MWC preseason top 25 teams: 3; Big East: 0

[Color Me Badd Fan]

About a month ago, Colin Cowherd was ranting on about how the MWC doesn't belong in the BCS. He used the standard argument of talking about the SEC and then talking about Big 12 teams having to play teams like Texas and Oklahoma every year and how an MWC would get destroyed by that kind of schedule.

I don't think any rational fan of an MWC team thinks BYU, Utah or TCU would do as well in the SEC as those teams do in the MWC right now. Nice strawman jackass. However, if those MWC teams didn't have to deal with the non-BCS scarlett letter in recruiting battles with BCS teams, their fortunes would undoubtedly rise and they COULD be competitive on a level playing field. As it is, BYU, Utah and TCU (Utah and TCU especially) have done an admirable job over the past 4-5 years beating BCS teams. Given what they've achieved with this huge recruiting disadvantage, it's not hard to imagine that these teams could be quite competitive after a few years if they were included in a BCS conference.

What really pisses me off about this kind of discussion with guys like Cowherd, Switzer, Herbstreit, etc. is the total lack of reference to the inclusion of the Big East. After the Big East lost Miami and Virginia Tech, what rationale was there for the continued inclusion of the Big East into the BCS? If you want to exclude BOTH the Big East and MWC fine, but I don't see how you can include one and not the other. Besides West Virginia, that's a terrible conference.

[I.J. Reilly]

The Big East is piss poor. Their inclusion is based on televisions.

[il Padrino Ute]

You gotta remember CMBF - Cowherd is employed by the network with the BCS television contract. Of course, he's also dumb enough to actually believe what he says about the MWC.

It's all about the number of TV sets in the geographical area. If there were 7 million TVs along the Wasatch Front, both Utah and BYU would be considered better by these college football pundits.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

The Big East is piss poor. Their inclusion is based on televisions.

Is that really true? Who watches the Big East? If the Northeast cares about college football at all, they'll just watch the big games between teams outside the region. UConn isn't going to pull as many eyeballs the same week as the Texas-Oklahoma game. The only team in between DC and Boston anyone really cares about is Penn State. Boston College and Maryland will get a little love sometimes, but I wouldn't put the level of support for those two programs above what you get for, say, BYU.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

You gotta remember CMBF - Cowherd is employed by the network with the BCS television contract. Of course, he's also dumb enough to actually believe what he says about the MWC.

It's all about the number of TV sets in the geographical area. If there were 7 million TVs along the Wasatch Front, both Utah and BYU would be considered better by these college football pundits.

As I mentioned above, I don't think the Northeast really cares about the Big East. First, to the extent any of those people care about college football, it's mostly about watching the glamour teams from the other conferences. Out west, people defend and follow the Pac-10. In the upper midwest, it's Notre Dame and the Big Ten. In the deep south, it's the SEC and Texas and the lower midwest follows the Big 12. When you meet someone from Oklahoma, Texas or Nebraska, it's all about Big 12 football. SoCal, it's all about USC. If you're talking to someone from New York, you're unlikely to hear anything about Big East football.

[il Padrino Ute]

Is that really true? Who watches the Big East? If the Northeast cares about college football at all, they'll just watch the big games between teams outside the region. UConn isn't going to pull as many eyeballs the same week as the Texas-Oklahoma game. The only team in between DC and Boston anyone really cares about is Penn State. Boston College and Maryland will get a little love sometimes, but I wouldn't put the level of support for those two programs above what you get for, say, BYU.

The northeast is so populated that there's a better than good chance that more TV sets are tuned into a Pitt vs. Rutgers game than a Utah vs. BYU game. It's just the reality of the situation.

[Fiyero]

Cowherd is a troll and ESPN knows it. They keep him around because his remarks spark controversy all season long. He's like those American Idol auditions who have no talent but draw ratings because people laugh at them.

[I.J. Reilly]

Is that really true? Who watches the Big East? If the Northeast cares about college football at all, they'll just watch the big games between teams outside the region. UConn isn't going to pull as many eyeballs the same week as the Texas-Oklahoma game. The only team in between DC and Boston anyone really cares about is Penn State. Boston College and Maryland will get a little love sometimes, but I wouldn't put the level of support for those two programs above what you get for, say, BYU.

The potential is there, which makes a big difference for advertisers. Even if BYU played for a national championship, the potential number of viewers doesn't excite advertisers the way the potential numbers of viewers for Big East game would.

[JohnnyLingo]

About a month ago, Colin Cowherd was ranting on about...

Did he make the same point eight consecutive times over the space of an hour?

That's what I hate about Cowherd.

[Indy Coug]

Did he make the same point eight consecutive times over the space of an hour?

That's what I hate about Cowherd.

It's a sign of

1. A lack of preparation
2. A lack of true depth to his insights

[YOhio]

It's a sign of

1. A lack of preparation
2. A lack of true depth to his insights

Ironically, his preparation and insight are the points he regularly spends the most time on.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Here's a link to the bowl ratings from last season

I'm having a tough time finding the TV ratings for Big East regular season games from last year. It would be ridiculous anyway to compare them to the MWC's ratings from last year because of the limited exposure from the Mountain.

But I find the TV ratings from the bowls to be somewhat interesting.

http://www.volunteertv.com/otherspor.../38538577.html

The average rating for a bowl game involving an MWC team was 3.66. The average rating for a bowl game involving a Big East team was 2.92. Even if you exclude the BCS bowl games involving each conference (and Utah's bowl game received significantly higher ratings than Cincinatti's), the MWC's ratings were 2.62 and the Big East's were 2.42.

Another interesting point is that a number of these bowls involved somewhat regional matchups. BYU's rating was a 2.5, Rutgers vs. NC State's rating was a 2.0. CSU vs. FSU drew a 2.6, USF vs. Memphis drew a 1.3. I don't think a BYU vs. CSU regular season game would be outdrawn by a Rutgers vs. Syracuse game if both games are shown on equal networks.

However, West Virginia vs. UNC drew a pretty high rating. And West Virginia is not one of the more urban schools in the Big East. I just don't buy the assumption that because some Big East teams come from areas of dense population translates into more eyeballs. A combination of a big time program combined with a big population DOES mean a lot (USC, Ohio State, Penn State), but if no one cares about the school, it doesn't matter if they're from the middle of NYC.

[cougjunkie]

I'm having a tough time finding the TV ratings for Big East regular season games from last year. It would be ridiculous anyway to compare them to the MWC's ratings from last year because of the limited exposure from the Mountain.

But I find the TV ratings from the bowls to be somewhat interesting.

http://www.volunteertv.com/otherspor.../38538577.html

The average rating for a bowl game involving an MWC team was 3.66. The average rating for a bowl game involving a Big East team was 2.92. Even if you exclude the BCS bowl games involving each conference (and Utah's bowl game received significantly higher ratings than Cincinatti's), the MWC's ratings were 2.62 and the Big East's were 2.42.

Another interesting point is that a number of these bowls involved somewhat regional matchups. BYU's rating was a 2.5, Rutgers vs. NC State's rating was a 2.0. CSU vs. FSU drew a 2.6, USF vs. Memphis drew a 1.3. I don't think a BYU vs. CSU regular season game would be outdrawn by a Rutgers vs. Syracuse game if both games are shown on equal networks.

However, West Virginia vs. UNC drew a pretty high rating. And West Virginia is not one of the more urban schools in the Big East. I just don't buy the assumption that because some Big East teams come from areas of dense population translates into more eyeballs. A combination of a big time program combined with a big population DOES mean a lot (USC, Ohio State, Penn State), but if no one cares about the school, it doesn't matter if they're from the middle of NYC.

Ratings are nice but its more about the markets you get with the Big East.

New York/ New Jersey Market: Rutgers, Syracuse
Pittsburgh/Philly market: Pitt
Miami Market: South Florida

Also I am guessing Louisville and Cincy are both in bigger markets than any MWC team besides maybe TCU which has a zero share of their market.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Ironically, his preparation and insight are the points he regularly spends the most time on.

And by insight he repeatedly harps on the fact that he's "not a fan of any team" and can therefore be totally objective. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this from Cowherd.

Cowherd is better when he brings up interesting stats and sticks with truly being objective as opposed to pure conjecture. The other day he pointed out that New England and Indy have the highest numbers of college graduates on their rosters and Cincy has the lowest. His point was that the brains and discipline required to get college degrees translates well in the NFL. But his rant from around a month ago against the MWC and Utah was just ridiculous. Again, no one really thinks BYU or Utah could regularly beat Texas and OU if they were in the Big 12, but a lot of people think BYU or Utah could regularly win the Big East. One of the more infuriating aspects of the BCS is how it arbitrarily divides individual teams- but in the case of the MWC vs. the Big East it arbitrarily divides conferences.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Ratings are nice but its more about the markets you get with the Big East.

New York/ New Jersey Market: Rutgers, Syracuse
Pittsburgh/Philly market: Pitt
Miami Market: South Florida

Also I am guessing Louisville and Cincy are both in bigger markets than any MWC team besides maybe TCU which has a zero share of their market.

But Rutgers and Syracuse have a zero share in the New York/New Jersey markets. That's my point. Those markets belong to the Giants, Jets and Bills and probably Penn State also. Saying that the NYC market belongs to Rutgers and Syracuse is akin to saying the Dallas market belongs to TCU. It's simply not reality. When I lived in NYC (and granted it was only one year), no one cared about the Big East football teams (the same couldn't be said of the basketball teams). If college football was paid attention to at all, it was to the big programs outside the region- Texas, USC, Florida, etc.

As the bowl games seem to indicate, matching up the Big East teams to their geographic markets and extrapolating that you'll get big ratings is not really accurate. The fact of the matter is, CSU vs. FSU (2.6 rating) outdrew Pitt vs. Oregon State (2.2). Those were two non-BCS teams vs. two BCS teams. One involved the Fort Collins and Fresno markets and the other one involved the Pittsburgh- Portland markets. The Denver market belongs to the University of Colorado. The Portland, Oregon market is probably evenly split between Oregon and Oregon State.