There’s a lot, and I haven’t even really looked too far or deep yet. Judging from the quotes and photos, Pitt’s contingent to the Big East Football Media Day consisted of Athletic Director Jeff Long, Head Coach Dave Wannstedt, Linebacker H.B. Blades, Wide Receiver Greg Lee and Quarterback Tyler Palko. All apologies if I missed anyone.
The BE Coaches pre-season poll has Pitt firmly in 2nd behind Louisville. These are about expectations and what the coaches see in the returning teams.
Louisville received 23 of a possible 24 first-place votes. The Cardinals are coming off an 11-1 season which included a 44-40 victory over Boise State in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl. The U of L’s final rankings of sixth in the Associated Press poll and seventh in the ESPN/USA Today poll were the highest in school history. This season, the Cardinals, under coach Bobby Petrino, return 14 starters.
Pittsburgh was picked for second place and received the only other first-place vote. The Panthers, under new head coach Dave Wannstedt, welcome back 16 starters, including nine on offense. Last year, the Panthers were part of a four-way tie for the conference crown and were the BIG EAST’s BCS representative in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Pitt finished 8-4 overall and 4-2 in league play.
You have nearly a wash in returning starters, recruiting classes not too far apart, and the only difference is coaching stability/questions. It really is not that outrageous for Louisville to be picked to win the BE over Pitt. Louisville Coach Petrino, of course poor-mouthed it, saying they were chasing Pitt since Pitt won the BE last year. The Pitt players aren’t bothered.
“They deserve it, so it doesn’t bother me,” Palko said. “But all this preseason stuff really means nothing. We were picked fifth or sixth (in the league) last year, and look what happened.”
Said Pitt linebacker H.B. Blades, “It’s a great motivation for us.”
There are of course stories on the overall state of the BE, and the sense of optimism that the worst has passed.
People said the Big East was falling apart. They said it would be stripped of its Bowl Championship Series bid. They said it was going to lose its basketball-only members and cease to be relevant.
“I stand here two years later and none of that is true,” Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said Tuesday at the league’s football preseason media day.
Tranghese welcomed three new teams — Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida — into the conference’s football fold. He also said the league will have a new postseason destination in 2006, if the NCAA approves a proposed bowl game in Toronto.
“It’s a pretty historic day — probably the most exciting day in the 26-year history of our league,” Tranghese said. “We’ve got eight programs, all on the upswing. We just need time to stabilize (the league) and play.”
…
“What it was before was, people were playing for second place,” Tranghese said. “Now, there are a lot of people who think they can win in this league. I see it in the eyes of our coaches. There are a lot of coaches here who think that down the road they can be the dominant program in this league.”
Tranghese indicated that the Big East’s main issue for now will be finding enough games for each team to play with the 12th game situation, but only 7 conference games.
Half the schools will get four home conference games a year, while the other half will have three. While the league is not opposed to adding a ninth football member, Tranghese said it is more likely the conference will enter into some sort of a scheduling alignment with another conference or several teams. The conference’s top targets for such a deal are Army and Navy.
“Your seeing a lot of creativity in scheduling out there,” Pitt athletic director Jeff Long said. “The Big Ten and the Mid-American Conference are on the verge of entering a scheduling agreement, and you are going to start to see more of that kind of thing as we move forward. And that is something we need to look at in the Big East in order to satisfy our lack of an even home-and-home conference schedule.”
Tranghese said: “I don’t think we’re interested in taking on a ninth school. In order to take on a ninth school they have to make you better, it can’t just be adding a ninth team to add a ninth team. We need to give our schools a balance of four home and four away games so this is the next big agenda item for us.”
This is going to be tough because I think a lot of conferences are leaning towards adding a 9th game. Boost the overall strength of schedule and get more match-ups in 12 team conferences.
As far as bowls for the Big East are going, it looks like there is a good chance over half the tie-ins could involve cars:
The Big East has two slots tied up with a BCS Bowl and the Gator/Sun agreement. Other possibilities are the Auto Zone Liberty Bowl in Memphis, the Music City Bowl in Nashville, the Champs Bowl, the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte, the Motor City Bowl in Detroit or a new bowl proposed for Toronto.
[Emphasis added.]
Just one of those quirky things, I guess.
I think this could be my favorite quote from media day:
“We treat one another like family and we are very close,” South Florida’s star running back Andre Hall said. “We listen to the same music and like the same kind of girls.”
The odds for fireworks and a locker room brawl at some point just went to even money.
