By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — They’ve played an awful lot of football in the Big East so far to decide so little.
Perhaps it’s fair to say they’ve eliminated the pretenders, but there remain three unbeaten teams in the conference — No. 6 Cincinnati, No. 16/17 Pitt and No. 20 West Virginia — and they have to go through their own little round robin tournament to decide who gets the BCS bid.
The deck certainly is not stacked in favor of the Mountaineers, for not only do they have to play at Cincinnati, but they must play the two most dangerous teams not in contention in the conference — South Florida this week and Rutgers to close the season — on the road.
And while South Florida has gone into its annual mid-to-late-season swoon, certainly in part because its do-everything quarterback Matt Grothe was reduced to a do-nothing quarterback by a season-ending knee injury, the Bulls remain a dangerous opponent.
“Two years ago we went there and laid an egg,” WVU Coach Bill Stewart, referring to a 21-13 loss in 2007. “We’re going into a pit, a tough environment, a sellout. I don’t know if there is a must win game, but every coach thinks every game is a must win.”
Things are no easier for Pitt, which is enjoying a bye this week after playing eight consecutive weeks coming out of camp.
“With a bye, every coach says it’s perfect timing, but this is our first one all year,” Coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We have eight to 10 players banged up and hurt but playing. This will give them a chance to rest.”
The Panthers come off the bye with a game at Syracuse, which will be tricky to get ready for because following that Pitt plays at home against Notre Dame, then at West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl and closes the season out with what could be a classic showdown at Heinz Field with Cincinnati.
And then there’s the Bearcats, who just keep rolling along. Even losing quarterback Tony Pike couldn’t slow them down, but their coach, Brian Kelly, understands that even with a high national ranking and with talk of them finding a way to get to the national championship game they have accomplished nothing yet.
He has that home game with WVU and the road game at Pitt left, along with a conference road game at Syracuse, a conference home game against UConn and a non-conference home game against Illinois of the Big Ten.
“I think we’re in a better situation than most teams,” Kelly said. “We’re going to play at least two top 20 teams down the stretch (Pitt and Cincinnati). It’s early in the race. It’s anybody’s game. We need to focus week to week.”
That they could survive and pound Louisville with Pike out and his backup Zach Collaros having a huge day, passing for 253 yards and three touchdowns, shows just how deep the Bearcats are.
Kelly maintains he doesn’t change things when one quarterback comes in for another.
“It’s different chapters of the same play book,” he said. “We have a deep volume of plays and schemes. We have things that highlight the skills of the quarterback. It goes back to my Division II playbook, where it was about the player, not the plays.”
And if nothing has been decided in the race to the BCS, little has been decided as to players of the year in the conference as Pike, WVU’s Noel Devine and Pitt’s freshman Dion Lewis have emerged as the conference’s top offensive players.
THIS ‘N THAT: ESPN couldn’t find a spot better than ESPNU for the WVU-Connecticut game but it did find a helmet sticker for you, West Virginia’s fans, for the way you honored UConn and its slain cornerback Jasper Howard on Saturday … Mountaineers swept two of the three Big East Player of the Week honors with running back Noel Devine earning the offensive award for his 178-yard rushing performance with the game-winning touchdown and kick returner Tavon Austin the special teams award for his 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the UConn game … WVU’s game with Louisville will be the Big East TV Game of the Week this week with a noon start.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
