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College Football Coverage: The Last Hurrah Of The Old Big East

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This is the last hurrah for the old Big East football conference. Actually it’s the postscript to the last hurrah, since the conference has been re-named the American Athletic Conference, following the departure of the basketball-only schools to rebuild the Big East brand on the hardwood.

But this coming college football season is still a last hurrah in a different sense—even as four new members arrive, this is thThis e last season in the league for Louisville and Rutgers, and those two teams—particularly Louisville—along with Cincinnati, are clearly the tone-setters in the race for what’s still an automatic BCS bowl berth in 2013.

Louisville-Rutgers Leads Big East Football Finale

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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.

Big East Football Race Heats Up Friday Night

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The Big East football race gets its first really big game on Friday night, as Cincinnati visits Louisville. The Bearcats and Cardinals join Rutgers as the three undefeated teams in conference play, and all the head-to-head games are ahead of them. This conference has played good football this year, better than the ACC or Big Ten top-to-bottom, and the league champ will likely end up in the Orange Bowl. Let’s break down each team, see how they’ve gotten to this point and what lies ahead…

Notre Dame Football & Big East Conference Preview

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If there’s two entities that get more play than they should in the college football media it’s the University of Notre Dame and the Big East Conference. The two are connected in more ways than hype (in the case of Notre Dame) and a guaranteed major bowl slit (in the case of the Big East). ND not only plays basketball and other sports in the Big East, it’s a part of that conference’s chain of command when it comes to lining up postseason bowl slots. So TheSportsNotebook ties the two of them together as we continue our preview of the 2012 college football season.