New Big East Power Rankings – Week 12

On By AndyIn Big East, navy football4 Comments

Welp. Rutgers is no longer part of the New Big East. Too many people will write too many words on this, so I’m not going to say much. Someone else will probably leave – all signs point to Louisville or UConn. But honestly, unless the ACC makes their $50M buyout stick to Maryland, the Big East isn’t the only conference in trouble. For as much strength as John Swofford got by wresting Notre Dame away from the Big East and any overtures from the B1G, he lost it by having a founding member split for cash. So the NBE rankings bid farewell to Rutgers and now has 12 teams.

Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving Day, so we’re going to be quick about the rankings this week. Think of these as the twitter version of the rankings – short and missing all the details.

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Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Possible Opponents – Week 11 Update

On By AndyIn navy football4 Comments

If you want to know how crazy the PAC-12 is right now as far as bowl projections are concerned, just look to some of the major media outlets and see who they are forecasting. Here’s a sampling:

Stewart Mandel @ CNNSI: Washington
Jerry Palm @ CBS Sports: Stanford
Mark Schlabach @ ESPN: Washington
Brad Edwards @ ESPN: Washington
College Football News: Oregon State

Stanford and Oregon State were the eye-poppers this week. Both teams have two losses. Stanford is currently 13th in the BCS while Oregon State is 16th. I don’t see these two teams slipping to the 6th-pick bowl game unless they lose out. Then again, Stanford has to go on the road to #2 Oregon and #17 UCLA to finish the season. Could a 4-loss Cardinal slide to the Kraft Bowl? Oregon State still has a home game against Cal and a trip to Oregon (and the make-up game with Nicholls State). If they somehow lose to Cal this weekend, they will (probably) end the season losing 4 of their final 5 conference games. Again, is that enough to make them unattractive enough to fall to the 6th bowl? Only time will tell.

In the interim, let’s look at the four teams we identified last week as the most probable opponents.

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New Big East Power Rankings – Week 11

On By AndyIn Big East, navy football4 Comments

There are no more undefeated teams in the New Big East after Louisville fell at Syracuse this weekend. Louisville drops to #2 in the power rankings this week behind Rutgers. Louisville has a great offense but struggles defensively while Rutgers continues to shine on defense enough to let its offense do enough to win. Their season-ending battle should be a fun one.

As I continue to do these rankings, it is becoming more and more clear how important a new TV deal is to the conference.  The current one isn’t just low paying, it’s terrible exposure. For example, two of the top three teams in conference face off this week (Rutgers at Cincinnati). That’s a matchup between a top-25 team and a team that is receiving votes and can have a significant impact on who gets to go to a BCS bowl game this year, and it is being shown on the regional Big East Network. And while that is bad, it’s worse for lowly Memphis. This upcoming week’s game at UAB will be the third consecutive week Memphis gets no TV coverage – not even ESPN3 – for a game. For the season, Memphis will have 5 games with no TV, 2 on ESPN3, and 5 on regional TV. That’s not a great lineup for a school trying to pull itself out of the cellar of D-1A football. The new TV deal will not only infuse cash into schools, but also increase the national profile of the conference on the whole.

On to the power rankings!

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NAVY 24, FAU 17

On By MikeIn navy football6 Comments

Remember, the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is being played in a baseball park. That means that the lower bowl is very shallow (think RFK). If you aren’t in club seats, it’s actually better to be in the upper deck if you want to see anything. This is important stuff, because Navy’s 24-17 win over Florida Atlantic on Saturday gave them 6 wins and put them back on the bowl game wagon.

Suddenly my optimism during the Mids’ 1-3 start doesn’t look so crazy, does it?

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Looking Ahead: Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Possible Opponents

On By AndyIn navy football7 Comments

As you are probably aware by now, Navy accepted their invitation to the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco after notching their 6th win last weekend. The Kraft Bowl has a tie-in with the PAC-12 for the opponent and sits at 6th in the pecking order behind the Rose Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Sun Bowl, and Las Vegas Bowl (in that order). There are plenty of bowl projections out there, but right now the middle of the PAC-12 is a crap shoot. I figure there are 4 teams that we could possibly see – Washington, Arizona State, Arizona, and Utah. I think that Oregon (9-0, 6-0), Oregon State (7-1, 5-1), Stanford (7-2, 5-1), and UCLA (7-2, 4-2) are pretty solid locks for bowls above the Kraft Bowl. We’ll keep our eye on UCLA – they finish @ Washington St, vs. Stanford, vs. USC – so it’s possible they drop a couple to end the season and perhaps come into play.

But for now, click through for the schools we want to keep our eye on, their schedules for the rest of the year, and a quick note on each. One thing that surprised me while writing this – how much Sagarin likes the Arizona schools.

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Fundraising Update

On By MikeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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We’re only one week into our fundraiser, and holy guacamole you guys have responded. As of this afternoon, we’re at $2,255 raised for cancer research and patient care! That’s pretty incredible, and almost halfway to our goal– all for a race that isn’t even until February. As I refreshed the donation site over the weekend, I could see the total amount growing in large chunks. There have clearly been some VERY generous donations so far. To all who have given: thank you. It’s still very, very early as far as fundraising for this race goes, but as of right now we are the #2 fundraiser for the entire event!

The early momentum is awesome, but we haven’t reached our goal yet! If you haven’t donated already, what’s the holdup? Donate, then tell all the Navy fans you know about this sweet blog so they’ll donate too. Click on the picture to sponsor my run!

 

New Big East Power Rankings – Week 10

On By AndyIn Big East, navy football5 Comments

Ten weeks into the season and we’re at the point where we’re really not learning much new about the meta of the New Big East. But as a Navy fan, you have to like what the meta has shown us. The Midshipmen aren’t moving up from the #7 spot this week, but is it so bad to be sitting right smack in the middle of the new conference?

Last week I was asked by Dave69 if I thought there was a 4-4-4 pattern evolving in the New Big East. To finally answer him, I don’t see that existing in the conference.

But it’s extremely frustrating trying to break it down into parts. For example, one could say that we could define 4 “should win” teams this year based on their performances – Temple, USF, UConn, and Memphis. I think USF is having a crisis this year that may or may not cost Skip Holtz his job. But I certainly would not put the Bulls into that category long-term. Temple and UConn have had some success in the last 5 years, but are clearly regressing some this season. So at best there are 3 teams that are “should wins” in a good year for Navy. The issue with applying that to Navy’s schedule is that we’ll probably only get all 3 of those teams once every 6 years while divisional matchups rotate.

The “toss-ups” also shrink. Right now I’d put Houston, SMU, and SDSU into a toss-up category. But SDSU just beat Boise State at Boise, making them a prime candidate to move up to “stretch.” That would shrink the toss-ups to just two teams out of 13, and likely just one regular year-in-and-out opponent.

That means there is a whopping large “stretch” category. Once USF gets back on track, there will be 6 teams firmly in there – nearly half the conference. Louisville, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Boise State, and UCF are clearly stretch games for Navy at this point.

So there you have it. Being fairly optimistic the NBE sets up as a 6-3-3 conference right now. When you realize that our OOC schedule of Army, Air Force, Notre Dame, and a (likely) 1-AA team gives us a 1-2-1 lineup, you start to see how going 6-6 will be a really good season.

Ok, that’s my opinion. I invite others to share theirs in the comments. And now – the rankings!

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