Turnovers doom Pitt in blowout loss to WVU

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

West Virginia never believed Pittsburgh was a better team. Not in August, when Pitt was a near-unanimous pick to win the Big East. Not in October, when the Panthers opened a two-game lead over the Mountaineers.

Certainly not now.

Brandon Hogan’s interception and fumble recovery led to touchdowns in the first half, Geno Smith threw two scoring passes to Tavon Austin in the third quarter and West Virginia beat Backyard Brawl rival Pittsburgh for the second straight season, 35-10 on Friday.

Pittsburgh (6-5, 4-2 in Big East) had a clear path to the conference title and an automatic BCS bowl bid, only to fumble it away on a chilly, windy but sunny day with four turnovers that repeatedly gave West Virginia’s offense excellent field position.

“Yeah, we felt we were the best team,” Smith said. “We’re always going to feel that way.”

So did wide receiver Jock Sanders, who said during preseason camp that West Virginia was better and would prove it when it counted.

The Mountaineers (8-3, 4-2) were seemingly out of BCS contention following successive losses to Syracuse and Connecticut. Now, they can play in a major bowl — likely, the Fiesta — if they beat Rutgers on Dec. 4 and Connecticut loses to Cincinnati today or South Florida, also on Dec. 4.

UConn winds up with the automatic bid if it wins out because it owns the tiebreaker over West Virginia and Pitt.

The Panthers can only blame themselves. They fumbled six times, losing three, and Tino Sunseri threw the interception by Hogan that led to the first of Ryan Clarke’s two 2-yard touchdown runs, this one only 1:34 into the game.

“That was big. That changed the momentum of the game — quick,” Hogan said.