Connecticut has always been known as a basketball school. The Huskies had a brief successful run under Randy Edsall a few years ago, but the past couple years have been small steps backward for this football program.
It seemed Syracuse had entered the national stage when they dominated nationally-ranked West Virginia 49-23 last year in October. The win took the team to 5-2, and they looked like a team that could win the Big East. Instead, Syracuse confusingly lost its last five games to go 5-7 and miss out on a bowl berth.
After a seven-year absence the Temple Owls are back in the Big East. Temple never dominated the MAC the way many thought it could, but the last couple years Temple started to look like a program that could make a serious move. Unfortunately, Temple has to replace several key letter winners this year.
The Todd Graham era at Pittsburgh lasted less than 12 months. Graham left Pittsburgh after one season to be the Head Coach at Arizona State. Pittsburgh Panthers fans were not fond at all of the way Graham left, and you can’t blame them one bit.
For the fourth time in the last five years the Cincinnati Bearcats finished with double digits in wins in 2011. The Bearcats went just 4-8 in Butch Jones’ first year, but they went 10-3 and beat Vanderbilt in the Liberty Bowl at the end of the season. Cincinnati made a big move in 2011, but they return just 11 starters from that team.
South Florida started the 2011 season 4-0 before falling apart and losing 7 of their last 8 games. The team lost four games by a field goal, so there were plenty of close calls. In fact, Coach Skip Holtz called it by far his most frustrating season ever as a coach.
Greg Schiano was a legend at Rutgers for putting the football program back on the map. He broke a lot of hearts when he left to coach the Tampa Bay Bucs after last season. You can’t really blame the guy for taking an NFL job over a Big East college football job, but the Scarlet Knights program was definitely disappointed.
Heading into the 2011 season, no one expected much of anything from the Louisville Cardinals. Louisville finished with 5-2 record, which tied for the best mark in the Big East.
Syracuse had a very strong football program until the middle of the last decade, when the school hired Greg Robinson and he made the switch to a West Coast offense.
It has been a quiet postseason party scene in Louisville, Kentucky since 2006, when the Cardinals played Wake Forest in the Orange Bowl, and nearly appeared in the national title game.
Previous coach Randy Edsall did a remarkable job in bringing this program from literally non-existent in the FBS ranks to national relevancy – the Huskies were in the Fiesta Bowl vs. Oklahoma last year.
The Scarlet Knights have been bowling in the latter half of the last decade, which says something considering how futile this program used to be.
The Bearcats have some of the best names in the conference: Munchie Legaux, J.K. Schaffer, Solomon Tentman, Ralph David Abernathy and Silverberry Mouhon.
The Pittsburgh Panthers football program is in the unique (and rather strange) position of firing coaches once they start to pay dividends in the win column.
Over the past few seasons, South Florida has been predictably… well, not world-changing, but decent. The Bulls have churned out eight-win seasons since 2008.
This season has some potential for awkwardness in Morgantown, after sought-after former Oklahoma State offensive co-ordinator Dana Holgorsen comes over and becomes the coach-in-waiting; Stewart will be nudged out after this season.
