South Florida seemed to be spiraling toward the basement of the Big East just a month ago.

The Bulls lost at West Virginia to fall to 0-2 in the Big East. The offense hadn’t scored a touchdown in either conference game. Quarterback B.J. Daniels was under fire for throwing 10 interceptions in USF’s first five games, including five in the first two Big East games.

But in the 2010 version of the Big East, where there are no dominant teams, anything can happen. First-year head coach Skip Holtz stayed the course and didn’t make any drastic changes. And the results speak for themselves.

‘Just really proud of this football team in so many respects,’ Holtz said after the Bulls won its third straight game, 24-21, over Louisville Saturday.

South Florida (6-3, 3-2 Big East) clinched bowl eligibility with the win. And the Bulls are thinking greater than that now. USF sits in a four-way tie in the loss column in the Big East, one game behind current leader Pittsburgh (5-4, 3-1). It’s a product of a year during which the conference has no de facto No. 1 team. Parity kept South Florida in the race, and the Bulls came together in time.

Now Holtz’s team has as good of a shot to win the conference as anyone. It can take advantage of that chance when it plays Pittsburgh this weekend.

‘Everyone keeps asking me, ‘What’s your opinion in this league, who’s the best team, etc.,” Holtz said. ‘I can tell by looking at film this week that Pittsburgh is one of the favorite teams.

‘(I’m) excited to be playing this game at home with so much riding on this game.’

Pittsburgh leads the conference by a game, but with three conference matchups left for the Panthers, the Big East title isn’t close to a sure thing. Two losses in those final three games could equal a fifth place finish for Pitt. And two of the three games are against a pair of teams currently tied for second — the aforementioned USF and West Virginia. One of those (USF) is on the road.

The Panthers struggled on the road last week, losing at Connecticut Thursday. The loss, and the win for UConn, brought the conference standings closer together. UConn (5-4, 2-2) is one of the other teams tied for second, along with Syracuse. And it was all due to one win over Pittsburgh for the Huskies.

Because the Huskies, like South Florida, were left for dead a few weeks ago.

‘We’ve practiced better and been more physical in the last two weeks, and it has really helped us,’ UConn head coach Randy Edsall said. ‘I don’t think we had practiced as well and as physically as we needed to. I think that’s been the biggest difference.’

Three weeks ago, Connecticut was blown out by Louisville, 26-0, to fall to 0-2 in Big East play. UConn had quarterback problems (freshman quarterback Michael Box was pulled midway through the game), and the team sat in the basement of the conference with a bleak outlook for the rest of the season.

The Huskies’ next two games: West Virginia and Pittsburgh, two teams at the top of the Big East.

But UConn beat them both to reach the point it is at now. South Florida’s story and Connecticut’s story are interchangeable: The parity of the Big East has made it easier for a team to overcome a bad start and still contend.

Unlike conferences such as the Pac-10 or Big Ten, in which multiple losses can do a team in, the Big East has a giant middle-of-the-pack with no teams at the top.

It’s why five teams still have a legitimate shot at the Big East crown, even with just two or three conference games to go for most.

‘I think they saw where we were and time was running out,’ Edsall said. ‘And if they want to accomplish something, they need to listen to what we’ve been telling them.

‘Those two games don’t mean anything now as we head into this one.’

Big man on campus

QB Geno Smith

Sophomore

West Virginia

Last week: 15-of-25, 174 yards, 4 TDs, 1 Int.

Smith and the West Virginia offense entered last Saturday’s matchup against Cincinnati surrounded by plenty of questions.

Where did the scoring go? The Mountaineers (6-3, 2-2) scored just 27 points combined in its two previous games, losses to Syracuse and Connecticut. Those two losses erased a 5-1 start that had the Mountaineers looking like the best team in the Big East.

But for at least one week, those questions were answered with Smith’s play on the field. The sophomore quarterback returned to his early-season form, tossing four touchdown passes in a 37-10 rout of the Bearcats. He split the touchdown passes equally between his two favorite targets, wide receivers Tavon Austin and Jock Sanders.

Smith found Austin for a 32-yard touchdown on WVU’s opening drive. Near the end of the first quarter, he hit Austin again for 10 yards, giving the Mountaineers a two-touchdown cushion early.

He threw two more touchdowns in the second quarter — both to Sanders — to blow the game open by giving West Virginia a 28-0 lead.

It was Smith’s second four-touchdown game of his career, with the first coming in a September win over Maryland.

mcooperj@syr.edu

 

Published on November 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr