Week 3 of the college football season is underway tonight with the Georgia Tech - Miami game. All eight Big East teams are in action this Saturday. There are only three losses to non-conference opponents through the first two weeks, two of which belong to Syracuse. The other was UConn's heartbreaking loss to North Carolina in the final seconds last Saturday. Without further ado, let's take a look at this week's matchups:

South Florida (No Line) over Charleston Southern (Saturday, 7PM)

USF fans have probably been bored to tears with games so far vs. Wofford (a 40-7 win) and Western Kentucky (a 35-13 win). If that isn't bad enough, they'll want to slit their wrists after another mindless sleeper this weekend vs. Charleston Southern. The Bulls have one more game to work out any kinks before travelling to Tallahassee to take on Florida State next weekend, followed by the beginning of conference play next week at Syracuse.

Navy (+9) over Pitt (Saturday, 6PM)

This is supposed to be Pitt's year to win the Big East, but, as stated in this space previously, bad things tend to happen when Dave Wannestedt is roaming the sidelines. Pitt hasn't been tested this year with wins over Youngstown State and Buffalo, but will be when second year head coach Ken Niumatalolo brings his Midshipmen to Pittsburgh on Saturday. Navy is coming off of a win Louisiana Tech, but more importantly, a 31-27 loss to Ohio State in Columbus two weeks ago. The Mids almost erased a 15 point 4th quarter deficit scoring two touchdowns in four minutes before having the game tying two point conversion attempt intercepted and returned. The most amazing story of this game is that 6 of Navy's 18 first downs in this game came via passes. That's 33 per cent! If Navy's passing game is at least decent enough to keep opponents guessing, they'll be very successful this year. Pitt will have its hands full trying to win this game, let alone cover.
at
Syracuse (+3) over Northwestern

Syracuse wraps up its Big 10 portion of the schedule this week with Northwestern at home. I'm picking Syracuse to not only cover, but also win the game outright. Follow the logic. They lost to Minnesota in OT, then lost at Penn State but did not get humiliated. This is the weakest of the three teams, it's a home game, and Syracuse has had two weeks to gel. Coach Marrone will get his first of what Orange fans hope to be many Gatorade showers on Saturday night.

UConn (+10.5) over Baylor

The Bears received votes in the AP Poll and senior linebacker Joe Pawelek was named Big 12 defensive player of the week on the heels of Baylor's 24-21 victory at Wake Forest. Although it was a road win against a BCS conference team, it is in no way, shape or form worth of 10.5 points this week vs. UConn. Let's not forget the Huskies' battle with another ACC foe last week. The 12-10 loss to then # 19 North Carolina is far more impressive than what Baylor did, in spite of that fact that the Huskies came up short.

Kentucky (-10.5) over Louisville

Sorry Cardinals fans, but time have changed. Football in the state of Kentucky now belongs to the Wildcats, at least for now. The silver lining is that this Saturday's loss will only accelerate the long overdue firing of Steve Kragthorpe, at one point the healing process can truly begin.

Auburn (-4) over West Virginia

The Big East desperately needs a win here as this is one of two huge statements games this weekend vs. other BCS schools, but it probably won't happen. The Mountaineers defense has allowed a combine 40 points vs. Liberty and East Carolina and will likely be without junior defensive end Scooter Berry who injured his shoulder vs. East Carolina. Auburn is at home and has scored 86 combined points in its first two games.

Cincinnati (-2.5) over Oregon State

This would be the other statement game that Big East desperately needs to win. The Bearcats can climb the rankings and position themselves for a potential national title run with a win over a Pac 10 opponent. Oregon State beat Portland State in Week 1 and struggled to beat UNLV last week. Tony Pike and company put on a clinic vs. what was supposed to be a solid Rutgers defense in week 1.

