ESPN College Football

Pittsburgh has announced its nonconference schedules for the next four seasons. Here's the list, with dates subject to change:

2010

Sept. 4: New Hampshire

Sept. 11: at Utah

Sept. 25: Miami

Oct. 2: Florida International

Oct. 9: at Notre Dame

2011

Sept. 3: Buffalo

Sept. 10: Maine

Sept. 17: at Iowa

Sept. 24: Notre Dame

Oct. 15: Utah

2012

Sept. 1: TBA

Sept. 8: Central Florida

Sept. 15: Virginia Tech

Oct. 6: at Buffalo

Nov. 3 at Notre Dame

2013

Aug. 31: Villanova

Sept. 14: at Virginia Tech

Sept. 21: NC State

Oct. 26: Navy

Nov. 9: Notre Dame

One thing that's held Pitt back a little bit this year has been its schedule; the Panthers haven't played any Top 25 teams out of conference and lost to NC State on the road. But clearly they have upgraded their schedules for the future. Next year's slate with Utah, Notre Dame and Miami is top notch and is the kind of nonconference schedule that could get Pitt into the BCS title mix if it could produce results like this year. The game at Iowa in 2011 will be difficult, and the home-and-home with Virginia Tech starting in 2012 is another test/opportunity.

I think the best way to build a Big East schedule with the five nonconference games is to have one FCS opponent, one lower-level FBS team, one strong non-BCS school and two BCS opponents with high name recognition. Pitt seems to be following this approach.

It looks like Dorin Dickerson may be the Big East's best chance to win a major award this season.

The Pittsburgh senior was named one of three finalists today for the John Mackey Award, which is presented to the nation's top tight end. The other two finalists are Florida's Aaron Hernandez and BYU's Dennis Pitta.

Dickerson has had an outstanding season for the No. 9 Panthers, leading them with 43 catches and 10 touchdowns, to go along with 496 yards.

One of the other finalists has a Big East connection as well. Hernandez is from Connecticut and is the younger brother of D.J. Hernandez, who was a quarterback and receiver at UConn.

Randy Edsall didn't tell his team this, but he had planned to send a game ball to Jasper Howard's mother and stepfather once Connecticut won its first game after Howard's death. He didn't know he'd have to wait so long to do it.

The Huskies lost their first three games after Howard was stabbed to death on Oct. 18, all in late, heartbreaking fashion.

"We had been working very, very hard to get a win for Jazz and his family," Edsall said. "Each week it went by, it seemed like there was a little bit more burden upon us to get that done."

That's why Edsall was so emotional following his team's 33-30 double-overtime win at Notre Dame on Saturday, dedicating the win to the Howards. He said Monday that the game ball will be decorated and sent to the Howard family later this week.

The Huskies dashed out to celebrate with Andre Dixon after his touchdown run in the second overtime sealed the win. It was a joyous locker room for a team that had gone through so much difficulty. But UConn's players didn't see it as a shock-the-world moment. After all, they had played two Top 10 teams (Pitt and Cincinnati) down to the wire on the road earlier this season.

"We didn't consider it an upset," Edsall said. "We thought we could go in there and win."

Still, it's one thing to think you can do it and another to actually pull it off, especially after five gut-wrenching losses in the final minutes this season.

"This should help our confidence," Edsall said. "You keep getting into the games and lose those close ones, and to get one, I think, will boost everybody's morale and confidence up."

Perhaps the most impressive improvement last week was the play of UConn's secondary, especially young cornerbacks Blidi Wreh-Wilson and Dwayne Gratz. The two redshirt freshman got picked on by Cincinnati two weeks early as the Huskies allowed 480 passing yards and 47 points in that defeat.

Notre Dame put up good passing numbers, but Wreh-Wilson and Gratz slowed down star receivers Golden Tate and Michael Floyd when it mattered; after the third play of the second quarter, the Irish scored only one more touchdown in regulation.

"We were all over them in practice, just in terms of being physical and get your hands on people and doing those things," Edsall said. "And they went and did that. They're two young kids that grew up big time."

UConn (5-5, 1-4 Big East) plays host to Syracuse this week and should be heavily favored, even though the Orange are coming off a big win over Rutgers. The Huskies get South Florida at home on Dec. 5 and still need one more victory to clinch bowl eligibility.

