mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida. Nor should they. Right now, it's ABC/ESPN still considers Texas Tech - Nevada a better game. People saying it's better than OSU-Houston, Texas-UTEP, Texas A&M-New Mexico. 3 years ago, I could have told you OK-Cincy would be better than those 3 games. It's more than 3 years away from competiting with Miami - Florida.
The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

Bearcats#1 Wrote:Over on the Oklahoma Scout board the fans have voted their best nonconference game is vs UC next year and some have said they better not go into the game cocky or they will suffer defeat to the Cats....then again, Oklahoma fans are typically great fans and don't try and tell everyone they know how great they are (like O$U Bucknad fans do for example)

That's true, though, to OSU fans credit, the last couple of times we have play them, especially when UC went up to OSU 2 years ago, the fans were very nervous about UC. Oklahoma fans are great fans, as are Oregon State fans. I enjoy playing those schools.

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida. Nor should they. Right now, it's ABC/ESPN still considers Texas Tech - Nevada a better game. People saying it's better than OSU-Houston, Texas-UTEP, Texas A&M-New Mexico. 3 years ago, I could have told you OK-Cincy would be better than those 3 games. It's more than 3 years away from competiting with Miami - Florida.
The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

Cincinnati is coming off a Top 25 season, and finished with 10 wins and a #17 ranking, and they're returning a large chunk of the team. I guarantee you that when the season starts Cincinnati/Oklahoma will be on ABC/ESPN unless something contractually blocks it. We don't need you to temper our expectations, we're big kids, we'll do fine without you. Oh, and Cincinnati at Oklahoma is a marquee matchup. Heck, if you used CBS' poll (which is one of the nationally respected polls) it would be #25 Cincinnati at #3 Oklahoma in a battle of nationally ranked BCS programs.

Please please please please...I'm still holding out a shred of hope that we will have Mauk for the game vs OU and the season......

rferry Wrote:The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

And ACC fan feeling the need to "temper" our expectations is crazy. But I had to highlight thing because you said that Big East was getting better "slowly". 3 years ago, the Big East had two ranked teams, Louisville and WVU, shaky bowl alignment, a tiny television contract, no national respect, was on the verge of losing its BCS bid, and no quality non-conference wins. Since then the Big East has one numerous huge non-conference games, are 3-0 in BCS bowl games, have solidified their bowls, have a new quarter of a billion dollar television package, have averaged 3 ranked teams per year the last 3 years and had have every team except Syracuse ranked at some point, over that period. The national media have given the Big East major respect instead of tearing down the conference. I just get the feeling that your desire to "temper expectations" is just another way of saying "I'm concerned that the Big East has become a major BCS conference and I don't want Big East fans to think like that".

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida. Nor should they. Right now, it's ABC/ESPN still considers Texas Tech - Nevada a better game. People saying it's better than OSU-Houston, Texas-UTEP, Texas A&M-New Mexico. 3 years ago, I could have told you OK-Cincy would be better than those 3 games. It's more than 3 years away from competiting with Miami - Florida.
The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

TT-Nevada wasn't a Big 12 choice, it was chosen as part of the WAC television contract as the game is in Reno, not Lubbock (Same with UT-UTEP as its in El Paso as part of C-USAs contract). Since Reno is on Pacific time, it could air at 10:30pm on ESPN2. None of the three WAC games that have ABC as an option are guaranteed for ABC.

Miami-Florida cannot air on ABC. It is a Florida home game and must air either on CBS or ESPN. Since CBS has US Open tennis that weekend, ESPN seems likely for a night game as UF tends to put up a fight when any network tries to air one of their games in the afternoon in September due to heat concerns.

As for WVU-ECU, its already on ESPN/ESPN2, probably at 12pm since the USF-UCF game is at 7pm.

GT-BC would probably air on ABC/ESPN at 3:30pm as the Oregon St.-Penn St. game has to air to the entire nation, either in full on ABC or regionally on ABC and to the rest of the nation on ESPN/ESPN2. GT-BC would probably air on ESPN in the markets showing OR St.-PSU on ABC.

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Please tell me you DID NOT just call matt out on TV games and what games networks are likely or not likely to show?!?

Quote:Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida.

Actually, some are. It's a possible match-up of two Top 25 teams, one of which is being touted as a likely Top 5 team. I'll give you that Miami-Florida is a better 'name' match-up but I'd hardly consider PSU-Oregon State better.

Now, if it were Oklahoma-West Virginia, it would be better than either of the other two match-ups.

Again, get over it. The Big East has come some distance since the Fall of 2005.

Quote:The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

While I don't necessarily disagree with that particular message (although I would challenge your emphasis on slowly), you being the messenger is just not flying around these parts.

Ease up son, show more respect, or you are likely to have a short stay.

Cheers,
Neil

CatsClaw Wrote:rferry is just the typical ACC fan that can't stand the fact that the Big East is actually getting national respect. He's sitting there trying to twist the article that Cincinnati isn't really getting respect. Yet Oklahoma mentioned Cincinnati by name as one of their new marquee non-conference games when the home-and-home series was announced last season. And Cincinnati is coming off a Top 20 season, and are in many people's preseason Top 25. I guess he can't handle Cincinnati and the Big East getting some national pub.

I'm sure Sooner fans are worried about Cincinnati. They are a good team, and Oklahoma has lost 2 bowls games they were heavily favored in to good teams that were underappreciated. UC certainly qualifies in the underappreciated column.

The question is, will they beat Oklahoma? I hope so. That would be huge for The BEast. It would be as big as USF's victory over Auburn last year.

mattsarz Wrote:While Texas Tech deserves the crap it gets for OOC scheduling, the EWU game was a last minute change from a game against Tulsa. Tulsa backed out of the game in January to play a money game at Arkansas. They had no intention of playing two FCS teams, unlike Clemson and Florida St., who scheduled with that intention because they were losing out on a home game by playing a neutral site game (Clemson vs. Alabama at Atlanta, FSU vs. Colorado at Jacksonville).

And its not like the Big 12 isn't holding its own when it comes to results in the BCS bowl games. As a conference, they are 9-9 since their formation with 2.5 national championships (OU 2000, Texas 2005, Nebraska split championship 1997) if I counted right.

As for their scheduling, both FSN/TBS and ABC put tremendous pressure on the Big 12 a few years ago regarding the scheduling because they wanted to use some of their telecast windows on OOC games and many of the games weren't worth televising, with FSN putting more pressure aon them than ABC since ABC gets the 1st telecast choice. The Big 12 didn't allow multiple telecasts to occur in the same telecast window (ie. only one televised game at a time), so FSN had the rights to carry a minimum of 19 games and are limited by the time slots that they can televise a game, FSN often got stuck with some real clunkers in the early season.

Yes, Arkansas offered Tulsa $950,000 and Tulsa took it by canceling out Texas Tech. Texas Tech fans were livid...but Texas Tech canceled out Tulsa of a previously scheduled game and the livid Red Raider fans had forgotten all about that. Also, TU officials pointed out there were some nice BCS opponents needing a game and could play Texas Tech who chose not to schedule any of them. TU officials just didn't do the cancelation without looking at the alternatives available for TT. My guess is that this Arkansas game is a one time money game. Tulsa dropped Arkansas some years ago because the Pigs refused to play an occasional game in Tulsa.

FWIW, Army also canceled out Tulsa as the Black Knights seek to lighten up their schedule; this caused TU to scramble to find a home game replacement and ended up with I-AA Central Arkansas.

Kansas also just canceled a scheduled home and home with Tulsa.

Tulsa generally has been scheduling home and home. The two exceptions are Oklahoma and Oklahoma State which are 2-1 but they have also agreed to play Tulsa in basketball.

Last year, Tulsa played a very good Oklahoma team, a very good team in BYU, plus ULM and Army. I think this is the type of nonconference schedule Tulsa will play in the future. If Army had not canceled and Arkansas dangled $950,000, Tulsa's nonconference schedule would have been @Texas Tech, Army, @UNT, and New Mexico. For both years, the nonconference games have been competitive and interesting without being overwhelming. Tulsa, other than Arkansas, has not schedule a body bag schedule nor a bunch of weak teams but has gone down the middle on scheduling, that is, two good very competitive games...and two winnable games.

mattsarz Wrote:

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida. Nor should they. Right now, it's ABC/ESPN still considers Texas Tech - Nevada a better game. People saying it's better than OSU-Houston, Texas-UTEP, Texas A&M-New Mexico. 3 years ago, I could have told you OK-Cincy would be better than those 3 games. It's more than 3 years away from competiting with Miami - Florida.
The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

TT-Nevada wasn't a Big 12 choice, it was chosen as part of the WAC television contract as the game is in Reno, not Lubbock (Same with UT-UTEP as its in El Paso as part of C-USAs contract). Since Reno is on Pacific time, it could air at 10:30pm on ESPN2. None of the three WAC games that have ABC as an option are guaranteed for ABC.

Miami-Florida cannot air on ABC. It is a Florida home game and must air either on CBS or ESPN. Since CBS has US Open tennis that weekend, ESPN seems likely for a night game as UF tends to put up a fight when any network tries to air one of their games in the afternoon in September due to heat concerns.

As for WVU-ECU, its already on ESPN/ESPN2, probably at 12pm since the USF-UCF game is at 7pm.

GT-BC would probably air on ABC/ESPN at 3:30pm as the Oregon St.-Penn St. game has to air to the entire nation, either in full on ABC or regionally on ABC and to the rest of the nation on ESPN/ESPN2. GT-BC would probably air on ESPN in the markets showing OR St.-PSU on ABC.

Thanks for clearing that up matts, obviously you're the go-to guy on this matter! :)

omnicarrier Wrote:

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Please tell me you DID NOT just call matt out on TV games and what games networks are likely or not likely to show?!?

Quote:Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida.

Actually, some are. It's a possible match-up of two Top 25 teams, one of which is being touted as a likely Top 5 team. I'll give you that Miami-Florida is a better 'name' match-up but I'd hardly consider PSU-Oregon State better.

Now, if it were Oklahoma-West Virginia, it would be better than either of the other two match-ups.

Again, get over it. The Big East has come some distance since the Fall of 2005.

Quote:The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

While I don't necessarily disagree with that particular message (although I would challenge your emphasis on slowly), you being the messenger is just not flying around these parts.

Ease up son, show more respect, or you are likely to have a short stay.

Cheers,
Neil

I find it funny though that he says the Big East is SLOWLY getting better yet doesn't acknowledge the fact that the ACC is SLOWLY getting worse.

The BEast isn't moving slowly. We went from life support (NCAA's Big East Rule for BCS certification), transfusion (adding UC, UofL, & USF in football), off life support (Sugar and Orange Bowl victories by WVU and UofL), to contending in the national debate (WVU) in 3 years.

Name another conference that has done the same. I dare you...

And Cincinnati, USF, Connecticut and Rutgers getting into the Top 25 have helped add credibility to those WVU and Louisville BCS bowl wins. It shows they weren't playing in a weak conference. Major thanks to Rutgers by the way, who was the first one to rise to national prominence and make Louisville and WVU look better early.

The race to see who would end up winning the automatic BCS bid was great for The BEast. I think we got screwed though. We should have gotten 2 bids that year.

mattsarz Wrote:

rferry Wrote:mattsarz, Oregon State - Penn State is scheduled for lucrative 3:30 ABC/ESPN slot already. FL-Miami is probably the back-up. Best case is for one of the ESPN slots. It will be competiting with WV-ECU, GATech - BC, MS - WF for the east region. There's really nothing going on in the midwest that week so it may stand a good chance.
BTW, at least 1 of those not so decent Big 12 - non-BCS matchups has been selected to air on September 6th: Texas Tech - Nevada on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Texas - UTEP has also been selected for ESPN2.

Omnicarrier, no one is saying it's on par with Oregon State - Penn State or Miami - Florida. Nor should they. Right now, it's ABC/ESPN still considers Texas Tech - Nevada a better game. People saying it's better than OSU-Houston, Texas-UTEP, Texas A&M-New Mexico. 3 years ago, I could have told you OK-Cincy would be better than those 3 games. It's more than 3 years away from competiting with Miami - Florida.
The Big East is getting better. Slowly. I feel compelled to temper the expectations by some.

TT-Nevada wasn't a Big 12 choice, it was chosen as part of the WAC television contract as the game is in Reno, not Lubbock (Same with UT-UTEP as its in El Paso as part of C-USAs contract). Since Reno is on Pacific time, it could air at 10:30pm on ESPN2. None of the three WAC games that have ABC as an option are guaranteed for ABC.

Miami-Florida cannot air on ABC. It is a Florida home game and must air either on CBS or ESPN. Since CBS has US Open tennis that weekend, ESPN seems likely for a night game as UF tends to put up a fight when any network tries to air one of their games in the afternoon in September due to heat concerns.

As for WVU-ECU, its already on ESPN/ESPN2, probably at 12pm since the USF-UCF game is at 7pm.

GT-BC would probably air on ABC/ESPN at 3:30pm as the Oregon St.-Penn St. game has to air to the entire nation, either in full on ABC or regionally on ABC and to the rest of the nation on ESPN/ESPN2. GT-BC would probably air on ESPN in the markets showing OR St.-PSU on ABC.

Matt, all due respect but the only reason why ABC is considering snatching 1 of the WAC's ESPN or ESPN2 games is because TX Tech. Same with the Wisconsin @ Fresno State game a week later. ABC is under no obligation to broadcast the WAC that week or any other. Nor is ESPN and ESPN2 as the contract is only for a minimum of 8 games over 15 weeks.

rferry Wrote:Matt, all due respect but the only reason why ABC is considering snatching 1 of the WAC's ESPN or ESPN2 games is because TX Tech. Same with the Wisconsin @ Fresno State game a week later. ABC is under no obligation to broadcast the WAC that week or any other. Nor is ESPN and ESPN2 as the contract is only for a minimum of 8 games over 15 weeks.

I don't disagree with you on either point and you are correct on the WAC minimum.

CatsClaw Wrote:

omnicarrier Wrote:

rferry Wrote:What it means is that OK-Cincy is the only decent match-up that week. If it makes it to TV, it won't be on the merit of the contest, but of the conference's TV contract and lack of decent games. It doesn't mean it's a marquee game. It's the best of the worst, or the "marquee" of the not so "decent". It's not a compliment. It shouldn't be taken as the writer having respect for Cincy unless you thought it was behind Houston, Rice and UTEP before this article. I certainly didn't.

Of course, the above is both true and idiotic. MOST weeks have many more bad match-ups than marquee match-ups that stick out.

So, the Oklahoma-Cincinnati match-up may indeed be the best match-up (or may simply tie for, or even be slightly behind the best) in a week that also includes Miami-Florida and Oregon St-Penn State.

But three years ago, would anyone have even considered a Sooners-Bearcats match-up anywhere on the same level as the other two?

Of course not.

You keeping hanging on with half-truths, but keep missing the overall mark by a mile.

It's not 2005 anymore. The Big East has grown some in the past three years - to the point where national magazines can pick 3 or 4 of their teams to be in the Top 25 and ABC/ESPN can show their games without anyone blinking.

Are they still behind the other 5 super-conferences in terms of perception, performance, and dollars? Of course. But they are much closer now than they were in the beginning of 2005. And in that growth spurt they are now closer to the ACC (the bottom rung of the other 5 in football) in terms of perception and performance than the next best non-auto-bid conference is to the Big East.

