Brut(al) Sun Bowl

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Hey All. Happy New Year! I was out revelling with all the new year's partiers, so I was not able to comment on Pitt's loss to Oregon State in the Sun Bowl. I'm back now though, and here are some thoughts:

I guess 6-0 for the Big East in bowls was not meant to be. I have to say, the Brut Sun Bowl was painful to watch. Here you have two teams that combined, score about an average of 31 points per game. All that was mustered in the 75th annual Sun Bowl in El Paso, TX was three points! Those three points came on a 44 yard field goal from Beaver kicker Justin Kahut, and were the difference in beating a Panther team that could get absolutely nothing moving on offense.

If I'm Dave Wannstedt, I have to be thinking seriously about making a change in offensive coordinators. Matt Cavanaugh is an NFL guy through and through. His gig prior to coming to Pitt was running the Baltimore Ravens' offense, which should tell you all you need to know about this guy's play calling ability. Wanny has been recruiting serious talent to Pittsburgh, which is clearly not going to waste on the defensive side of the ball, but could certainly use some new guidance on offense.

The bottom line on all of this is that one has to give all the credit in the world to a solid Oregon State team. As any true Big East fan can understand, the PAC 10 is another conference that is often times mis-targeted as a source of poor football. The left coast has proven their doubters wrong, especially this year. The PAC 10 is now 4-0 in bowls, and the best is yet to come with USC playing in tomorrow's Rose Bowl.

The next agenda item for the Big East is Cincy taking on Virginia Tech in tomorrow's Orange Bowl. I now leave you with updated conference bowl standings:

Pac 10 4-0
SEC 2-0
Big East 3-1
CUSA 3-1
Big 12 2-1
MWC 2-2
Sun Belt 1-1
ACC 3-5
WAC 1-4
Indies 0-2
Big 10 0-3
MAC 0-3