Thursday Night Preview: #23 South Florida at Cincinnati

In keeping with the theme of the day, once the ESPN Thursday night programmer took a shit and put it into his ESPN issued lunchbox (the graphic on the lunchbox was Stuart Scott's lazy eye and the eye followed you when it moved.)Anyway, then the ESPN programmer collected Lou Holtz's spit and mixed it with Doris Burke's used tampon and when he opened up the lunchbox it had turned into South Florida at Cincinnati. Score! Here's your Thursday night preview.Someone has to win the Big East. We know this. There's a BCS spot at stake. But with miles to go before we sleep only Syracuse at 0-3 has completely eliminated themselves from contention. Fans of the other 7 teams in the conference (all 14 of you) can still lay awake at night and dream about the riches and glory that could be yours if only your team could string together a few wins and snag the coveted prize. Tonight the Big East's only ranked team in the Coaches' Poll, South Florida, tries to become the only team in the Big East not named Syracuse to have three conference losses, and Cincinnati tries to avoid adding on their second consecutive conference loss. Yep, like 7th grade girls competing to avoid being the slut of the pre-algebra classroom, it's a battle not to suck. Cincinnati is 5-2. Prior to getting trounced 40-16 by UConn last week their only loss was at Oklahoma. Now they have to beat South Florida to avoid dropping to 1-2 in conference. Which would be bad. What's worse than this? The next two games are on the road at West Virginia and at Louisiville. So, really, Cincinnati is probably already eliminated from Big East contention. But that's okay. Because their final game of the season, on December 6, is at Hawaii. Which is awesome for the team but will kill their bowl crowd. If you have a choice between following Cincinnati to Hawaii in early December or to Birmingham's PapaJohn's Bowl in late December which are you choosing? Cincinnati's starting quarterback, Tony Pike, is also tougher than you. Not that there was really any doubt after you pulled yourself from an intramural flag football game with turf toe, but still, it's important to establish these things. Pike started last week's game against UConn and played with a broken left (non-throwing) arm. He was pulled from the game after he lost feeling in the broken arm. Jesus. On the other side of the field South Florida is trying to avoid another Big East collapse. (Perhaps Jim Leavitt can recruit Jenn Sterger to provide the necessary support to the team since she attended USF for two years before transferring to FSU.) After being ranked as high as #10 in the country, the Bulls have lost 2 of 3 conference games. Losing at home on Thursday night to Pitt and on the road to Louisville. It's a battle for the Big East ages, and who are you kidding, you'll be watching. Unless College Invasion 12 just arrived in your mailbox too. Then? Screw college football.