Sorry state of Big East football

After West Virginia capped the weekend with a 20-14 loss to LSU that knocked the Mountaineers out of the college football Top 25, the Big East Conference is left with as many ranked teams as the Sun Belt Conference.

Zero!

It has been a terrible season for the Big East. For example:

Pitt, which was picked as the conference favorite, is 1-2 and was humiliated last Thursday at home by Miami. The Panthers have had more players arrested than wins.

West Virginia is the only Big East school receiving votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll, but the Mountaineers needed a miracle to beat Marshall and are on their second consecutive season of poor run blocking by the offensive line.

Rutgers lost Saturday to a North Carolina team that had what seemed like half its players suspended. Cincinnati finally showed some spark offensively when playing a legitimate opponent but still lost Saturday to Oklahoma. The Bearcats have yet to beat a Division I-A team. South Florida, meanwhile, struggled with Western Kentucky.

Connecticut lost to Temple two weeks ago and needed former Trinity High School quarterback Cody Endres to come off the bench and help it pull away from Buffalo in the second half Saturday. Syracuse is 3-1, but look at who the Orange have beaten: Colgate, Akron and Maine. In other words, they've beaten nobody.

Louisville was off last week and the Cardinals' close loss at Oregon State two weeks ago looks like one of the Big East's best performances. Still, it was a loss.

While reading some newspaper articles and blog entries today about the Big East's struggles, here are some reader comments that caught my eye:

"1) Big East is an overrated basketball conference that ranks behind the ACC and Big Ten.
2) Big East is a non-existent football conference.
Any Big East school with any dignity left should just pack their bags and go to a real conference."

"pitt deserves to be in this position for being stupid enough to hire wannstedt in the first place. I will never forgive that abysmally unintelligent moron for screwing up the Bears. Wannstedt should be working a mcdonalds making fries, not behind an NFL or a college sideline."

"Its too bad the Big East had its chances to be another Super Conference. They let Boston College slip away, never landed Penn State. Unsuccessful in getting Notre Dame football, ignore the Army and Navy teams. Lost upstart Temple. I really don't have an answer for a Conference that looks like its glory days are over for the time being. There's no one left in the neighborhood of what could have and should have been."

"The ironic part is that Temple could have been the best team in the Big East this year."

"A Big East team will be in a BCS bowl. Thats all you need to know about whats wrong with the BCS."

"Based on performance on the gridiron for the last few years, BigEast should forfeit their automatic BCS bid to MWC!"

"Report: Villanova Invites Big East Football Schools To Join I-AA."

So what do you think? Are these comments on the money or is the Big East simply off to a slow start?