Let's be honest

The Big East is a joke.

Take your average Big East team and match them against any Pac 10 team not paying their players with third party gifts and you'd have one epic pillowfight.

This conference slips into the back door of the BCS every year. I'll give West Virginia their deserved respect after the last few years, and every year a new team turns the corner, but a good Big East team should not be viewed as a BCS contender. Granted, the BCS does has it's flaws, but that's for another day. Today is all about defining why the Big East should have no more say in the BCS than the Mountain West.

When the BCS began, the five major conferences (Big XII, Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Pac 10) were all granted automatic berths. The next most major conference, the Big East, was only allowed at the big kid's table because of one, maybe two reasons: Miami and Virginia Tech.

If you've forgotten, the ACC was a meager nine teams until 2004. Wanting to add a conference championship game and the money that comes with it, the ACC decided to expand to twelve teams. Miami and Virginia Tech - the Big East's two best teams and two legitimate national powers - were immediately invited. A year later Boston College (who along with West Virginia would be the Big East's next best team) joined. So three of the Big East's best football programs, and the only real reasons the Big East was granted a BCS bid, had jumped ship to join a real BCS conference.

What was the BCS to do? Demote the Big East to the level of the MAC? Why no, they just had to plug the voids with new teams, paving the way for South Florida, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Connecticut to think they deserve a shot at the national championship because they were BCS schools now. All they'd have to do is run the table in their weak conference.

I do think going undefeated is an incredible accomplishment, in any conference, and should warrant a BCS berth and possible national championship consideration. Utah were given their due respect after going undefeated in the Mountain West (and were rewarded with Big East champ Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl). But maybe the BCS should have originally considered Miami like Notre Dame, admitting the historic program to the party if they've had a good year even if they aren't in a major conference.

After the exodus, the Big East was left with West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Rutgers from their original BCS members (Temple also left the conference to join the MAC). South Florida, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Connecticut all slipped in. Aside from UConn, the other three had plied their trade in the mighty Conference USA previously. UConn, in fact, was in Division I-AA when the BCS was formed. Now THAT is the fast track to the BCS!

So subtract Miami, VT, and BC...add USF and three basketball schools...and you're still supposed to be a BCS conference?

I know every conference has down years and has their runts and the little sisters - like Baylor in the Big XII, Duke in the ACC (or Virginia if you're drinking The Doob's koolaid), or two thirds of the Pac 10. But the new Big East teams are akin to football powerhouses like NC State, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt (though the latter two are currently undefeated and ranked, this is a far cry from their usual positions as whipping boys).

I have to confess, I've been very happy and relieved the past few years when teams like Rutgers, Cincinnati, and USF finally lost their first game. Not because I don't like the nice story of the little guy playing well and being ranked, but because of the inevitable "this team could play for the championship" talk. SOUTH FLORIDA WAS RANKED NUMBER 2 LAST SEASON! If a Big East team goes undefeated it's like when Utah (MWC) or Boise State or Hawaii (both WAC) did. If the Big East gets an automatic BCS bid, I think it's only fair that the Sun Belt Conference does as well.

If the BCS was formed with the conferences aligned like they are now, I guarantee the Big East is not given an automatic berth. The flaws of the BCS are numerous, but I think the hypocrisy with the Big East is perhaps the greatest.

In the post-Miami-and-Virginia-Tech Big East, West Virginia and Pittsburgh have each represented the conference twice in BCS bowls, with Pittsburgh beating somehow-ACC champ Wake Forest once and getting annihilated by Mountain West pride Utah once. West Virginia is an impressive 2-0. So that's one of the Big East's better teams before the ACC poached their competition representing the conference well and one of the others not.

With all this being said, I'm obviously glad South Florida fell to Pitt last night. I wish Big East teams success only if they promise not to expect me to think of them like a BCS contender after week five.