Tale Of Two Quarterbacks

Both West Virginia quarterback Pat White and Rutgers signal-caller Mike Teel finished their careers with close, hard-fought bowl wins in which they were named MVP. And for White, the surprise was that his award came for what he did with his arm (a career-high 332 yards passing) rather than his legs.

But let's not go crazy here, unlike some other folks I generally consider to be level-headed. The conventional wisdom about Pat White still holds - he is NOT a quarterback at the next level. It's a long way from lighting up North Carolina's 84th-ranked pass defense to making NFL throws, throws which White has not shown a consistent ability to execute. I am aware of White's solid passing efficiency numbers, but like Tim Tebow, those numbers are a mirage based on the system and his ability to run the football - things that won't necessarily hold up at the next level.

Now contrast to Rutgers quarterback Mike Teel, whose name almost never gets mentioned as a legitimate pro prospect. Yet every time I watch Teel - a three-year starter in a pro-style offense - he's shown the ability to make the kinds of throws you'd expect a pro quarterback to make. And he's done it this year without any real semblance of a running attack and with only one consistently productive receiver.

It's highly unlikely that Teel would ever be an NFL starter, but he certainly has to be a better pro prospect than the grossly overhyped Hunter Cantwell. And he's far more likely to be holding a clipboard at the next level than Pat White, if for no other reason than White may be too busy catching passes and returning kicks to be bothered.

Do You Believe In magicjack?

Mix what amounted to a home game with a matchup against an overmatched C-USA foe, and you have the non-entity that was the magicjack (I guess magicjack has something to do with phone service, natch) St. Petersburg Bowl. If ever there was a game that USF could NOT afford to lose, it's this one.

But I'm not going to go as far as Rich Cirminiello at CFN and suggest that this game made much of a difference perception-wise. There's still a growing sense of apathy surrounding the program (the crowd was the smallest for a first-year bowl in a decade) after three disappointing seasons in a row. Matt Grothe needs to be something other than, well, Matt Grothe next year or the proverbial window is going to shut. And perhaps Jim Leavitt's coach tenure as well.

The Best Big East Bowl Preview Ever

As brought to you by the great folks at CFN. Enjoy!

And if I don't talk to y'all - happy holidays and stuff.

If It's Wed--er, Thursday, There Must Be Random News To Report

The awkwardly sponsored bowls are coming! The awkwardly sponsored bowls are coming!

• Noel Devine apparently fixed (or had fixed for him *nudge wink*) whatever academic issue was dogging him and will play in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Although I'm not sure I'm down with the idea of creepy Bill Stewart putting anyone on a leash...
  
  
• Former Clemson offensive coordinator Rob Spence will be taking that same position at Syracuse. Spence was an innocent casualty in the crossfire of the Tommy Bowden firing.
  
  
• Apparently Rutgers is on the short list of schools that USC wide receiver/quasi-washout Vidal Hazelton would like to transfer to.
  
  
• USF receivers coach Mike Canales may end up getting the Illinois offensive coordinator position, and Bulls offensive coordinator Greg Gregory is likely to be a candidate at Army. Or so we hear.

The Best Big East 2008 Awards Ever

As seen on CFN.

What is it with Big East running backs?

First LeSean McCoy makes the rather curious decision not to enter the NFL draft. (although some folks aren't exactly convinced that will hold) Now, UConn's Donald Brown makes the same call, electing to come back for his senior year.

McCoy and Brown may not have been first-rounders, but certainly wouldn't have gone much past the third round if they came out. Considering the short shelf-life that running backs have to begin with, it seems strange the neither would want to take their chances in the draft now. It becomes doubly odd when you consider the chatter about the rookie pay scale going forward.

Contrast these scenarios to the end of last season, when Steve Slaton and Ray Rice couldn't leave fast enough.

Doug Marrone Hired As Syracuse Head Coach

Yep, it's like official and stuff. Read more about my thoughts here.

