The apparent downfall of the Big East Conference, the establishment of the Atlantic Coast Conference as a super-conference and the realignment of numerous conferences across the nation (such as Conference USA, the Western Athletic Conference, the Mid-American Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, the Mountain West Conference and the Atlantic Ten Conference to go along with the Big East and ACC) can be traced back to before the turn of the millennium when the University of Miami sent a letter to the conference's Commissioner Mike Tranghese in 1999 detailing their complaints regarding how the conference was being run. When Tranghese refused to address the issues brought forth by arguably the conference's top football power, Miami became increasingly dissatisfied with being a member of the Big East. This helped make things easier when the school was offered to jump ship and join the ACC in the summer 2003 along with the Syracuse and Boston College. After a handful of second thoughts and political moves by members of both conferences and then-Virginia Governor Mark Warner, Syracuse was dropped from the list and replaced by Blacksburg-based Virginia Tech. The departure of three of the Big East's top programs had many in sports world questioning the conference's strength and future (which, at time, looked bleak even to those within the Big East - at the conference's summer meeting of "football schools" there were discussions of splitting the league into two conferences - one all-sports conference and one that focused primarily on basketball) and praising the ACC as an emerging superpower. Oh, how far from the truth those predictions ended up being.

Partially in response to concerns by fans for the conference's future, the bashing the Big East was getting from the media and for the sake of keeping the league together, the Big East extended invitations to the University of Cincinnati, the University of Louisville, the University of South Florida, DePaul University and Marquette University (the latter two being non-football schools), creating an eight-team football conference and a 16-team superconference in basketball (DePaul and Marquette joined Georgetown University, Notre Dame, Providence University, St. John's University, Seton Hall and Villanova University as the conference's non-football schools).

And yet, even after these additions were made, many in the sports world considered the Big East to be weak both in basketball and football.

Those who doubted the strength of the league's basketball abilities were silenced this past season when 12 of the conference's 16 schools finished the regular season with records over .500 and Big East teams made up 25 percent of the 2006 Men's Sweet 16 and Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. And those who doubted the league's football strength were also silenced when the Mountaineers of West Virginia University tore through the Big East in the regular season and posted a 38-35 win over a loaded University of Georgia Bulldog team.

The return of the Big East in football came as a surprise to most in the sports world who were so quick to bash the league for being weak right after the ACC raid and especially after it's 2004-2005 campaign when Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida were a year away from joining and a four-way tie for the Big East title occurred between Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse and West Virginia.

It was an occurrence that was not supposed to happen to the Big East but the ACC, who seemed poised to overtake the Southeastern Conference as the best of the nation when Miami and Virginia Tech were added to a mix of the ACC's Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech, already some of the nation's top teams. Instead, the ACC stumbled in 2004-2005 when national title hopefuls Miami and FSU were overtaken by a Virginia Tech squad that was picked to finish near the bottom of the conference's standings and last season when Tech's national title hopes were dashed by embarrassing losses to Miami and Florida State, sending the Seminoles of FSU to the conference's BCS game where they lost to Joe Paterno's Penn State Nittany Lions.

What was perhaps most shocking was Miami's 40-3 loss to Louisiana State University in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, a game that many thought would be a close battle. Instead, the Hurricanes of UM were sent home stunned, literally - two Miami players were knocked unconscious in a post-game brawl that involved 12 Miami and LSU players.

Even putting the past aside, the Big East should outshine the ACC again this season with two national title contenders compared to none on the part of the Atlantic Coast. West Virginia is a team loaded with offensive talent and possible Heisman candidates in sophomore quarterback Patrick White and sophomore running back Steve Slaton and an offensive scheme designed by Head Coach Rich Rodriguez that has been copied by a few coaches in the country because of how successful it has been. Louisville has a shot at making the national title game with top talent in senior quarterback Brian Brohm and senior running back Michael Bush, two players who should be first-day picks in the 2007 NFL Draft, but only if the Cardinals can overtake the Mountaineers and shut down the tandem of White and Slaton.

The ACC, however, does not even have a clear-cut favorite to take the top spot in the conference. Removed from a season that many thought could yield a national title appearance, Virginia Tech is arguably weaker than the Hokies were last season with the departure of headcase quarterback Marcus Vick and two of their three leading rushers in Cedric Humes and Mike Imoh. On defense, the Hokies will be playing without defensive back Jimmy Williams, defensive end Darryl Tapp and linebacker James Anderson, who moved on to the NFL in the Draft. Thankfully for Tech, West Virginia is no longer on the schedule for the foreseeable future and the Hokies play a weak out-of-conference schedule but with so many players to replace at key positions, it would be hard for one to make an argument that Virginia Tech is a national title contender. Tech is a Top 25 bottomfeeder at best.

The same can be said of the conference's two Florida-based schools. Miami is a program that is clearly fading from where they were less than a decade ago and although Florida State played a tough game in their BCS bowl, the Seminoles also lack the type of talent that comes out and wows a person. Running back Leon Washington is no longer around and the team's leading rusher last season, Lorenzo Booker, lacks the type of ability to be a big-time producer at his position. Quarterback Drew Weatherford will be under a lot of pressure if he cannot get success to come from an FSU rushing attack that failed to average more than 100 yards per game last season.

The Clemson Tigers and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets wait in the wings behind Tech, Miami and FSU but also have significant troubles of their own. The Tigers will have to replace departed quarterback Charlie Whitehurst and have always had a trouble of showing up at times against their opponents. Coupled with a late season meeting with Steve Spurrier's constantly improving South Carolina Gamecocks, things certainly are not looking good for Clemson making a run this season. The Yellow Jackets were a trendy surprise pick by some last season but Georgia Tech stumbled to a 7-5 record. Like the Tigers, the Yellow Jackets seem to have problems showing up at times and also play a tough opponent late in the season, the Georgia Bulldogs.

Most Big East fans would probably want a collective apology from the sports world, including the so-called experts at ESPN who seemed to love nothing more than to bash the conference for being weak, but that is something that simply will not happen. They will just have to sit back and smile, knowing that after the dust settled and the footballs were handed off and throw into the air that it was their conference, the one that was supposed to be weak, that emerged as the stronger of the two.