Big East bowl tie-ins

The college parade of championship football starts tonight in Jersey when Rutgers hosts Louisville (7:30 PM ET, ESPN) in a battle for the Big East’s BCS bid. The matchup is somewhat ironic—given the realignment announcement of recent days, I’ve heard it joked that this game is really an extension of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge that’s been going on in basketball. But it’s the Big East football championship on the line tonight and that’s just the start of a big weekend in this league, with shares of the title and bowl bids on the line along with the BCS slot. So let’s begin with TheSportsNotebook’s preview of tonight’s Louisville-Rutgers game.