SI's Stewart Mandel on the 2008 BIG EAST race

Do you think Pitt has a chance to knock West Virginia out as the Big East champs this year? I see LeSean "Shady" McCoy having a huge year now that there may be an offense around him. Last year, teams were lining up eight and nine guys in the box because there was no passing game and he still ran for 1,300+ yards and 14 TDs.-- Pete Spence, Elizabeth, Pa.

Here's where we get into an ever-dicey subject, which is, what is the definition of a preseason poll? Most people seem to treat them as "predictions" -- i.e., this is what the final poll will look like come Jan. 8. Personally, I treat my preseason poll as a "starting point," based on how the teams finished last season and who they have coming back. What happens from there is up to them.

With that in mind, West Virginia is the highest-ranked Big East team in my preseason poll because, quite simply, the Mountaineers deserve it. They've won 11 games for three straight seasons and they return the most explosive quarterback-tailback tandem in the country in Pat White and Noel Devine. They lost too many other key players, particularly on defense, to start in the top 10, but top 15 is perfectly justified.

That said, if you were to ask me, "Who do you predict will win the Big East," I would say ... probably not West Virginia. Much of that is based on my aforementioned lack of faith in the Bill Stewart regime and the entirely realistic possibility of that program suffering a Louisville-type implosion (though that would more likely come next year), but it's also because there are a whole bunch of other Big East teams sitting on the verge of a breakthrough. I'm just not sure which one it will be.

Pittsburgh is certainly one of those teams. As inexplicable as the then-4-7 Panthers' Championship Saturday upset in Morgantown seemed at the time, the result wasn't entirely fluky. (Remember, Pitt also beat 10-3 Cincinnati prior to that.) The Panthers' defense was tremendous all season, finishing No. 5 nationally in yards allowed, and anyone who's watched McCoy knows he's an All-America-caliber back. The problem, as Pete noted above, was the absolute lack of a passing game. It's no guarantee, but the return of last year's opening-day QB Bill Stull and All-Big East WR Derek Kinder from injuries could help solve that.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati is not going away, and in fact should field a better overall team than it did last year if former starting QB Dustin Grutza can adjust to Brian Kelly's spread offense. Connecticut returns 17 starters from a team that very quietly shared the Big East title with West Virginia last season. Rutgers will not be going away just because Ray Rice did. And South Florida, if it can ever maintain any level of consistency, has shown it can play with just about anyone.

So the short answer to Pat's short question is, the Big East is wide open.