Some clouds hover over Big East, BCS
Friday, January 07, 2005
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
My hero this week is Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville.
After his team's 16-13 win against Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl Monday night, Tuberville stated his case for his undefeated team to be considered as the national champion, the heck with what might happen the following night in the Orange Bowl.
It's not that Tuberville had a chance of getting that national title, given the Bowl Championship Series setup and the fact that Southern California walloped Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
It was Tuberville's demeanor that was impressive. He was cool and confident, funny at times, but you could tell from his postgame news conference that he felt down to his core that his Tigers shouldn't accept being No. 2 to anyone.
A lot of it had to do with what it takes to come out of the Southeastern Conference undefeated.
Imagine a Big East coach with such convictions -- not just willing to say all the right things, but having a deep belief that his team is the best in the land and being able to sway others that he at least has a point.
Somehow, that's a little difficult to picture? Not because of the coaches who are in the league but because of the league itself.
There have been many versions of the Big East's relationship with the BCS and what the future looks like. Let's try to clear it up as much as possible.
There's no question the Big East has fallen off some as a major, or BCS caliber, football conference, particularly in terms of perception. That's in part because of the Atlantic Coast Conference's raid that took Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, which seemed to chop the competitive head off of the Big East.
For the short term, the Big East was saved by Louisville, which, for BCS purposes, was added to the Big East this season. The Cardinals, who finished No. 10 in the final BCS rankings, officially join the league next year, along with Cincinnati and South Florida.
They join holdovers Pitt, West Virginia, Syracuse, Connecticut and Rutgers, with Temple being kicked out.
There are still a lot of variables concerning the Big East's BCS future because, frankly, the people behind the BCS are not particularly decisive.
BCS chairman and Big 12 Conference commissioner Kevin Weiberg held a news conference Tuesday in conjunction with the Orange Bowl.
He did a lot of defending of the BCS and not much explaining about the future.
There is little fear of the Big East regular-season champion being on the outside looking in anytime soon, but there is reason for concern.
The Big East is one of six leagues whose champion gets an automatic berth in one of the four BCS bowls. There are two at-large berths.
Beginning with the 2006 season, when a new BCS contract kicks in, there will be a fifth, as yet undetermined, BCS bowl. For now, it looks as if the 10 slots will go to six conference champions and four at-large bids determined through a complex formula.
Under the current contract, the champions from the BCS conferences with automatic berths are required to average a top-12 finish in the final BCS standings over a revolving four-year period or face a review.
The Big East has met that standard and should be OK for the next year or two, thanks to Louisville.
If the Big East had not lobbied to include the three incoming schools a year early, the league's top finish in the final 2004 BCS rankings would have been Pitt at No. 21. The Big East would have been OK this year because of Miami's strong finishes the past three seasons, but if Pitt's ranking were the one of record, it could have pulled down those four-year averages in the coming two seasons.
Beginning with the 2006 season, the BCS switches to a rigid four-year period with a new standard. The BCS hasn't decided what that standard will be.
If a BCS conference fails to meet this standard, it will be subject to some type of review. The BCS hasn't decided what that review process will be or what might happen to a team that comes under review.
As long as it can maintain that four-year, top-12 average the next two seasons -- which seems likely -- the Big East's automatic bid should be safe at least through the 2009 season when the first of the new four-year review periods ends.
Because we don't know what the new review standard will be, we don't know if it would be better for one Big East team to blossom into a perennial top-10 program or for two or three teams to finish in the middle of the top 25 each year.
Considering that the goal for the Big East right now seems to be to win enough to keep an automatic BCS bid, it might be a while before a Big East coach finds himself in the same position as Auburn's Tuberville -- sitting very near the top of the heap and sincerely lobbying for at least a piece of a national championship.
<a href='http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05007/438465.stm' target='_blank'>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05007/438465.stm</a>
The last paragraph I disagree with, you may very well see Bob Petrino become next years Tommy Tuberville.
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Pittsburgh Post Gazette/Clouds hover over BCS