Florida International vs. Rutgers

Coming tomorrow ... Stay Tuned

Twenty seven minutes and thirty seconds. That's how long it took Rutgers to fall behind by three possessions in the opener vs. Cincinnati and subsequently have the wheels fall off of what was once a promising season. Rex Ryan spends more time planning his post game meal. Yesterday, the Knights obliterated the Howard Bison, who were a mere 1-10 in FCS play last year, 45-7. There was time when the Rutgers faithful would have been ecstatic with a 1-1 record heading into week 3. There was also a time when Americans paid top dollar to attend a Brittany Spears concert and decided that George W. Bush was the best man to lead this nation (not once, but twice!).

Things have changed at Rutgers and Coach Schiano deserves all the credit. He turned first recruits, and eventually fans into believers. Bowl games and Rutgers used to go together like Hatfields and McCoys, however four straight bowl games and three straight bowl victories have left the fans wanting more. Opening day 2009 was special. This was the day that the program was really going to go to the next level. The stadium addition was complete, the weather was perfect, the RU defense was arguably the best in the conference and the offensive line arguably in the top ten nationally. The stadium was filled with 53,737 Rutgers fans. The atmosphere was absolutely electric. Shortly after kickoff, Tony Pike did what Tony Pike does and the bubble was burst. Fans filed out of the stadium muttering "Same old Rutgers," which became an unofficial school motto during the Doug Graber and Terry Shea years.

Rutgers fans have shared the heartache and agony of Chicago Cubs fans for years. The Scarlet Knights, like Chicago's North Siders have been awful for a long time - but then something happened. Knights fans got their first taste of post-season football with an Insight Bowl berth in 2005. From there, there was the miracle run in 2006, followed by two more bowl berths in 2007 and 2008. Rutgers fans no longer share a common bond with Cubs fans, but suffer a far worse fate. Rutgers fans now know a pain far worse, they suffer from the same ailment that has consumed San Francisco Giants fans for over 50 years. The Giants have not won a World Series since the franchise moved to the west coast, but used to hold the record for consecutive second place finishes (ironically enough the record now belongs to the Boston Red Sox, who certainly have no right to complain about anything anymore) and also blew the largest lead in a World Series clinching game during Game 6 of 2002 World Series vs. the Angels. This is what Rutgers fans now experience. They, like Giants fans, have tasted success and have come so close - painfully close - to finally bringing it to the next level, only to have their hearts ripped out time and time again.

Success breeds expectations, and when expectations are not met, die hard fans fall as hard as the team does. I'm not saying that it's better the other way. I'd much rather have my dreams crushed than not have any dreams at all, but it stings a lot more. Most Rutgers fans were still sick to their stomachs after the Labor Day massacre and its effects could still be seen on Saturday vs. Howard. The parking lots were half full and the fans were not really into the game. The attendance was 43,722, which would have been stellar in previous years and exceeds capacity prior to the expansion. The Knights dominated an inferior opponent and now take on Florida International (barely FBS), Maryland (which needed overtime to beat FCS James Madison yesterday) and Texas Southern (FCS) before conference play starts back up again vs. Pittsburgh on October 16th. It will be another nationally televised game on a Friday night, and the whole country will be watching. Will Rutgers be prepared this time and earn a season saving victory? Will they finally get back on track and set themselves up for a possible run at the Conference Championship and a BCS berth, or will fans start filing out of the stadium at halftime muttering, "Same old Rutgers?"

Success breeds great expectations. Great teams are built by meeting them.

The moment is finally upon us. The Big East game of the week is undeniably Cincinnati at Rutgers. Kickoff is set for 4PM tomorrow (ESPN) in Piscataway at the newly expanded Rutgers Stadium (capacity 52,454). The Bearcats won last year's contest 13-10, holding Rutgers to only 62 rushing yards.

