How Do Others See the Big East Race Shaping Up in 2012?

How do others see the Big East race shaping up this season?

There are a lot of Big East predictions for this season and with the conference wide open as usual, there are a few ways to looking at how the teams will finish.  Here are some of the predictions from major sites.

Yesterday, Athlon Sports published their predictions for the Big East:

1. Louisville (10-2, 5-2) 

2. USF (8-4, 5-2) 

3. Pitt (7-5, 4-3) 

4. Rutgers (8-4, 4-3) 

5. Cincinnati (7-5, 4-3) 

6. Syracuse (5-7, 3-4) 

7. UConn (5-7, 2-5) 

8. Temple (5-7, 1-6)

They join Phil Steele's predictions:

1. USF 

2. Louisville 

3. Rutgers 

4. Pitt 

4. Cincinnati 

6. UConn 

7. Syracuse 

8. Temple

And College Football News's:

No. 14 Louisville. Projected record: 10-2 

No. 25 Rutgers. Projected record: 9-3 

No. 37 Cincinnati. Projected record: 8-4 

No. 47 USF. Projected record: 7-5 

No. 51 Pitt. Projected record: 7-5 

No. 57 Syracuse. Projected record: 6-6 

No. 76 UConn. Projected record: 5-7 

No. 101 Temple. Projected record: 3-9

What is consistent with all these polls are two things, they believe that Temple will be at the bottom of the conference and that Louisville will be at the very top (Steele has the Bulls winning it).  The rest of the conference is up in the air at this stage. 

These predictions tend to keep UCONN and Syracuse towards the bottom of the conference with Pitt and Cincinnati following them.  Athlon has Pitt a little higher than the others, but there are question marks with that team.  The upper teams are Rutgers, USF, and the conference favorite Louisville.  Rutgers has big questions at quarterback, but with their talent, they will be in the hunt. 

While the conference is wide open, we are able to get a solid idea of what to expect this season (if games are played on paper).  We can see who the teams to beat are and who might struggle this season.

As we predicted in our guess work, we had Louisville at the top, edging out USF, just like Athlon Sports has it. 

These predictions are fun and help kill the time, but they won't mean anything after the teams take the field and battle it out to see who really will win the conference title.