|
SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
-----
|
Pirate Notebook No. 282
Monday, September 18, 2006
By Denny O'Brien |
 |
Irony abounds in East-West
showdown
©2006 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
Mike Tranghese may not get the last laugh.
But the Big East commissioner should get a chuckle at the current football
climate.
In what no doubt was deemed impossible when
conference realignment changed the face of college athletics, the Big East
enters this weekend with two legitimate contenders for the national title.
The league that raided its top football powers has none.
On Saturday, Tranghese's prized gridiron
pupil will carry the Big East banner straight through the heart of the ACC
and into Greenville. About the only way ACC commissioner John Swofford won't
notice is if speedy running back Steve Slaton is selected to carry it.
It's pretty ironic when you consider it.
One of the primary reasons behind ACC
expansion was to beef up its football reputation. Long considered the
nation's premier basketball power, Swofford astutely sought to maximize the
riches of the Bowl Championship Series by corralling a pair of football
powers (Miami and Virginia Tech) and another that consistently hovers around
the Top 25 (Boston College).
The major side effect, intended or not, was
the gutting of Big East football, a condition from which many predicted the
conference would not recover. So far those critics are wrong, a point that
was emphasized this past weekend with Louisville's waxing of Miami and West
Virginia's shellacking of Maryland.
Score that 2-0 in favor of the Big East,
which ups the league's tally over the ACC to 4-2 this season. And if it
weren't for Wake Forest's narrow wins over cellar dwellers Syracuse and
Connecticut, the Big East would be pitching a shutout.
To think we all felt sorry for Tranghese.
The irony thickens Saturday as the most
important showdown in North Carolina involves the Big East and Conference
USA, not the ACC. The spotlight will brightly shine on West Virginia and
East Carolina, two of the schools thought to have suffered most because of
ACC expansion.
For the Mountaineers, it marks the next
step in a path that is aiming in the direction of a national title. For the
Pirates, it represents another building block in the rebuilding process that
has progressed more quickly than most expected.
And the setting in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium
could be the best since Virginia Tech's Thursday night invasion in 2000.
Meanwhile, the football banter around the
Triangle has shifted to thoughts of underachievement and scenarios that
would produce coaching dismissals. Another loss in September and the
conversation turns to hoops.
It's an improbable yet perfect opportunity
for ECU to begin shifting the football tides in North Carolina. If it can
compete with the Mountaineers like it did last fall, ECU could be favored to
win each of its remaining home games and perhaps position itself for a
legitimate postseason run.
Successfully doing so could help the
Pirates close the gap with their ACC neighbors. Just like a national title
run by either West Virginia or Louisville could at least deliver some
athletics justice to the Big East.
Now, none of this is to suggest that ACC
expansion backfired on Swofford or that the Big East has the better
potential long-term. There is an ebb and flow to college football, and the
current cycle happens to favor the Big East for several reasons.
For starters, the ACC suffers from poor
play at the most important position on the field, quarterback. What's more,
perhaps no league has suffered more from early departures to the NFL.
But neither is of concern to West Virginia
or East Carolina. Their focus is firmly centered on what should prove the
most important game played on North Carolina soil this year.
That all seemed improbable when the ACC
pillaged the Big East. And it likely doesn't happen had the Big East and ECU
not regrouped and displayed a resilient vision for the future.
Send
an e-mail message to Denny O'Brien.
Click here to dig into Denny
O'Brien's Bonesville archives.
02/23/2007 02:03:22 AM |
