Four times in the ten years, a BE team has played for the MNC. Forty percent isn’t too shabby. In the eight years of round-robin play, four different teams have won conference championships; few conferences have conferred championship rings during the same time period on half their teams. There have been bumps and glitches along the way, such as Miami’s probation, and a perception that the Big East is not that good, generally voiced whenever Syracuse wins the league.

The league is not without potential problems down the road, as membership retention remains an iffy proposition and the unwillingness of large numbers of fans from seven of the member schools to travel to bowl games, coupled with NCAA rules that only allow Tech to play in one per year, means that guaranteed BE bowl slots are going to be hard to come by.

All in all, however, and especially from Tech’s perspective, it has been a positive thing. What follows is a look at all eight teams, from the past to the future, going from the bottom (or in this case, booted) up, ending of course with the good guys.

It was one of the worst coaching hires in the history of football. Dickerson took a bad program and made it worse, turning in a five-year ledger of 8-47; three of the victories coming in his last year, 1997, three times in five years going 1-10, and of his 8 victories, 3 were against MAC programs. In the Big East under Dickerson the Owls were a woeful 4-31, beating Pitt twice, Boston College once, and a Rutgers program that was being trashed just as badly by Terry Shea once.

Dickerson was unceremoniously fired after 1997, and Bobby Wallace was brought in. Wallace turned in a pair of 2-9 seasons in his first two years, spicing things up in 1998 with the biggest upset in the history of BE football, that stunner over Tech. Wallace got the Owls to 4-7 last year, wildly successful by Temple standards, and has done a rather remarkable job in taking what was truly a ground zero rebuilding job and turning the Owls into a fairly competitive team.

The present: An improved team and a weak out of conference schedule has Temple dreaming of a winning season and a bowl bid. Lots of luck. While new coaches at Rutgers and West Virginia might enable the Owls to manage a 6-5, their lame duck status means the only way they get one of the BE’s bowl slots is if there is nobody else to fill it.

The present: Alumnus Greg Schiano becomes the latest to move into the coaching graveyard that is Rutgers football. He takes over a team that is the least-talented in the Big East by a wide margin. He recruited decently in his first year, and several of the incoming frosh should quickly be on the field, not exactly good news because a team that plays large numbers of true freshmen is a team that loses large numbers of games. Games against Buffalo, Connecticut and Navy are winnable; anything else and Schiano should receive Coach of the Year consideration.

The future: Rutgers remains the BE’s enigma. They are a large university located in the middle of New Jersey’s huge amounts of high school talent, few who give their state university a second look. Rutgers should have been the school to accomplish what Tech did. They did not, in large parts due to lousy coaching and administrative indifference and in some cases hostility to the football program. No one in the Rutgers front office has given the high-profile boost to winning football that Dr. Torgersen gave Tech. Schiano will have to convince both high school seniors and a largely skeptical Rutgers community that winning football is obtainable and beneficial. It will be a daunting task.

The past: Don Nehlen’s Mountaineers went 11-9-2 in the BE’s first two football seasons before making a big splash in 1993, going 11-0 and winning the first year of conference round-robin play. Success generally followed, with winning seasons and bowl bids in 1994, 96, 98 and 2000, Nehlen’s last, sandwiched around losing marks in 1995 and 99. They followed up their perfect 93 conference record by going 4-3 four straight years and 5-2 in 1998, operating usually just behind the top-of-the-BE pack of Miami, Syracuse and Tech, before slipping to 3-4 league marks both of the last two years. Nehlen’s teams were always tough and physical, and he made up for the lack of in-state recruiting prospects by establishing a recruiting network that scoured the entire east coast for quality players, with much of Nehlen’s success built upon Florida recruits.

The present: The Neers have replaced an established winner with an unproven coach. Rich Rodriguez, another in the "let’s hire an alumnus and see if lightning strikes twice" method of hiring college football coaches made popular by Frank Beamer, takes over his alma mater. He has instituted sweeping changes on both sides of the ball, installing the run and shoot offense he and mentor Tommy Bowden successfully ran at Clemson and Tulane, and bringing in former Tech Defensive Coordinator Phil Elmassian to install Tech’s attacking defense. The problem is they are doing it with Nehlen’s personnel, recruited for entirely different systems. It should be a transition year in Motown; Coach Rod will need time to match abilities to schemes. Matching last year’s 6-5 record should be difficult.