If It's Wednesday, There Must Be Random News To Report

Because I'm all about the news aggregating:

• Rutgers athletic director Bob Mulcahy is out amid controversy over allegations of unchecked spending - including the controversial $100+ million stadium expansion - and sketchy side deals, including some involving Greg Schiano. It'll be interesting to see if a new A.D. gives Schiano the same leeway that Mulcahy did with regards to the football program.

• Louisville fans are apparently conflicted when it comes to head coach Steve Kragthorpe. Not so much these guys.

• The All-Big East teams were released today. Take a wild guess as to who was coach of the year...

• Just found this gem from Randy Edsall's post-game press conference after UConn was punked by Pitt. I knew Edsall was a defensive guy, but still.

Best Big East Week Ever - Key Games of 2008

As seen on CFN.

Enjoy.

Skip Holtz At Syracuse? Yeah, That Might Work

I'd written on CFN a few weeks back that I thought Syracuse AD Daryl Gross had one chance to make a big, splashy hire to replace Greg Robinson - former USC offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin. Obviously that's not happening. Nor is Randy Edsall going to take what would be (generously) a lateral move to leave Connecticut for the Orange.

With Buffalo's Turner Gill looking like a strong candidate to take the Auburn job, East Carolina head coach Skip Holtz appears to be the frontrunner at Syracuse. It would be a very solid hire - Holtz has won everywhere he's been and has ties to the northeast from his days at UConn. The surname doesn't hurt, either. When your other likely choices were non-descript NFL or college assistants (sorry, Steve Addazio), the son of Lou Holtz seems like a real good bet.

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On a completely unrelated note, it turns out Rutgers defensive end Jamaal Westerman played the second half of the season with a torn bicep, which is just ridiculously manly.

Big East Bowl Lineup Is Set

A thumbnail, first-blush look at the upcoming Big East bowl lineup:

Magicjack St. Petersburg Bowl (12/20) - USF vs. Memphis
It's hard to get jacked up about a South Florida program that went 1-4 down the stretch playing in ANY bowl game, much less against a Memphis team that lost at home to Louisville. Then again, the Bulls also lost to Louisville. And what exactly is a "Magicjack" anyhow?

Meineke Car Care Bowl (12/27) - West Virginia vs. North Carolina
Every time you hear the ESPN announcers discuss Pat White's prospects at the "next level", take a drink of your beer. (If Andre Ware is doing this game, you can also add the fun of taking a shot of Jack Daniels every time he mentions that White has a "NFL arm".)

PapaJohns.Com Bowl (12/29) - Rutgers vs. N.C. State
Besides the fact both teams are on huge rolls, this game is a classic example of why performances against "common opponents" often mean squat. N.C. State throttled UNC, which throttled Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights blew out USF, who destroyed the Wolfpack.

Brut Sun Bowl (12/31) - Pittsburgh vs. Oregon State
LeSean McCoy vs. Jacquizz Rodgers should be an awesome matchup of top-tier running backs. I will, unfortunately, spend the majority of the broadcast trying not to laugh whenever I see the name "Jacquizz" displayed on my TV screen.

International Bowl (1/3) - Connecticut vs. Buffalo
Over-under on how many passes Connecticut completes against the Bulls - 6. Over-under on how many times Turner Gill's status as a "hot coaching commodity"* is mentioned - 13.
*provided he's not already coaching at Auburn

Fedex Orange Bowl (1/1) - Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech
Consider the absolute cluster that was the ACC championship game (in terms of attendance). Add in the fact Cincinnati has one of the smallest fanbases of any BCS program. This might be a great game, but it might engender the philosophical question - "if a great college football game is played but nobody is in the stands to watch it, did it actually happen?"