This year's games features two completely different teams, however, as Cincinnati is only returning one starter on defense (safety Aaron Webster) and Rutgers has lost some offensive firepower to the NFL. Mike Teel and Kenny Britt, perhaps the best QB-WR combination in the 140 year history of Rutgers Football, will be suiting up for Seahawks and Titans, respectively. Vegas has Rutgers as 5 point favorites which makes this game incredibly hard to pick. There are a few key questions that each team must answer to come away victorious:

1. Can the highly touted Rutgers defense contain Tony Pike (2,407 passing yards and 19 TDs in 2008) and Mardy Gilyard (1,276 receiving yards and 11 TDs in 2008)?

Part of the reason that last year's game was so close was that Pike did not play. The Knights will certainly have their hands full trying to stop the pass but should be able to contain the Bearcats running game which was 95th in the nation last year. Rutgers has depth at defensive line than it ever has under Schiano and also is solid at linebacker and in the defensive backfield.

2. Can the new Rutgers quarterback lead the team to victory in his first college start?

Although the Rutgers starting QB has not yet been revealed, it's the worst kept secret in history. Dom Natale will get the start while both Tom Savage and Jabu Lovelace will see some playing time. The inexperience of the Rutgers QB carousel may not be as much of a problem as it seems. Natale will have two reliable targets in Tim Brown and true freshman Mohammed Sanu (who is already drawing Kenny Britt comparisons). Cincinnati's inexperienced defense is also trying out a new alignment. First year defensive coordinator Bob Diaco is installing a 3-4 this year, which may not be the best of ideas against the run oriented Scarlet Knights. They return sophomores Joe Martinek and Jourdan Brooks who both showed signs of greatness last year, not to mention true freshman De'Antwan Williams who has been brilliant in camp so far. Rutgers also returns all 5 starters on the offensive line, anchored by Preseason All-American tackle Anthony Davis.

3. Will the enclosed endzone at the newly renovated Rutgers Stadium have an effect on Cincinnati?

Coach Schiano has already stated the the crowd noise has nowhere to escape now that south endzone has been enclosed. Will this rattle the Bearcats?

4. Can Rutgers come from behind if Cincinnati jumps out to an early lead?

How will Natale react if the Knights get down 14-0 in the first quarter? Will he be able to keep his poise in his first college start? Even worse, how will the 18 year old Tom Savage handle the situation if he is asked to?

All of these questions and more will be answered tomorrow in what could be the game of the year for both teams. Rutgers should win the game but won't cover. Final score: Rutgers 24 - Cincinnati 20.

It’s was September 1, 2007…That was the last time Demetrius Jones stepped onto the gridiron to play in an any kind of a meaningful game. That was the day that Notre Dame coach Charlie Weiss tabbed the sophomore Jones to fill the shoes of the all everything QB Brady Quinn to start the 2007 season opener versus Georgia Tech. Following the loss to the Yellow Jackets where he was benched in favor of super freshman Jimmy Clausen and a loss at Happy Valley the following week, Jones was an inexcusable no show on the team bus to Ann Arbor on September 14th. It was clear that following his losing the starting job to Clausen, and the quickly unraveling Fighting Irish season, he was weighing his options.

He was first rumored to be attending Northern Illinois, a short drive from his hometown of Chicago, but in late September the former Parade All American walked into Brian Kelly’s office at the University of Cincinnati and told him that he wanted to be a bearcat. That day turned out to be the first day of the rest of his life. From the moment Jones stepped onto the UC campus he was tabbed as the future QB of the bearcat offense. Sitting out the mandatory one year per NCAA rules, Jones walked into 2008 camp as the expected starting QB. Little did he know what would take place next, the QB carousel that was Cincinnati football 2008, where from three different starters emerged the unlikely hero 6-6 Tony Pike. T

