Louisville-Rutgers a Potential Big East "Championship" Showdown

Photo courtesy of slgckgc via the flickr.com

Hello, football fans!

In an effort to expand my range of articles, i decided to use this week to take a little step back from Clemson and look at the rest of the country. With one third of the regular season in the books, many conferences are left with few, if any, undefeated teams. The most surprising conference to me is the Big East, which has three undefeated teams in Rutgers, Cincinnati, and Louisville. While not a traditional “powerhouse” conference, the Big East usually has one or two teams that rise to the national spotlight every year, like West Virginia last year. As the Mountaineers are leaving for the Big XII conference, many are wondering who will fill the void left by Dana Holgersen’s prolific offense. And I believe we have two candidates for that now: the Louisville Cardinals and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

Now, when most people hear the name “Rutgers,” they usually scoff and downplay anything that the Knights have been able to do, and I don’t blame them. Rutgers doesn’t get any national attention because they have no big-name or in-state rival (The closest that they’ve had were Princeton and Columbia.), and New Jersey is a predominantly NFL-fan state due to it being the home of the New York Jets and the New York Giants (Chalk one up for irony!). However, I don’t believe Rutgers is getting enough credit for what they’ve been able to do. I saw Rutgers play the Iowa State Cyclones in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, and one thing that stood out to me is their defense. Iowa State didn’t have a stellar record, but they had an offense that was able to come back and cause greatest upset of last season with an overtime win over #2 Oklahoma State. ISU’s offense was fast-paced and high-powered, and Rutgers shut them down. Now, they’ve found their offensive rhythm, putting Arkansas’s often prolific offense to shame on the Razorbacks’ home turf.

Louisville was my preseason pick to win the Big East for the same reason I liked Rutgers last year: the defense. Louisville has a havoc-wreaking defense that looks to demoralize offenses and capitalize on their shortcomings. Four weeks into the season, Louisville has been accomplishing that. Sure, North Carolina almost came back against them, but I feel like the Cardinals wanted to let the Tar Heels have a moral victory to take home. I watched the Louisville-Kentucky game and was blown away with how quickly Louisville took over the game; and once Louisville manages to gain control, it’s all over for the opponents.

Now, the Big East will experience major changes in the next few seasons, as teams like Syracuse and Pittsburgh are leaving the conference while teams like Boise State and San Diego State are coming in (Apparently the Big East will now have “Eastern” and “Western” divisions–more irony!). With the additional teams, the Big East will most likely have a championship game at the end of the regular season, and they should. However, this year’s match-up may be a preview of what a Big East championship could look like. The Cardinals and Knights could easily go undefeated for the rest of the season, and there is an animosity between the two, as they are “rivals,” much in the same way Clemson-Virginia Tech match-up has  become somewhat of a rivalry over the past year or so. They could be the only thing standing between their opponent and a trip to a nice bowl game in New Orleans or Miami. And as someone who grew up on the Rutgers side of this rivalry, I can assure you that each of these teams would love to be the one to spoil the other’s  perfect season. As for how this game will go, I still believe that Louisville can win it on the road as long as they are able to get accustomed to the cold weather and can keep the momentum in their favor.

Until next time, God Bless, and Go Tigers!