I believe it was a wise man that once said the real fantasy star of the Big East was the defense. Despite only a two game schedule for the conference for week 10, it was evident again that defenses win mediocre league games! That’s the phrase right?

BJ Daniels, stepping it up when fantasy owners need him most (Icon SMI)

Rutgers 27 @ South Florida 28

Bulls QB B.J. Daniels did throw for two scores and has four touchdown passes in the last two games. In terms of fantasy value, Daniels recent success is something to keep an eye on, however, I wouldn’t trust him just yet. It’s the USF defense, which was ranked 20th in the latest BlitzIndex prior to this win, that is the catalyst to their success.  The Bulls held Rutgers to a total of 238 yards – Scarlet Knights QB Chas Dodd threw the ball 22 times for 139 yards and zero touchdowns. One of Dodd’s completions was to RB Kordell Young on a screen pass who failed to advance the ball out of the Rutgers end zone resulting in a safety. The rarely seen screen pass in your own end zone resulted in points for the other team. illustrating why it’s rarely seen?

With Louisville on the schedule the Bulls D becomes a must start for Big East only or AQ leagues.

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Week 10 in the Big East Conference is an oddity.

The expanded Big East sets up greater battles than this one between Roc and Otto (Icon SMI)

First, the ‘weekend’ begins tonight (Wednesday) as Rutgers travels to Tampa to take on South Florida. Secondly, in the oddity department, the conference has only two games on the schedule. Wednesday’s game and Saturday as Syracuse hosts Louisville. Two games total on the first weekend in November?

In terms of fantasy value, as I stated earlier this week, the truest form of fantasy consistency in the Big East is defense. All four teams are within the top 36 of the latest Fantasy College Blitz BlitzIndex Defense Rankings. The two home teams this weekend, the Bulls and Orange, are ranked 20 and 16 respectively. Essentially, for this odd weekend of weekend football beginning on Wednesday and consisting of two games, ride the defenses!

The bigger issue of the day for the Big East is that dreaded expansion word. On Tuesday the Big East presidents voted to expand the football side of the conference to 10 teams from it’s current line up of 8 teams. Here is a quick overview of the teams rumored to be in the cross hairs of the Big East and how that would affect fantasy value for the conference. Read the rest of this entry →

It wasn’t exactly an offensive explosion in the Big East for Week 9. In fact the offense was borderline offensive. There were a total of six teams in action in a combined three games this weekend with only one contest tallying more than 30 points – scary Halloween indeed.

The new Louisville defensive alignment still is not keeping up in the Big East (Icon SMI)

The real fantasy star of the weekend was defense. With interceptions, fumbles forced, and stout tackling, the defenses in the Big East stepped up in week 9. Read the rest of this entry →

Remember him? Yes, it is pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate Dion Lewis emerging again. (Icon SMI)

The college football world wonders if the Big East was worthy of the BCS automatic qualifier status. A quick glance at the BCS standings and not a single Big East team appears in the top 25.

The supposed top team in the conference, West Virginia, just lost at home to a team, Syracuse, that hadn’t won more than one league game since 2004. Thus, the experts, fans, and other conferences even, tend to look down their noses when gazing at the Big East.

That mediocrity makes watching some of the action difficult, but, conversely, that type of competition should lend itself to allowing stars to break out. It has taken eight weeks, but the Big East has found that team that can dominate the league. Left for dead after losing games at Utah and Notre Dame and getting throttled by Miami (FL) at home – that team is Pittsburgh.

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Orange CB Da'Mon Merkerson lays the wood upon Pitt's Jon Baldwin (Icon SMI)

There is no question that college football this season is wide open. On my show (Matt Mc’s Sports Fix – ESPN RADIO 1410) I often say this season reminds me of the 2007 college football season. That year started with Appalachian State heading to the Big House in Ann Arbor and beating the legendary Michigan Wolverines.