You'll have to excuse our relative brevity over the past few days as is it is becoming more and more apparent that we have Mono. We've been kissing a lot of chicks so there's really nothing else it could be.
And seriously, that many people are blaming our haircut? It's beating out "no one is to blame" for Christ sakes.
The 99th edition of the "Backyard Brawl" features two teams on very different emotional levels. Rutgers' win over Louisville means that the Mountaineers are three wins away from at least a share of a conference title and a likely birth in a BCS game. Pitt, on the other hand, is coming off three straight losses including last week's double overtime heartbreaker to league bottom feeder Connecticut.
We're not really sure who to pull for as far as Louisville is concerned, but it would seem to be West Virginia. A three-way tie between WVU, Rutgers and U of L would result in a "highest BCS ranking" tiebreaker in which there is a slight chance that Louisville could be the victor, although if the rankings stay the way they are the bid will go to the Mounties. Still, there is a much better shot in a three-way tie than there would be in a two-way tie with Rutgers, in which case the tiebreaker is the head-to-head result, and just in case you got caught up in a riveting American history piece on KET Thursday night, that's a tiebreaker we wouldn't win.
Still a West Virginia loss would mean that Louisville would leap frog WVU in the BCS standings putting them in a better position to grab an at-large bid, and it would also mean that at worst, the Cardinals would get the league's #2 bowl if they win out. And of course there's still always the possibility that Rutgers could still lose twice, meaning that if Pitt pulls off the upset, the Cards could win the Big East title outright.
So, um, who do we cheer for? Louisville. Against South Florida. Saturday.
Anyway it doesn't really matter because West Virginia's going to win. Palko can't play in big games which counteracts the Mounties weak secondary, and the WV offense could score 90 points on Pitt's thin front line if they wanted to.
CC Prediction: West Virginia 47, Pitt 21