NCAA Football Big East

Each Friday, FanHouse's Brett McMurphy will preview the Big East and make his weekly predictions.

So how was your week? Much better than Syracuse's, I hope.

Let's quickly recap the past few days for Syracuse.

Saturday afternoon, the Orange lost to Cincinnati 28-7 as the home crowd booed quarterback Greg Paulus.

Sunday morning at 5:30, four players, including star wide receiver Mike Williams, were involved in a car accident.

Monday, Williams quit the team and the other three players were suspended. That day in an emotional press conference, Syracuse coach Doug Marrone, fighting back tears, defends Paulus. The school announces that defensive end Jarred Kimmel will undergo season-ending knee surgery.

Also, the Syracuse Post-Standard reports that cornerback JohnMark Henderson left the team. Henderson was the 21st player to leave the team since Marrone was hired in December.

And then things really got interesting.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The demand for a college football playoff could break up the BCS after the 2013 season, but instead of adding a playoff, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) would likely just revert back to the old bowl system, Big East commissioner John Marinatto told FanHouse.

"It [the BCS] is such an entity where there's so many diverse things that come together that make it work," Marinatto said. "I don't know if all that will continue to go on the way it is. If they're pressured to create a playoff, they would simply go back to what the system used to be like and have it as an at-large, free-for-all where people can go [to whichever bowl] they want.

And then there were two.

Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are now the lone undefeated teams in Big East play after last weekend's action.

The No. 4 ranked Bearcats and No. 14 Panthers continue on a collision course for the de facto Big East championship game on Dec. 5 in Pittsburgh. By the way, whatever Nick Carparelli, the Big East's senior associate commissioner for football, is making, he deserves a raise.

Carparelli is in charge of the league's schedule and his philosophy is having the league's top games played later in the year. That's easier said than done, but the Big East could have a pair of Top 10 teams playing for the league title if the Bearcats and Panthers don't stumble.

Stumble is exactly what West Virginia did -- again -- at South Florida. Playing in Tampa, Fla., on a Friday night for the second time in three years, the Mountaineers' league title hopes took a big hit with the 30-19 loss to the Bulls, who had lost their previous two games to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh by a combined margin of 75-31.

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- On a day Connecticut honored slain teammate Jasper Howard, one of his best friends won the game for Rutgers.

Tim Brown, who grew up with Howard in Miami, scored on an 81-yard touchdown pass from Tom Savage with 22 seconds left to give the Scarlet Knights a 28-24 victory over the Huskies in UConn's first home game since Howard was stabbed to death.

"I just went out there and played that game for my friend," Brown said. "He was a special guy to me and I just went out there and dedicated that game to him."

STORRS, Conn. -- Connecticut coach Randy Edsall is good at many things -- such as refining football skills, leading a group of young men and supporting them through the tragedy of Jasper Howard's murder.

He has had little time to make sure his pop culture references were up to date.

"I am Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing," Edsall said earlier this week, when pressed about details surrounding the murder investigation. Just minutes later, in a separate media conference, the arrests of three men were announced.

Ironically, Edsall, especially in recent days, is very little like Schultz, whose character on "Hogan's Heroes" -- a TV show that ran from 1965-71 -- was a bumbling, borderline incompetent mess (Trust me, I looked it up).

Edsall recited Schultz's famous slogan, but that's where the similarities end.

Each Friday, FanHouse's Brett McMurphy will preview the Big East and make his weekly predictions.

Before the season began, South Florida coach Jim Leavitt said he was making several changes within the Bulls' program in hopes of avoiding another mid-season free fall that has plagued them the past two seasons.

"I've tried to look at our practice schedules, tried to look at how we're doing things," Leavitt said on Sept. 1. "We've changed quite a bit. Has it worked? I don't know. If we win, we'll feel good about it. If we lose, we'll feel we're not real smart."

USF is not real smart right now.

Connecticut police have charged a man with the murder of Connecticut football player Jasper Howard. John William Lomax, 21, has been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit assault.

His attorney insists Lomax was attempting to break up the fight. His bond was set at $2 million.

Police charged Hakim Muhammad, 20, with conspiracy to commit assault, and 21-year-old Jamal Todd with pulling the fire alarm, which reportedly began the fight.

None of the three men are listed as students or employees at the university, according to the school's Web site.

Howard, 20, was stabbed just after 12:30AM, Oct. 18, following a school-sanctioned dance on the Connecticut campus. He was airlifted to a Hartford hospital where he died later that morning.

Just three weeks ago, we called Pittsburgh the Pitts-ophrenic Panthers after their up-and-down performances earlier this season against Buffalo, N.C. State, Louisville and UConn.

Uh, is it too late to take that all back?

As impressive as Cincinnati has been all season, Pittsburgh might be playing the best overall of any Big East team. The offense is balanced and the defense gets more dominating each week. Saturday, the Panthers (7-1, 4-0 Big East) scorched South Florida 41-14.

Since allowing 505 yards at N.C. State, the Panthers have improved their defensive numbers in each of the past four games. Pitt allowed 305 yards to Louisville on Oct. 2, 303 to UConn on Oct. 10, 286 to Rutgers on Oct. 16 and 212 to USF on Saturday.

When the Associated Press preseason poll was released, the Big East was blanked. The Big East had as many teams in the preseason Top 25 poll as the Sun Belt: zero, zip, nada.

Since the league began in 1991, it was only the third weekly poll that the Big East did not have a team in the AP rankings and, on cue, prompted the annual "does the Big East deserve an automatic BCS bowl bid argument?" from out West.

Seven weeks later, however, the Big East is back in the rankings in a big way. The Big East has three teams ranked among the nation's top 22 schools -- no conference has more in the top 22 -- and a legitimate national title contender in Cincinnati.

University of Connecticut coach Randy Edsall said there really wasn't much consideration given to postponing Saturday's game at West Virginia following the murder of defensive back Jasper Howard.

"I know Jasper wouldn't want us to do that," Edsall said on Monday's Big East conference call. "That's the real reason [we're playing]."

Howard, 20, who had led the Huskies to a 38-25 victory against Louisville on Saturday, died early Sunday after an on-campus stabbing. Howard, who was soon to become a father, was stabbed near the school's Student Union.

Edsall said his team and coaching staff are attempting to deal with the loss of Howard, particularly two players who were with Howard when he died.