying to get in billable hours. But I'm pretty quick with MS Paint, so here's your updated Big East bracket. Click to zoom.

Big East Bracket

Via the Fanhouse, presenting your 2007 Big East Tournament Bracket:

As we've already stated, we feel WVU needs a good showing this week in order to make their way into the big dance and save us the misery of Selection Sunday phone calls. I'll leave it to the other two to make more analysis, except I will say I'm not looking forward to playing a red hot Louisville team in the second round.

You thought our schedule was weak this year? Ha!

In an attempt to further bolster their strength of schedule, the powers that beat have scheduled mighty, mighty Ball State (2006: 5-7, 5-3) for West Virginia's season opener on September 1st. However, it will be a nice opportunity to test their hopefully improved secondary as Ball State's QB, Nate Davis, is expected to be one of the premier passers in the MAC next year.

While most of the remaining dates have yet to be set, the schedule features a few challenges:

The Manchin Bowl against the Matthew McConaughey coached Blundering Turds, which in all reality should not be tough, but considering how the basketball team performs each year against WVU's instate rival, cannot be glanced over.

According to the schedule at rivals.com, West Virginia will play at Maryland this year, despite rumors to the contrary. The biggest question here is whether the folks at Byrd Stadium will expand the player tunnels enough to permit 18-wheeler access - as that's the only way Friedgen will be able to make it to the sideline. That's it Coach, you rest those weary legs and no, I don't care how delicious it looks, you can't eat your watch.

The biggest challenge next year presumably is three road games against Rutgers, Cincy and South Florida. Louisville comes to Morgantown next year with a new coach and presumably a new QB.

Further down the road, the Mountaineers feature a 1&1 with Auburn in '08 & '09, Michigan State in '10 & '11 and Florida State in '12 & '13 (feature Bobby Bowden in a cryogenic chamber).

And yes, I really do miss college football this badly.