Cheers,
Neil

rferry is just the typical ACC fan that can't stand the fact that the Big East is actually getting national respect. He's sitting there trying to twist the article that Cincinnati isn't really getting respect. Yet Oklahoma mentioned Cincinnati by name as one of their new marquee non-conference games when the home-and-home series was announced last season. And Cincinnati is coming off a Top 20 season, and are in many people's preseason Top 25. I guess he can't handle Cincinnati and the Big East getting some national pub. As omni mentioned, it's not 2005 rferry. Try joining the rest of us in 2008.

Do you mean this announcement? http://www.soonersports.com/sports/m-foo...07aac.html
"Cincinnati's program is moving in a positive direction and we know that these will be competitive games." could be the only thing you confused with marquee program. Compare that to their announcements for Ohio State or the Pac-10 schools. Are you sure you're not confusing Cincy calling Oklahoma as a marquee program?

I don't come here to represent the ACC. My post history clearly shows that. I came here to discuss Big East football, Notre Dame and the future of the Big East. Why? Mainly because it's interesting topic. However, I've come across opinions that I've rarely heard on the scout, rivals or collegesportsinfo boards by BE fans. And some opinions that I clearly disagree with.
You're absolutely right that the Big East has accomplished a lot since realignment. But I feel I'm also right in saying it has a long way to go before it separate from BE basketball or compete with the other 5 for TV contracts and national rep. Just keep winning, keep building the programs and league and eventually you'll get there.

bitcruncher Wrote:The BEast isn't moving slowly. We went from life support (NCAA's Big East Rule for BCS certification), transfusion (adding UC, UofL, & USF in football), off life support (Sugar and Orange Bowl victories by WVU and UofL), to contending in the national debate (WVU) in 3 years.

Name another conference that has done the same. I dare you...

No one considered WV a worthy national title contender. The talk was that they did not deserve to be in the discussion. Many teams did not deserve to be in the discussion, but static about WV and BE was particularly loud. At least in ACC and B10 land. Can't imagine the SEC press was any better.

mattsarz Wrote:They had no intention of playing two FCS teams, unlike Clemson and Florida St., who scheduled with that intention because they were losing out on a home game by playing a neutral site game (Clemson vs. Alabama at Atlanta, FSU vs. Colorado at Jacksonville).

Clemson is playing two FCS teams because La Tech bought out of the game @ Shreveport to play Army. SC State wasn't added until the last possible second before releasing the 2008 schedule.

rferry Wrote:I don't come here to represent the ACC. My post history clearly shows that. I came here to discuss Big East football, Notre Dame and the future of the Big East. Why? Mainly because it's interesting topic. However, I've come across opinions that I've rarely heard on the scout, rivals or collegesportsinfo boards by BE fans. And some opinions that I clearly disagree with.
You're absolutely right that the Big East has accomplished a lot since realignment. But I feel I'm also right in saying it has a long way to go before it separate from BE basketball or compete with the other 5 for TV contracts and national rep. Just keep winning, keep building the programs and league and eventually you'll get there.

Rferry, you do realize you are mostly responding to posters who not only frequent those same BE rivals and scout boards but who have been doing so for many more years than you have?

Unless of course you have changed your handle over time - and we all know unannounced changed handles are usually the result of bad posting history.

Anyway, back on point. I think posters like CatsClaw and myself are far more in tune with what is being said by BE fans about the league on these other boards - both the negative and the positive. And I, for one, can tell you that if you truly have been paying attention to what fans are writing on those boards - very little you see here should come as a shock to you. If it is, then you are reading the posts on those boards through an anti-Big East filter which only acknowledges the slights to the league and not the support for it.

Sure you have posters at certain schools who pine away for membership in the ACC, the Big Ten, or the SEC. But for the most part, those posters are brought back to reality by fans who prefer to be in the Big East and want the school that they root for to continue to grow in, and with, the BE conference.

I have concluded that your very short stay here so far has been of extremely limited value. I hope to see better efforts from you in the future.

Cheers,
Neil