They may have ensured themselves a league bowl slot as well by beating Notre Dame and making it more likely that the Irish won't take the Big East's Gator Bowl bid. That's another thing that Edsall knew about going into the game but didn't share with his team because he thought it would put too much pressure on the players. But now everyone in the league can celebrate with the Huskies.

"By us winning, I think everybody in the Big East conference benefited from that," he said.

Big East blogger Brian Bennett takes an early look at the week ahead.

• UConn coach Randy Edsall said Big East coordinator of officials Terry McAuley told him that both of the two late holding calls against the Huskies at Notre Dame were incorrect, Justin Verrier writes in the Hartford Courant. Both calls wiped out Andre Dixon runs that could have ended the game in regulation.
• Pitt has found the right defensive scheme to stop West Virginia's offense the past two years, Paul Zeise writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• The Mountaineers have had a revolving door on defense, Dave Hickman says in the Charleston Gazette.
• B.J. Daniels' record-setting day stemmed from a simpler game plan, Greg Auman writes in the St. Petersburg Times.
• Doug Marrone and his staff had a great game plan against Rutgers. The Syracuse Post-Standard's Dave Rahme dissects the decisions that worked.
• Rutgers coach Greg Schiano put the blame squarely on himself for the Syracuse loss, Brendan Prunty reports in The Star-Ledger.

Louisville running back Victor Anderson has had a tough season while dealing with an assortment of injuries. Now the sophomore will be shut down for the year because of a broken clavicle.

Coach Steve Kragthorpe said on the Big East coaches teleconference that Anderson would have surgery Tuesday and would miss the season finale against Rutgers. Anderson left the Syracuse game two weeks ago with the clavicle injury.

Kragthorpe said the team had put off the surgery, hoping Anderson would recover if the Cardinals could qualify for a bowl. But Saturday's loss to South Florida was the team's seventh defeat, ending any hopes for the postseason.

Anderson was the Big East's newcomer of the year in 2008 after rushing for 1,047 yards and eight touchdowns as a redshirt freshman. He'll end this year with 473 yards and five touchdowns in eight games.

In his absence, Louisville has gotten contributions from redshirt freshman Darius Ashley (416 yards, three touchdowns) and junior Bilal Powell (394 yards, four scores).

"We've lost some of that explosiveness and game-breaking ability without Vic," Kragthorpe said. "But we've got some great young tailbacks here."

Each Monday from now until the regular season ends, we'll present the case for every legitimate BCS title contender. My job is to present Cincinnati's case:

The Bearcats were off last week and stayed at No. 5 in the BCS standings. TCU has nothing left to prove and can only be hurt in the computer numbers this week by playing 1-10 New Mexico. Cincinnati has a chance to move ahead of the Horned Frogs by beating Illinois and No. 9 Pittsburgh in the final two weeks.

Cincinnati fans should also be rooting hard for Oregon State in the Civil War game versus Oregon this week. If the Beavers win that game, they'll claim the Pac-10 title. And the Bearcats' win in Corvallis back in September would then be more impressive than anything TCU or Texas has done before the Pitt game is even counted. How could anyone say that an undefeated Big East champ who beat the Pac-10 champ on the road doesn't deserve at least a shot at the national title?

The computers certainly think the Bearcats are worthy. Right now, Cincinnati ranks No. 3 in the aggregate average of the six computer rankings that comprise the BCS formula, trailing only Alabama and Florida. In fact, half of those computer services -- Jeff Sagarin, Kenneth Massey and Peter Wolfe -- have the Bearcats ranked No. 2 in the country, ahead of Florida and behind only Alabama.

Cincinnati's BCS computer percentage of .920 has a significant edge on both TCU (.870) and Texas (.880).

Brian Kelly's team still needs to win out, and doing so impressively wouldn't hurt. If so, then at 12-0 the Bearcats would be just as worthy as anyone else of playing for the national title.

1. Cincinnati (10-0, 6-0 Big East): The Bearcats have been No. 1 in these rankings ever since Labor Day and did nothing on their bye week to change that status.

2. Pittsburgh (9-1, 5-0): The Panthers didn't play last week. They could take this week off if they wanted to and still play for the Big East title on Dec. 5.

