Pitt down after loss to WVU

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Maybe No. 8 Pitt will shake off the disappointment of its first Backyard Brawl loss to West Virginia since 2006, beat No. 5 Cincinnati, win the Big East Conference and play in a BCS bowl.

Maybe the Panthers’ offense will find itself again after Bill Stull, an efficient playmaker all season, looked way too much like the not-so-confident and ineffective quarterback he was late last season

Maybe a loss that will drop the Panthers out of the top 10 and will make them less attractive to a major bowl even if they land in the BCS won’t hurt as badly if they end Cincinnati’s perfect season.

Maybe. And that’s a big maybe.

A big loss before the Panthers’ biggest regular season game in decades means they could be asking themselves “What if ...” after the season ends, just as they have so many times since their top-10 run of the late 1970s and early 1980s ended.

Whenever the Panthers seem ready to turn the corner and return to being the power player they long were, something bad seems to happen.

Coach Dave Wannstedt’s first few teams don’t meet expectations. Larry Fitzgerald is college football’s most dynamic talent, yet the Panthers find a way to lose four times during his final season. The program sags under Paul Hackett, and even worse during Johnny Majors’ comeback. Dan Marino’s senior season is nothing like his junior year.

This time, something bad was West Virginia, a rival that has tormented Pitt repeatedly during a 102-game series in which the unexpected is commonplace and rankings and records truly mean nothing.

The Mountaineers’ last-play 19-16 victory in Morgantown on Friday night offered some payback for Pitt’s stunning upset of the then-No. 2 West Virginia in 2007. It also takes some of the gloss off what becomes the first championship game in the 18 years the Big East has played football.

“Coach told us not to dwell on this one too much, but it’s still tough,” defensive end Greg Romeus said. “And it hurts.”

Wannstedt doesn’t doubt his players will be ready Saturday for Cincinnati (11-0, 6-0 in Big East), which yielded 102 points and 1,338 yards in beating Connecticut (47-45), West Virginia (24-21) and Illinois (49-36) in its last three games.

However, Wannstedt also said they wouldn’t be thinking about Cincinnati when they were preparing for West Virginia, only to say afterward his players weren’t ready.