Steve Kragthorpe Believes Running It Up = Class Act

Look, we can argue all day about whether calling timeouts with a minute to go in the first half and throwing for another score - the way Greg Schiano did in the Scarlet Knights' 63-14 obliteration of Louisville - is appropriate. (apparently, Schiano doesn't have a big problem with it, as he did something very similar to Norfolk State last year)

What I found hilarious, though, was Schiano's non-conciliatory halftime interview with Erin Andrews, where he stoically said that his team is "trying to get better" and essentially will stop destroying Louisville when he feels like it. Contrast that with Steve Kragthorpe's halftime comments, which consisted of calling Schiano a "class act" and saying that he wished he had a great offense that could score 49 points in a half.

Is it any wonder why one coach was able to pull his team out of the muck of a 1-5 start, and the other has completely lost his team after a 5-2 start?

And as an aside, I find it funny that Louisville defensive coordinator Ron English supposedly had words with the Rutgers head coach at halftime. Unlike his boss, English had the stones to actually express his displeasure with Schiano's act. However, he would have been better served expending energy on constructing a defensive plan that didn't involve receivers getting 10 yards behind his secondary.

UPDATE: Apparently Louisville AD Tom Jurich doesn't like all the negativity surrounding Krags while preaching that it's important to stay the course.

If It's Wednesday, There Must Be Random News To Report

• UConn running back Andre Dixon - once the Huskies' starting back until Donald Brown morphed into the second coming of Ray Rice - finished his season in grand style...by getting a DUI, and then a suspension by head coach Randy Edsall.
  
  
• Brian Kelly obviously took Greg Schiano's graduate course "Hold Your University Over A Barrel Until They Agree To Make Massive Capital Improvements They Can't Possibly Afford", because the University of Cincinnati is doing just that to keep him.
  
  
• In what can only be described as a very good life decision, USF quarterback Matt Grothe is coming back to school for his senior season, while defensive end George Selvie is apparently less sure of his future plans each passing day.
  
  
• It took me a minute to figure out why West Virginia would be planning a "White"-Out for its regular season finale against South Florida. Hopefully Pat doesn't take it the wrong way, and sees it for the tribute/pun it is.
  

If you've got a story I've forgotten to tell, email me, dammit.

Greg Robinson Is A Fan Of Children's Literature

Greg Robinson was a lot of things during his four-year stint as the head coach at Syracuse. He was the guy who said a lot of stupid stuff: either for real or in parody form. He was the guy who single-handedly took a solid, middle-of-the-road Big East program and turned it into a laughingstock. And now on his way out the door, he's challenged Jim Leavitt for the title of "weirdest presser by a Big East head coach".



It's no Mike Gundy, but hey, Robinson's well over 40 - which apparently doesn't stop him from having an encyclopedic knowledge of children's literature.

On the Greg Robinson replacement front, it's all over the place. The logical choice would be Turner Gill, who has turned a laughingstock Buffalo program into a bowl team in just three seasons while recruiting in basically the same area as Syracuse. But athletic director Daryl Gross - whose job may not be all that secure himself - might want a splashier name, like East Carolina's Skip Holtz. I think some of the names on that list, like Boise State's Chris Petersen, is the result of some hard living and/or wishful thinking.

An introduction.

Welcome to the introductory post of the Best Big East College Football Blog Ever. You will read this, and subsequent entries, with great interest. You will bookmark this blog, send it to your friends, link to it and refresh the main page every ten minutes hoping I added an additional nugget of information. You will do so because I am really, really smart and know way more about college football than you. Either that, or you're completely bored.

I am not a writer by trade, at least I haven't been for a long time. I traded in my journalism degree years ago to go into (wait for it) information technology. But lately, I've had the urge to get back into writing in some form, and between this blog and the contributions I've been making recently to CFN I can hopefully scratch that itch.

Why the Big East, you might ask? It was not because all the good conferences were taken - it's because I'm an East Coast guy, through and through. And with only eight teams, in the Big East it's a lot easier to keep track of everyone. Twelve-team conferences are too much work.