So, I spent the evening in the dark. How about you? Dug out some candles and resumed reading A Canticle for Leibowitz. I swear, this was without any intended irony.
A couple side notes related to the Big East.
UConn has found some self-respect. They pulled out of a series with ND which would have had all of their “home” games played in Massachusetts or NJ. In no small part because the Huskies got a deal with Michigan to come to the Rent. Wolverines get to screw the Irish.
The Big East bowl picture is still hazy. The Gator Bowl might be out if they insist on splitting things or insisting on being able to get ND twice in the deal period. The BE might also be going for a NY bowl — which new Yankee Stadium wants to host.
I know that this is all about money. Wrigley wants to host the Northwestern-Ill game. ND and Army are playing at new Yankee. They are selling it as nostalgia and something classic. I’m confused, though. Hasn’t there been an all-out war by pro teams against the multi-use facilities? Something about poor sightlines and bad configurations? Now these places want to host games from other sports. Money. Money. Money. At least until some player gets hurt because of no room on the sidelines or endzone and sues over it.
The bowl issue, appears to be the dominate issue. Maybe even more than the perennial debate over a 9th football team in the BE.
With no clear cut favorite in the Big East, the conference coaches have gone to the ACC defense that can be roughly paraphrased as: “There is no dominant team, but the parity of the conference is not mediocrity. It is competitiveness. It is tougher from top to bottom…”
Well, at least there are no more stupid articles about the Big East staying in the BCS… Oh. Sigh.
The Big East TV schedule is not that clearer for Pitt. Lots of TBAs on times. These two games are slated for ABC,ESPN or ESPN2:
Fri., Nov. 27 PITTSBURGH at WEST VIRGINIA TBD
Sat., Dec. 5 CINCINNATI at PITTSBURGH TBD
Everything else looks the same or up in the air. The only thing to note is that the Pitt-Buffalo game will be on WTAE in Western PA and SNY in the NY market.
How does Coach Wannstedt feel about being picked to finish 1st in the BE?
Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt, whose team was picked to win the league championship this season, said he would have preferred not to have that distinction as the season begins “because I’ve got to talk about it. No coach likes to talk about it because it’s meaningless at this point. I’d like to be talking about it in December.”
The media has correctly picked the top team only once since 2003.
Disturbing portrait of new BE Commish John Marinatto.
That didn’t change Marinatto’s love for Cher. The reason he uses Equal is because Cher endorsed it years ago. His favorite Cher song is “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and has seen 10 of her concerts.
Marinatto also is a “big Trekkie.” He has attended Star Trek conventions, but none in the past 20-30 years.
“Every ‘Star Trek’ episode has a theme, a hidden message,” he said. “I love that show. It makes you think.”
He also prefers ’70s music. His car radio is set on Sirius’ 70s on 7.
There are just some factoids you can’t unlearn.
More later.
Great. Nobody knows the Big East Commish. This guy is a tool.
A) BE Conference, with a new commish who is a trekkie and Cher fan
B) Pgh Pirates, which is bringing in KC & the Sunshine Band for postgame concert this Sunday
(I would have added C, Pitt Panthers, whose own fanbase has no confidence in them … but I didn’t want to get everyone all rattled again)
“Now, if, say Penn State, were to call us tomorrow, well, we’d say ‘OK, done’ because they would bring a great deal of equity and add to what we already have. But short of a program of that level, I just don’t see us being very interested in bringing someone new on board.”