hrough the entire 2008 season, Jones did not play a single down at QB as he watched Pike from the sidelines. Down but surely not out, the 6-3 210 lb Jones thought long and hard about his next move. It was this past Spring that Kelly, fresh off of losing 10 starters on defense, approached Jones about making a switch to the other side of the ball. Demetrius, reluctantly at first agreed to try LB. Slowly but surely, Jones began buying into what Kelly was selling. “There’s no question that he’s got to (buy in),” Kelly said, “and he struggled with it, even during the summer at times. He’d go home and people would tell him, what are you doing? You’re a quarterback. But I think he’s pretty settled into the idea that that’s his position. I knew when he came back from after summer workouts that he was all in.” After committing to Kelly to becoming a full time LB entering training camp in August, Jones surprised many with his rapid ascent up the depth chart culminating with him being named a starter last week for the Rutgers opener. “You always hope for the best and adjust instead of the other way around. We saw signs of it in the spring that if we could just continue to get him to progress he was going to be a great player for us.” says Kelly.

No Big East teams in the Preseason Top 25…Not a single one. Pittsburgh came the closest at 28, followed by Rutgers at 30, West Virginia at 32 and Cincinnati at 33. South Florida rounded out the “also receiving votes” contingent at 45. While this will surely ignite a fire around the nation regarding the inclusion of the Big East in the BCS bowl schedule and Orrin Hatch will once again climb atop his soap box, claiming the injustices of the BSC and the non inclusion of Utah and the rest of the Mountain West (which has three teams in the top 25), all of this seams like a complete over reaction. Yes, the Big East begins the 2009 season lacking star status losing players like Pat White, Lesean McCoy, Donald Brown and Kenny Britt to the NFL. Cincinnati’s lackluster performance against Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl also didn’t help the Big East’s position in the BCS conference pecking order. But what everyone seems to overlook though is the tremendous parity that has emerged in the conference as a result of these changes. At the annual Big East football media day, four teams received first place votes to finish atop the Big East. Curiously, Rutgers picked to finish fifth and who several media outlets pick to win the conference, did not receive a single first place vote as determined by Big East media. No coach, whether you’re Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll or Doug Marrone likes dealing with high expectations. High expectations are a very, very dangerous for the kind of teams the Big East has entering the season: young, talented, hungry. There is too much talent in this year’s edition of Big East football. A new cast of stars awaits in the wings to become the next poster boys for the Big East on the national stage. We may not see it right away, but we will see it at some point this season. Time will tell. Having no teams ranked in the preseason Top 25 may end up being the best thing that happened to this conference after all.

Since it’s a fairly slow day for Rutgers football news, it’s a good time to take a quick peak into Cincinnati’s training camp. No doubt there is big play potential for the potent Tony Pike lead offense. The senior QB’s appears to have picked up in camp where he left off in 2008 where he threw for 2,407 yards and 19 TD’s. At today’s Media Day, the always affable Coach Brian Kelly had this to say about the performance of his offensive unit in camp. “One of the things that has come out of camp is that we can get big-chunk plays with the offense we have….more than the last couple of years.” Although there are ten gaping holes that need to be filled in the Bearcat defense going into camp, defensive backs coach Kerry Coombs seems very encouraged by what he’s seen so far. “It’s much deeper…Just like today when you’ve got a corner running off on a deep long ball, rather than have him go to the line of scrimmage and play another snap at maybe 90 percent, we can bring a guy off the sideline at 100 percent. We have enough guys to do that.” So far no real surprises at Kelly Camp as this offense appears primed and ready to pick up where it left off in 2008 (with the exception of the Orange Bowl of course). Only time will tell with this defense though as it tries to replace three first team all Big east Performers from a year ago.

Now that media day is behind us, and training camp begins next week (or today for West Virginia) we thought it was about time to release this year’s Big East Preview. Besides, you could probably use a break from the David Ortiz circus. On then, to the 2009 Big East Football Preview.

8. Louisville Cardinals – This may come as a shock to some people, but the Cardinals find themselves on the bottom of the pile this year. The departures of quarterbacks Hunter Cantwell and Matt Simms certainly leave a hole in the offense. The much maligned Steve Kragthorpe is on the hot seat. The University of Kentucky has even passed Louisville. The pressure is great and it’s entirely possible that they whole team could fold after a few early season losses. Don’t forget, this is the team that lost to Syracuse each of the past two seasons.



7. South Florida Bulls – This team may very well have the most talent in the Big East this year, returning All-American candidates Matt Grothe and George Selvie. Unfortunately for Bulls fans, they will fall victim to the same intangibles that have plagued them in years past. Head coach Jim Leavitt is not the right man to lead a major college football program trying to get to the next level. No one will argue the success that he has realized in building a program from scratch and getting it to this level. He is not the man to lead a program of this caliber, however. He lashes out at officials and the media. His rants are getting old, and more importantly, are teaching his players how to shirk responsibility. They have been in a downward spiral since their 2007 Sun Bowl appearance and will continue to slide as long as Leavitt captains the ship.



6. Syracuse Orange – Orange fans are excited for first year head coach Doug Marrone. They should be – Estelle Getty would have been an upgrade over the dreadful Greg Robinson. They also have a difficult non-conference schedule against some tough Big 10 teams early on. They will be battle-tested before they get into the heart of the conference schedule, but alas, this is not enough to propel the Orange into the top half of the Big East Standings.



5. Pittsburgh Panthers – Pros – Another solid recruitung class, Bill Stull, Pat Bostick, etc. etc. Cons – Dave Wannestedt. Any questions?



4. Cincinnati Bearcats – Bearcats fans should be excited this year for the team that Brian Kelly has assembled. Tony Pike and Marty Gilyard and definitely playmakers who can change the game with one play. The Bearcats are building a program, but may have peaked too early last year as evidenced by their performance at the Orange Bowl last year. This year should see them slip to the middle of the pack, but still on track.



3. Connecticut Huskies – The Huskies lose four players to the NFL (highlighted by 1st Round Selection Donald Brown) but will benefit from what is shaping up to be a down year in the Big East. Randy Edsall’s squad will easily earn another bowl berth.



2. Rutgers Scarlet Knights – How do you replace QB Mike Teel and NFL 1st Round Draft Pick Kenny Britt? You do it with a solid defense, great runnings backs, capable wide receivers and one of the best offensive lines in the country. While Kenny Britt leaves a large void, incoming freshman Mohamed Sanu may be able to fill it. The QB situation is not easy to fix with 5th year senior Dom Natale expected to be given a run for his money from incoming freshman Tom Savage, neither of whom has been tested at the college level. With enough talent surrounding them however, they may just have to play well enough “not to lose”. Yep, that and the weakest schecdule the Scarlet Knights have seen in over 30 years.



1. West Virginia Mountaineers - I know. I know. Replacing Pat White with anyone is like replacing Johnny Unitas with Troy Nunes. But Jarrett Brown has shown signs of gretaness and Noel Devine should provide plenty of offensive firepower. The Mountaineers toughest test this year will be the last two games of the season – at home for the Backyard Brawl on 11/27 and a trip to Piscatway on 12/5.

• Greg Schiano will appear on NBC's Mike'd Up tomorrow night at 11:30PM. He'll sit down with Bruce Beck, who'll be filling in for Mike Francesca. One has to wonder if Schiano would still be scheduled to do the show if Francesca, a perennial Rutgers hater, was going to be around tomorrow.
• Former Rutgers quarterback and fan favorite Ray Lucas returns to the radio this fall. He replaces Tim Pernetti (who is also becoming a fan favorite) as the colorman and will work alongside Chris Carlin. Last year, Lucas worked as a studio analyst for SNY.
• The Big East did not land any teams in the Preseason USATody/Coaches Poll, although five teams received votes. The winner of the Cincinnati-Rutgers game is poised to crack the Top 25, if not the Top 20, as it is one of the most competitive games of the weekend.
• Tom Savage is learning about New Jersey traffic patterns as well as the Rutgers playbook. His bid to supplant Dom Natale as the starting QB begins when camp opens this Tuesday.