Reflections From Big East Media Day

By Sean Fernandez

Today was Big East media day, an annual event that gives the media a chance to hear from coaches and players from across the conference. All 8 head coaches and a few players spoke in front of various media personnel.

With this being the last year in the Big East for Syracuse, it was also the last time that Doug Marrone would speak at the event. He kept it short though, speaking for less than 2 minutes at the podium. He discussed the decision to hold a portion of training camp at Fort Drum, a military base, among other things.

He also spoke about the difficult schedule that awaits his Orange squad.

Another pressing matter that came up today was the injury to All-Big East Left Tackle Justin Pugh. The senior was kept out of the spring game, and will likely miss all of training camp because of the same lingering upper-body injury. He'll be needed if the Orange are to compete in the conference.

The preseason Big East media poll also came out today, ranking the 8 teams as follows:

1) Louisville
2) USF
3) Rutgers
4) Cincinnati
5) Pittsburgh
6) UConn
7) Syracuse
8) Temple

Louisville, the favorite, returns 17 starters from last year's team that won a share of the conference title. They are coached by Charlie Strong, who was pleasantly surprised at the ranking.

West Virginia is gone, Temple has arrived, and Syracuse/Pittsburgh have one foot out the door. It should be an interesting season in the Big East, which kicks off in just over one month.