3. West Virginia (7-3, 3-2): The Mountaineers -- yawn -- were off last week, too. But they move up after the Rutgers fiasco. A 9-3 finish with a win over Pitt would look a lot better than 8-4 or 7-5 at this point.

4. UConn (5-5, 1-4): The Huskies have only one league win, but nobody would want to play them at this point. The oft-quoted statistic is that UConn's five losses came by a total of 15 points; three of its wins came by a total of 18 points.

T-5. Rutgers (7-3, 2-3): What exactly was that on Saturday, Scarlet Knights? You had worked so hard to establish a small semblance of credibility, which is now gone after an 18-point loss at Syracuse.

T-5. South Florida (7-3, 3-3): Yes, Rutgers thrashed South Florida 31-0 less than two weeks ago. But these two teams seem very similar, in that you'd trust them at home but would never bank on them beating a good team on the road.

7. Louisville (4-7, 1-5): One thing you can say for the Cardinals this year: they haven't been truly blown out of any game except those against Cincinnati and Pitt, who are both in the Top 10. It's not enough to save Steve Kragthorpe's job, however.

8. Syracuse (4-7, 1-5): I thought the ceiling for this team at the beginning of the season was five wins. The Orange are one upset of UConn away from bumping their heads on that.

In ye olden days:

Team of the week: Connecticut. Good for the Huskies for finally getting over the hump and winning a close game, their first since the Jasper Howard death. And good for the Big East, since Notre Dame may now be out of the Gator Bowl picture.

Best game: What is it about Notre Dame that brings out the great games from Big East teams? Last year, Pitt won in quadruple overtime and Syracuse mounted a furious fourth-quarter rally to pull the upset. This year, Pitt held off a late Notre Dame charge to win at home, and on Saturday, UConn won 33-30 in double overtime.

At least we now know why the Irish will never join the Big East: they'd go winless in league play.

Biggest play: Jordan Todman's 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the third quarter at South Bend. That tied the game at 17 and gave UConn the spark it needed to believe.

Best call: To Syracuse coach Doug Marrone, for confusing Rutgers with an array of pre-snap motion on offense and blitzing from all angles on defense. The Scarlet Knights never saw it coming -- and nobody but Marrone saw a 31-13 Orange victory coming.

Big Man on Campus (Offense): After probably his worst game of the year at Rutgers, South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels bounced back with a record-setting performance against Louisville. He produced 445 total yards and became the first Big East player ever to throw for 300 yards and run for 100 yards in the same game.

Big Man on Campus (Defense): Syracuse lost playmaking linebacker Derrell Smith to injury early last week. So Doug Hogue stepped things up in a big way. He had a single-game school-record 6.5 tackles for loss against Rutgers, including 3.5 sacks.

Big Man on Campus (Special teams): Todman, for his kick return mentioned above.

Worst hangover: Rutgers. Sure, the 7-2 record was mostly a product of a crummy schedule. But the Scarlet Knights appeared to be building toward something after wins over UConn and South Florida. They were even thinking about a 10-win season and perhaps one of the better Big East bowls. Instead, after the horrible showing at Syracuse, nothing they do the rest of the way will get them much more respect, and they'll be ticketed yet again for a minor postseason destination like Toronto.


(Read full post)

• B.J. Daniels, QB, South Florida: The redshirt freshman accounted for 445 yards of total offense and became the first player in Big East history to run for more than 100 yards (he had 141) and pass for more than 300 (he had 305) in the same game. He also scored three times in the Bulls' 34-22 win over Louisville.
• Jordan Todman, RB, Connecticut: Todman ran for 130 yards and a score on 26 carries and also returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown in the Huskies' 33-30 double-overtime win at Notre Dame.
• Andre Dixon, RB, Connecticut: Todman's backfield mate added 114 yards on the ground, plus all 25 yards on the winning drive of the second overtime.
• Doug Hogue, LB, Syracuse: Hogue broke a school record with 6.5 tackles for loss, including 3.5 sacks, in the Orange's 31-13 upset of Rutgers.
• Syracuse's offensive line: The Orange offensive front allowed the team to rush for 213 yards and have 40:01 minutes of possession in the win.