Big East: Week Three Overview

Week two saw the Big East enjoy one of its finest out of conference weeks since the split. Louisville and West Virginia each had more difficulty than expected in games against inferior talent, but at the end of the season, the two lackluster performances will show up as 16- and 25-point victories. Cincinnati had a dominating performance over a respectable BCS-conference foe in Oregon State (on national TV, to boot). Similarly, Rutgers had a pretty easy time handing a respectable Navy team. UConn and Pittsburgh enjoyed easy wins over lower-level teams. And, oh yeah, in case you had not heard, South Florida pulled off a program-defining victory on the road against Auburn. Only Syracuse disappointed, losing to a pretty good Iowa squad. This week features seven more out of conference games for the Big East teams, with South Florida enjoying a well-deserved week off. Let's take a quick look at what this week offers: West Virginia at Maryland (Thurs. 7:30 PM EST -- ESPN) -- Finally, a good out of conference matchup for the Mountaineers, who have sharpened up the past two weeks by soundly beating Western Michigan and Marshall. Maryland comes into this matchup with a 2-0 record, but the Terps are still largely untested with their victories coming, relatively unconvincingly, against Villanova and FIU. This will probably be Steve Slaton's best early season opportunity to jump into the Heisman Trophy conversation, as, barring a blowout, he will likely see 25+ carries for the first time this season. Something to watch for will be to see if Coach Rich Rodriguez puts Steve Slaton and freshman Noel Devine onto the field together--my guess is that we will. I think this game will be relatively close, but that we will see a handful of big plays from the Mountaineers that will make the difference. West Virginia 48, Maryland 28 Temple at Connecticut (Sat. 12:00 PM EST -- ESPN Gameplan) -- UConn enters into week three of their brutal out of conference slate by battling the mighty Temple Owls on Saturday. Once again, it is difficult to measure whether or not the Huskies are any good based on their early season schedule of Duke, Maine, and now Temple. Look for the Huskies to play tough defense against the Owls and try to keep everyone healthy for next week, when they open up Big East conference play at Pittsburgh. Connecticut 27, Temple 7 Pittsburgh at Michigan State (Sat. 12:00 PM EST -- ESPN) -- This is one of the more interesting out of conference games among Big East teams. Pittburgh has held serve and done their job during the first two weeks of the season, winning convincingly over Eastern Michigan and Grambling State. Like UConn, it is tough to get a good grasp on the Panthers, as the quality of their competition has been so poor. There is reason for Pitt fans to have some optimism with the defense , although it has been very basic in the early going, as it has shown prommise. Pitt has not shown much of a pass rush in the early going, but I think they should open things up, defensively, against inexperienced Spartans' quarterback Brian Hoyer. Offensively, freshman back LeSean McCoy has looked pretty good while running behind a less-than-impressive offensive line, but Michigan State's front seven will obviously be far superior to the types of defense Pitt has seen up to this point. This is not an un-winnable game for the Panthers, but I think MSCU has to be favored here, when you consider the homefield advantage and the fact that new head coach Mark Dantonio, with his time spent in the Big East, will be well-prepared to face Pitt. Michigan State 24, Pittsburgh 18 Illinois at Syracuse (Sat. 12:00 PM EST -- ESPNU) -- This is pretty much a must-win game for Syracuse and its head coach Greg Robinson and, on paper, it is not a stretch to consider that the Orange could beat the Illini at home. Sadly, Robinson has shown very little to indicate that he is capable of putting together a winning gameplan against even a minimally competent football team, and envisioning Robinson trying to come up with a way to stop a talented, but still rough-around-the-edges team like Illinois is something I cannot see right now. At this point, I think Syracuse will be fortunate to win more than two games this season. Illinois 27, Syracuse 13 Cincinnati at Miami (OH) (Sat. 12:00 PM EST -- ESPN Gameplan) -- All of a sudden, Cincinnati looks well-positioned to join the upper half of the Big East. With the win over Oregon State providing some validation for the Bearcats, they now enter a stretch of three very winnable out of conference games (at Miami (OH), Marshall, and at SDSU) before playing their first Big East game, at Rutgers on October 6th. If the Bearcats are able to take care of business, and look reasonably impressive doing so, they would be 5-0 entering that matchup against the Scarlet Knights and could very well be ranked. As previously mentioned, I think Brian Kelly is an excellent fit at UC and the program appears to be on the way up. So, even though this is a rivalry game that could be tricky for the Bearcats, I like their chances to go undefeated before beginning Big East play. Cincinnati 24, Miami (OH) 13 Norfolk State at Rutgers (Sat. 3:30 PM EST -- ESPN Gameplan) -- Rugers gets a tune-up against a lower level team before playing Maryland on September 29th. Not much to see here, but one thing to watch is how many touches Ray Rice gets in this game. It is nice that head coach Greg Schiano is featuring the Heisman candidate, but Rice already has more than 60 carries in his first two games--both of which were blowouts. I can appreciate the head coach doing what he can to make Rice produce gawdy stats, but I feel like he would be better served, in the long-run, by letting Rice get his work in and then getting him out of the game, so he can avoid the physical grind of being hit more than two-dozen times per game in blowouts. Rutgers 38, Norfolk State 6 Louisville at Kentucky (Sat. 7:30 PM EST -- ESPN Classic) -- We talked about this game a bit in our ITB podcast this week, as it is one of our games of the week. I think everyone agrees to take the over in this game, as the scoreboard is going to be working overtime with these two fantastic offenses playing against subpar defenses. I especially like Louisville to take advantage of the talent that wide receivers Harry Douglas and Mario Urrutia have over the Kentucky defensive backfield. The Wildcats have narrowed the talent gap significantly over the past few seasons and have the advantage of hosting the game in Lexington, but I still think Louisville is one of the top eight teams in the nation. Louisville 52, Kentucky 42 Last Week Record (8-0); Season Record (15-1)