Big East article on ESPN....GREAT READ!

[TC]

After it was raided by the ACC, the Big East and its backers heard it all. The Big Least. The Big Easy. The Bastard Child of the BCS. In terms of respect, it was a conference stuck somewhere between Conference USA and the Big 12 North. The league surely didn't deserve a BCS bid, right?

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2007 Big East Conference
Syracuse W-L 0-2
Syracuse PPG 6.0
All Others W-L 14-0
All Others PPG 43.7

Flash forward a few years to the present day. Anyone still asking that question? It isn't on the Plains of Auburn, Ala., where South Florida -- a program at the tender age of 11 -- knocked off the SEC's winningest program of the past four years on Saturday night. And it certainly isn't in Corvallis, Ore., where the Beavers still are trying to recover from a 34-3 shellacking at Cincinnati on Thursday. If you thought this conference was West Virginia, Louisville, Rutgers and a bunch of scrubs, it might be time to reassess. After going 5-0 during last year's bowl season, the Big East carried that momentum right into 2007. While it is early and the schedules have not been especially brutal, a quick glance at the standings finds every team in the conference, except Syracuse, at 2-0. Take out the Orange, whose football program is just a rumor now anyway, and you have got some seriously worn-out scoreboards. In other news, the Virginia Tech Hokies and Miami Hurricanes -- Big East fans, you might remember them -- lost by a combined 79 points this weekend.