Slim Shady

On behalf of the college football world, let me be the first to extend a hearty thank you to the Pitt Panthers for officially eliminating the Big East Conference from BCS title game consideration. One of my favorite days of the college football season is ending the sham of undefeated Big East teams in the race for the title game. I am glad we have that scenario out of the way fairly early in the year.

Big win for Pitt last night. They are a work in progress, but I was actually moderately impressed with them. I hadn't seen them play yet until yesterday. There are some athletes on that roster.

First, LeSean McCoy is an absolute stud and he gets decent blocking from his o-line. He is still a little raw, but he is definitely a force when he gets a hole. Their running game is pretty effective. The entire offense is built around him, but it does work to some degree.

The other guy who impressed me on their offense was true freshman receiver Jonathan Baldwin. I remember him from the recruiting scene, and it looks like he has some big time talent. Can't say that I was too impressed with Bill Stull though. He is only barely competent as a QB.

I'm glad to see that Pitt is showing some signs of life as a football program. Suddenly they are 4-1 with a real shot at 8 wins or so. Of course, they could lose to Navy next week, and I wouldn't bat an eye. Since we are playing them for at least the next five years, it would be nice to see them emerge as an upper-echelon Big East team to help our schedule strength. I would say the same thing about Syracuse (since they appear to be our other long term partner from the Big East), but they are clearly nowhere close to being competitive in the next couple years.

By the way, how relieving is it that we don't have Rutgers on the schedule for the next decade?? They have suddenly crashed back to Earth in a big way. Syracuse stinks at the moment, but I have more faith that they can rebuild if they get the right coach.