The Big East Conspiracy

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Two bad calls in two days, both of which conveniently help the two top teams in the Big East. Hmmm...Interesting.

Ok, here it comes. Yes, another conspiracy theory by yours truly. And for the record, this one is not simply sour grapes because one of the calls in question happened to be against Notre Dame. Notre Dame was vastly outplayed for most of the game by Pitt and only had three points over the first three quarters. You don't deserve to win the game if you do that.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Before we tackle the Pittsburgh win over the Irish, let's examine a terrible call that had a huge impact on the outcome of Cincinnati's game against West Virginia. On first and goal, Isaiah Pead jumped over the pile and stretched the ball out towards the goal line. Not only did he not reach the line, but he fumbled the ball, which was recovered by West Virginia. That held the score at 14-7 with 5:15 remaining in the half. If you can see the indisputable video evidence that shows the ball crossed the line and that he maintained control as the ball crossed the plane, then you are a better man than I.

But wait. The replay gods saw fit to intervene and lo-and-behold, the call was overturned, making it a tie ballgame. Sure, there was a lot more football left to play in that game. However, the fact remains the Bearcats won by three points and the gift touchdown was the difference.

Fast forward to Saturday night, late in the Notre Dame - Pitt game. Notre Dame is faced with a third and 16 situation. Jimmy Clausen felt pressure as he did almost all game long and as he was going down, attempted a pass to Golden Tate, and while his arm was hit by Greg Romeus, it appeared to be an incomplete forward pass. The play was blown dead, but Pitt's Myles Caragein picked the ball up and attempted to run with it before realizing it had been called an incomplete pass.

Now here's where the mess begins.

Notre Dame let about 30 seconds run off the play clock before burning a timeout while trying to figure what to do on fourth and long. Seconds later, the Big East decided that would be a good time to review the play. Not before Notre Dame took its second timeout, so essentially, if the call has stood, the Big East would have essentially taken a time out away from the Irish. Upon review, the replay officials somehow saw that indisputable evidence that no one else, whether it be Notre Dame fans, Pitt fans or media outlets, saw. So it's a fumble. What happens now? Well, according to the officials, it's a fumble recovery by Caragein, despite the fact that the play was blown dead, giving Pittsburgh the ball and the win.

Sure, a fourth and 16 situation is likely going to be a turnover on downs anyway, but the fact of the matter is the officials upstairs made a bad call that took any chance away from Notre Dame. And let's remember that Jimmy Clausen is the quarterback with 63 passes of 15 or more yards and 22 completions of 25 or more (7th and 17th in the nation, respectively) with two of the best wide receivers in football.

So why did this happen? You can't think that it's a huge coincidence that the two top teams in the Big East were the benefactors of game-changing overturns.

The Big East is desperate to matter in college football again. The Big East since its formation has halways been a basketball conference first and since Miami and Virginia Tech bailed, the conference has been an afterthought in college football. Even as a BCS conference, in recent years they have gotten less national attention than the WAC and the MWC. Now they have an opportunity to be relevant.

Cincinnati played its toughest game of the season thus far on Friday after beating up mediocre to downright terrible opponents on its way to the No. 5 ranking in the BCS. Pitt has been one of the better defenses in the nation and the offense has found its way with LeSean McCoy gone, which most thought was a death sentence for the Panthers. With their win over Notre Dame, the Panthers moved to ninth in the BCS rankings.

Heading into this week, the Big East bigwigs had to be drooling at the idea of an undefeated Cincinnati facing a one-loss Pittsburgh for the conference title. Think about it. If Cincinnati loses to West Virginia, they no longer hold any major clout in the BCS. Even if Pittsburgh heads into the final week undefeated in this scenario, the odds of it meaning as much in terms of the BCS would be a lot lower than if Cincinnati were undefeated. And if Pittsburgh were to lose another game, Cincinnati would have the title locked up before the final week, making the matchup between the two teams irrelevant and one that people outside of the Northeast unlikely to watch. In all of these scenarios, the Big East stands to lose a lot. But most of all, it stands to lose a lot of money.