The present state of things

It's 8:20 p.m. EDT on the fifth full college football Saturday of the season. Pitt trails Virginia 30-7 -- with time left on a second quarter clock. And the Panthers are, at this moment, unarguably the worst team in the Big East.

Tonight's grease fire will drop the Panthers to 2-3.

Let's take a spin around the conference as it's currently constituted.

South Florida topped West Virginia Friday night. It was a sloppy game, to be sure, but no one is disputing that West Virginia is still a top 15 team, and with as much wreckage as has been seen around the country today, USF might yet crack the top 10.

Rutgers was, um, devoured by Ralph Friedgen's Maryland Terrapins this afternoon, and while it's true that the Terps were SUNJ's first true test, this is another team that won't exactly fall out of the top 25.

All Cincinnati does is kill teams. No major tests, but the win over Oregon State was convincing.

Connecticut is simply 5-0 and -- by the way -- they embarrassed the Panthers 34-14.

Louisville. Okay, the season hasn't gone as planned for the Cards, and no amount of garlic sauce can make the hurt go away. But they gently kissed N.C. State good night a couple of hours ago (29-10) and besides, apparently losing to Kentucky is nothing to get worked up about this year.

That brings us to Syracuse, which stands at 1-3 after a sheepish loss to the hated Miami Foreskins. (Miami sucks.) But remember, we're not nominating Syracuse for the Zweibel Prize. We're trying to argue that they're better than Dave Wannstedt here.

Syracuse and Pitt have both notched a single Flawed-Playoff Championship Subdivision win. The Orange took out the aforementioned bunch from Louisville -- in Louisville. Pitt's gauntlet took them through Eastern Michigan at Heinz Field.

Fire Dave Wannstedt. His vaunted recruiting classes are, assembled as a group, the actual worst team in the Big East.