The future: Recruiting is the big thing here. West Virginia, the state, produces few quality college football prospects. Nehlen compensated through an extensive network of contacts, particularly in Pennsylvania and Florida. Can Rodriguez build a comparable network, and how long will it take? If he is able to have the same success in recruiting other people’s back yards as Nehlen, records comparable to Nehlen’s can be expected. If not, the BE will have another Rutgers on its hands.

Things had changed in Pennsylvania, and Joe Paterno had moved into a dominant position that Majors could not crack. His recruiting was poor, and it showed in his four-year record of 12-32, 7-21 in the Big East. Majors gave up the ghost after 96, and Walt Harris, the star of John Cooper’s Ohio State staff, was brought on board in 1997. He caught both Tech and Miami in down years and experienced early success, going 6-5 and sneaking into the Liberty Bowl. A rebuilding job that included ridding the program of malcontents recruited by Majors then began, evident in the 2-9 mark in 1998. Harris improved to 5-6 in 1999 before getting back to a bowl last year with a 7-4 slate.

The present: Pitt [I don’t care what the Pitt[sburgh] administration wants to call them, the Panthers are still Pitt to me and virtually all of their alumni] seems poised to crack the top of the BE. Harris has followed the Frank Beamer blueprint of building a program, sans the scholarship-losing probation, and has gradually improved recruiting. The Panthers move into the city’s new football stadium, which they will share with the Steelers, and their early OOC of home games against East Tennessee State, DI-A newbie South Florida and UAB is designed to acclimate them to their new digs and establish some sort of home field advantage in preparation for what will be a huge game for the Harris regime, a Thursday night home game with Miami. If Pitt wins that one, and they just might, they could roll to a huge year, especially with Tech also paying a visit in November.

The future: Bright, as long as Harris sticks around. He was denied the opportunity to interview to replace Cooper at Ohio State, which probably doesn’t sit too well, and a big year might have Harris casting around for the big payday that the financially strapped Pittsburgh athletic department probably couldn’t match. There is opportunity in Pittsburgh, however. Joe Paterno at Penn State is coming to the end of the road, and the recruiting inroads already made by Harris could turn into a bonanza when JoePa finally catches the Bear’s record and calls it quits.

Syracuse finished 7-4 in 1994 with no bowl bid. Things perked up the next year with the arrival of quarterback Donovan McNabb, who in four years led SU to records of 9-3, 9-3, 9-4 and 8-4, two outright Big East championships, and a share of a third. McNabb could never get the Orange over the Top Ten hump, however, and Syracuse winning conference championships with mediocre records had much to do with the Big East being classified as a lightweight conference. The championships left with McNabb, and Pasqualoni has struggled to a pair of 6-5 records since McNabb's departure.

The present: Pasqualoni has been under fire, and this year probably will not help. Most of the offensive staff checked out with McNabb, and Syracuse has struggled on that side of the line ever since. The underpinning of the fine defense that has carried the Orangemen has also now graduated, just at the time the OOC has been seriously upgraded. Pasqualoni recruits fairly well, and there is sufficient talent to avoid a plunge to the bottom of the BE, but even another 6-5 record should be considered a major accomplishment. If Syracuse stumbles as expected early against that killer OOC, things could go sour in a hurry, and this year could be the beleaguered Paul P’s last running the Orange.

The present: BC has a pretty good offense, logical for a former offensive coach. The Eagles struggle defensively against good teams, however, and quite a few dot their 2001 schedule. They will be a dangerous team capable of beating anybody on a given Saturday, but lack the overall talent to win every game day. 7-4 seems like their level.

The future: Fairly solid. Boston College comes across as the quintessential middle of the pack team. There is enough talent to keep the winning records and minor bowl bids flowing, and O’Brien seems capable of keeping it that way. There is not, however, the financial backing or interest in the program for the Eagles to do much more than occasionally challenge the top of the conference. O’Brien seems to be getting dug in after being passed over in the confused search to replace his mentor George Welsh, and may be on Chestnut Hill for the long haul. This can be a good, but not great, program.

The past: Miami has one of the best college football histories around during the last couple of decades. They got the Big East Football Conference off to a rousing start by winning the MNC in 1991 and playing for it the next year, losing to Alabama. They were quite surprised in 1993 when West Virginia won the first year of conference round-robin play, but bounced back in 1994 to again play for, and lose, the national championship game, this time to Nebraska.

Following that season, Miami coach Dennis Erickson observed the NCAA wolves gathering around the Orange Bowl and decided to get as far away from Miami as he could while still remaining within the continental United States, taking over the Seattle Seahawks. After an extended search that found Miami administrators often being told "No" by coaches not wanting to deal with the impending probation and sanctions, the job went to former Canes assistant Butch Davis. He finished 8-3 in his first season before the NCAA hammer dropped and Miami voided its share of the conference title.

Another 8-3 and a share of the BE championship came in 1996 before the loss of scholarships hit with a losing 5-6 slate in 1997. Butch and the Canes rebounded quickly, however, going 9-3 in 1998 and 9-4 in 99 before re-claiming past glories and winning the BE last year. Davis, after loud and long claims that he was at Miami for good, then followed Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson and Erickson before him and bolted for greener pastures, heading for Cleveland and a $3 million salary.

The present: Miami once again found that successful coaches were not beating down their door for the job, in large part due to lousy timing by Davis in leaving just before Signing Day. The job went to Davis’ offensive coordinator, Larry Coker. The big question mark concerning the Canes is whether Coker is up to the job. Davis was an excellent recruiter and Coker inherits one of the most talented rosters in the country; the Canes should be very good. How good depends on the abilities of Coker and the new staff. A killer out of conference schedule would seem to rule out national honors, and even a conference title depends on a December trip to Virginia Tech, where Coker will face a head coach and staff much more experienced and wiser than he and his.

The changes worked. In 1993, Tech blew to a 9-3 record culminating in an Independence Bowl rout of Indiana. The good times were just beginning. A Gator bowl bid came the next year, and then Tech hit the big time, heading to the Sugar and Orange Bowls the next two years. The next two years brought two more bowl bids before Beamer escalated the program again, going 22-2 over the last two seasons, including a trip back to the Sugar Bowl in 1999, this time for the MNC.

The present: It is the Year After at Tech. The man on the spot is quarterback Grant Noel. How well he responds will be the key to sustaining Tech’s Top Ten run. While there are three well-regarded frosh quarterbacks on the way, Tech’s offense cannot be learned in three weeks in August. Noel will be given every opportunity to prove he can lead a team otherwise laden with talent. True freshmen quarterback teams do not win big, and if Tech starts one it will be a sure indication the staff has written off the season. The early schedule is perfect to provide experience and confidence for Noel and the reloaded offensive line expected to pave the way for what should be a devastating ground game. Experience means a lot, and the Tech defense will have more of it, and should be dominant. Special teams, as they always are under Beamer, are a given. The game at Pitt will be very difficult, but this team can easily go 9-2, with 10-1 a distinct possibility.

The future: Bright. The program is on solid ground and should remain there. Recruiting has been dominant in the state, and the staff is now starting to take it to the national level enjoyed by most top programs. Coaching stability, which has been paramount in Tech’s rise in the college football rankings, is now the envy of all other Big East programs. It will be key to Tech remaining at the top.

Frank Beamer’s well-publicized dalliances with other programs have been an annoyance, which hopefully, as other schools become weary of being toyed with or used, will stop. An important question is can the funds be found to keep the senior staff so vital to the program’s success intact, as Tech will remain for the foreseeable future a budgetary middle-of-the-pack program. The coaching staff must also deal with the huge expectations eleven wins each of the last two years has placed on the program. But, all in all, these are not bad problems to have. Few Hokies would trade them for those facing Temple or Rutgers, for instance, or most teams Virginia Tech plays.