Panthers' final home game has far less luster than first

Pittsburgh (4-5) plays Connecticut (4-4) with very little hoopla expected.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The final home game of coach Dave Wannstedt's debut season at alma mater Pittsburgh will be nothing like the first game.
No national ranking.
No national TV cameras.
No talk of playing in a BCS bowl game.
No expectations of winning the Big East Conference championship.
No sellout crowd.
Of course, there's an upside as the Panthers begin winding down a discouraging season today against equally disappointing Connecticut -- no Notre Dame, either.
High hopes dashed
With an enthusiastic new coach, an upgraded recruiting class on its way and numerous returning starters from a Fiesta Bowl team, Pitt went into that Sept. 3 opener against Notre Dame as 3-point favorites in a game expected to be the springboard to its best season since the 1980s.
Instead, the Fighting Irish easily moved the ball during a 42-21 rout in which they led 35-13 at halftime.
Half the sellout crowd of 66,451 was gone before the end of the third quarter, and it's not likely many will return today for the finish of a Pitt season that hasn't gotten much better.
The Panthers (4-5, 3-2 in Big East) must beat Connecticut (4-4, 1-3) and No. 16 West Virginia (8-1, 5-0) to avoid the first losing season since 1999, and it would take a major upset Nov. 24 at Morgantown to achieve even that.
And after the kind of buzz about Pitt football that was missing for years, it seems the only people talking now are the Panthers' players themselves. It's obvious what they think after winning only three of eight games against Division I-A opponents; the fourth victory was against I-AA Youngstown State.
Self criticism
Quarterback Tyler Palko and middle linebacker H.B. Blades criticized some teammates for not working hard enough to prevent a big falloff by a team that won 25 games the previous three seasons, an average of more than eight per season.
"I didn't come here to be on a mediocre team, I came here to win championships," Blades said of what may be the only Pitt team in six years to not go to a bowl game. "You can say you want to win, but who's going out to actually go out and do everything they can to win?"
Blades supported similar comments from Palko, who at this time a year ago was leading Pitt to six victories in its final seven games.
"He's just like me. We want to win. It's not that complicated," Blades said.
"You have to push people, but some people won't take it."
Pitt ends its home season with many of the same problems it had in early September: a running game that has no established No. 1 running back and a defense that becomes very leaky when an opponent has early success.
Huskies
UConn coach Randy Edsall can relate to that. His Huskies won the Motor City Bowl and went 8-4 a year ago, the same as Pitt, but have never found themselves this season.
Just like Pitt with its tailback, UConn can't settle on a quarterback -- Dennis Brown, D.J. Hernandez and Matt Bonislawski have played.
The Huskies' strength was supposed to be their running game, but they ran for only 12 yards in a 45-13 loss to West Virginia last week that was their third in a row.
They must win two of three to get back to a bowl, and must beat Pitt on the road and No. 23 Louisville to do that.
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