Tasser: Panthers dominating Big East so far

The Big East announced that it wants to go to from eight to 10 teams for football. But why stop… The Big East announced that it wants to go to from eight to 10 teams for football. But why stop there? Go to 12 teams. I know this will upset all of the basketball people, but we’ll worry about that later. The Big East is mainly a basketball conference, but in case nobody has noticed, that’s why the conference doesn’t make as much money.

Add Villanova, which has already been invited, TCU, Central Florida and Houston and kick out a crappy basketball team or two — I’m talking to you, DePaul — and voila, conference championship game. Anyway, here are this week’s power rankings.

1. Pittsburgh — The Panthers have opened up a two-game lead in football conference play thanks to Syracuse’s rejuvenation and WVU’s implosion. Although Pitt did not play great offensively against Louisville, it did well enough to win, and the defense played lights out. With Greg Romeus on the verge of return and no one besides Syracuse — who the Panthers annihilated — even close in the standings, I want to say that the Panthers are a virtual lock for a BCS conference. I really hope I don’t jinx them.

2. Syracuse — It’s an Orange Revival. I said several weeks ago that Syracuse would be lucky to leave the four-game stretch of Pitt, WVU, Cincy and Louisville with a winning record after starting 4-1, and it has proved me wrong again by knocking off both the Mountaineers and the Bearcats. The Cards will provide a test — but Louisville missing several key offensive players, look for Doug Marrone’s squad to lock up a bowl berth for the first time since 2004.

3. South Florida — With B.J. Daniels finally playing like everyone thought he would, the Bulls followed Pitt’s lead and made a big jump from last place in my rankings in two short weeks. They won a nail-biter (28-27) over Rutgers Wednesday night, using offensive tackle Jacob Sims’ fumble recovery in the end zone as the deciding score.

4. West Virginia — My, how the mighty have fallen. It’s been two straight weeks, and two straight losses to sub-par foes for the suddenly underachieving Mountaineers. Quarterback Geno Smith went from Big East Offensive Player of the Year favorite to only an afterthought following the two losses.

5. Louisville — The Cardinals lost a lot more than just a tough game to conference-leading Pitt over the weekend. Big East leading rusher Bilal Powell had to leave the game when he injured his knee after a Jarred Holley tackle, and it doesn’t look like he will play tomorrow against Syracuse. Starting quarterback Adam Froman also didn’t practice Wednesday and might not play. They are going to be hard-pressed for offense with their two biggest contributors banged up.

6. Rutgers — The Scarlet Knights have had terrible luck this season, including the unfortunate accident involving Eric LeGrand and quarterback injuries. Then Wednesday night, they forced a fumble on the goal line, only to have an offensive lineman fall on it in the end zone in what proved to be the winning score for USF. Rutgers, at 1-2 in the conference, now has a bit of quarterback controversy. Former starter Tom Savage is healthy again, but coach Greg Schiano has stuck with Chas Dodd. Schiano stated that he won’t hesitate to use either, but there will be a competition this week for the job.

7. Connecticut — The good thing about hitting rock bottom is there is no place to go but up. That is exactly what happened with the Huskies. Amidst a swirl of player suspensions, injuries and underperformances, UConn bounced back to upset WVU in overtime. Neither team played particularly well, and it was actually a pretty ugly game — that didn’t stop the fans from rushing the field, for some reason — but the Huskies came out on top after Dave Teggart kicked a 27-yard field goal for the win following a WVU goal-line fumble.

8. Cincinnati — This is a weird spot to find the two-time returning conference champs, but with a 3-5 (1-2 Big East) record following a blowout loss to Syracuse, I guess this is where you end up. Not having Zach Collaros due to an injury didn’t help, but the Bearcats scored only seven points on the Orange. They need to use their bye week to get him healthy.

Award time, everybody.

Offensive Player of the Week: Delone Carter, RB Syracuse

Wins by default with 19 carries for 109 yards, in a poor offensive week for the Big East.

Defensive Player of the Week: Sio Moore, LB UConn

Registered 17 tackles, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries in Connecticut’s OT win over WVU.