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The Big East continues to wait for Missouri to do something (today they authorized the chancellor to look into the school's conference realignment, um, again.) Meanwhile, tonight the only football games on are two Big East conference games (West Virginia at Syracuse and Rutgers at Louisville). It would have been great for the conference to send out those invites they are sitting on for no good reason so that if the games aren't entertaining at least we'd have expansion to talk about. Instead of that we turn to the Positive Impact Factor (what's this?) to update the quarterback play in the Big East and defenses' play against quarterbacks. We're back to eight quarterbacks this week as Will Stein and Chas Dodd have been relegated to backup roles.
Here's the updated standings:
| Rank | Quarterback | Team | Touches | Total TD | Neg Play | XNeg Play | XPos Play | PIF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | B.J. Daniels | South Florida | 250 | 12 | 33.6 | 11.4 | 4.8 | 59.8 |
| 2. | Zach Collaros | Cincinnati | 210 | 15 | 32.9 | 18 | 7.1 | 56.3 |
| 3. | Ryan Nassib | Syracuse | 217 | 12 | 37.8 | 19.8 | 5.5 | 48 |
| 4. | Teddy Bridgewater | Louisville | 148 | 5 | 36.5 | 25 | 3.4 | 41.9 |
| 5. | Geno Smith | West Virginia | 275 | 16 | 37.8 | 30 | 5.8 | 38 |
| 6. | Tino Sunseri | Pittsburgh | 267 | 6 | 41.9 | 27 | 2.2 | 33.3 |
| 7. | Gary Nova | Rutgers | 110 | 6 | 49.1 | 29.1 | 5.5 | 27.3 |
| 8. | Johnny McEntee | Connecticut | 224 | 6 | 50.9 | 26.5 | 2.7 | 25.2 |
Ryan Nassib took full advantage of the bye week to get to third place. With Stein and Dodd dropping out of the standings, he also got closer to Collaros and Daniels who saw their ratings slide south this past week. Actually, everything stayed the same except for Nova and McEntee switching places. Collaros had the best PIF performance of any Big East QB in action, but he still only had a 49.4 in the win over Louisville. UConn's defense held Daniels to one touchdown and forced three turnovers in their win over the Bulls. Daniels had an 11.5 PIF for the game which really cut into his rating. Tino Sunseri continues to rank last in the league in producing touchdowns, which he has only done on 2.2% of his touches.
Now for the defenses:
| Rank | Team | Touches | Total TD | Neg Play | XNeg Play | XPos Play | PIF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Rutgers | 223 | 5 | 47.1 | 44.2 | 2.2 | 10.9 |
| 2. | Cincinnati | 241 | 9 | 39 | 44 | 3.7 | 20.8 |
| 3. | South Florida | 254 | 8 | 42.5 | 31.2 | 3.1 | 29.5 |
| 4. | Connecticut | 299 | 12 | 42.8 | 30.4 | 4 | 30.8 |
| 5. | West Virginia | 224 | 5 | 40.2 | 28.7 | 2.2 | 33.4 |
| 6. | Syracuse | 290 | 13 | 37.2 | 18.3 | 4.5 | 48.9 |
| 7. | Pittsburgh | 323 | 10 | 40.2 | 9 | 3.1 | 53.8 |
| 8. | Louisville | 225 | 9 | 37.3 | 12.5 | 4 | 54.2 |
Nothing changed in the defensive standings this week. Rutgers continues to devastate opposing quarterbacks. Navy's Kriss Proctor, who was the highest ranked quarterback Rutgers has faced, had the worst PIF of any Big East opponent in week seven with a 5.8. Tonight Teddy Bridgewater will be the latest QB to try to crack their defense. So far this season Rutgers has gotten an interception on 18.4% of opposing QBs' incompletions. Ryan Nassib has been having a good season for Syracuse but will face a Mountaineer defense that is every bit as good as Rutgers in preventing QB touchdowns. Conversely, Geno Smith will be going up against the Orange defense that has allowed the most opposing QB touchdowns in the Big East in 2011. In the only other Big East game of the week, Cincinnati and South Florida square off in Tampa on Saturday. Something has to give in that game as the top two quarterbacks will play against the #2 and #3 PIF ranked defenses in the Big East.
Check out previous weeks of the Big East Positive Impact Factor: