Is the Big East in Big Trouble?

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, February 03, 2006  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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Let me preface this by saying that all the hoopla about National Signing Day is often misleading. Every college footbal program has stories about recruits who were largely ignored by other schools, then turned into solid college players -- even NFL stars. Conversely, some of the most-hyped high school stars turned out to be busts at the next level.

Predicting college football "futures" is much less of an exact science than in basketball, where summer camps give most of the top prospects a chance to play against equal or better talent. It's still possible for someone like Chicago Bears' linebacker Brian Urlacher to slip below the radar in a place like Farmington, NM.

Nevertheless, tracking where the top 100 high school players sign every year is a reasonably good indicator of what schools are "hot" as far as 18 and 19-year-old athletes are concerned. And in that regard, the Big East did about as well Monday as Neil Diamond on a hip-hop chart.

If you consider four stars (in this case, thus administered by CNN/Sports Illustrated) to be equal to stud status, most of the Big East is a recruiting wasteland. The conference signed 18 players of that caliber, but 13 of those came from Pittsburgh (9) and Louisville (14).

That's a plus for Dave Wannstedt's Panthers, who were more like house cats in 2005, and for Louisville Cardinals head coach Bobby Petrino's constant search for a more high-profile job, but a slap in the face to the rest of the league. Only five other four-star players cast their lot with the Big East -- two to Syracuse, one each to Cincinnati, South Florida and West Virginia.

West Virginia may have been the biggest disappointment. Despite beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in January, the Mountaineers could entice only one highly-recruited player -- DE Ryan Brinson of Hargrave Military in Chatham, VA -- to Morgantown.

Contrast the Big East's recruiting haul to that of the Atlantic Coast Conference, which fishes from the same East Coast pond and received commitments from 46 four-stars.

It gets worse. Only three Big East teams played in bowls last year, and two of them lost. The overall conference record was 48-44 -- 37-43 when you take away 11-1 West Virginia.

Syracuse is a good example of the league's decline. As recently as 1999, the Orange were playing in the Sugar Bowl against Florida. Last season, even with the energy added by new coach Greg Robinson, SU went 1-10.

Excuses abound. The defection of first Virginia Tech and Miami, then Boston College, wounded the Big East deeply -- maybe even fatally. Another problem, as the real estate people love to say, is location, location, location. Morgantown, Storrs, Ct and Piscataway, NJ aren't exactly places high schoolers grow up yearning to visit. Syracuse has a storied football past, but that means little to today's recruits, who are probably more concerned with the city's average 120 inches of snow.

League newcomer South Florida is an unknown quantity, but the Bulls have to wait in line for prospects behind Florida, Miami, and Florida State. Although Pitt and Cincinnati are located in rich football talent areas, the best players in those areas have been going elsewhere.

Where have you gone, Tony Dorsett? Dan Marino? Curtis Martin? Marvin Harrison? Donovan McNabb? Today, the top players in the Big East area have consistently signed with schools in other conferences, a trend borne out by National Signing Day.

On the other hand, it's February -- so don't mess with the Big East in basketball.
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