By Mickey Furfari
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia not only could have come out of Pittsburgh with a victory Friday, but it undoubtedly should have.
Mountaineer fans who made the trip to Heinz Field certainly have every right to be unhappy that the Panthers were permitted to pull out a 19-15 victory with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. So should those who watched on TV.
That certainly was a difficult defeat to digest, although not as displeasing as last year’s 13-9 loss in Morgantown. That one knocked WVU, a 28-point favorite, out of a shot at the national championship.
Any way you look at it, this year’s loss wasn’t nearly as devastating. But I think it is proof that the gap between the ancient adversaries has narrowed sharply if not closed as far as being competitive.
What makes this loss tougher to take is that the Mountaineers made crucial mistakes which enabled Pitt to stage its late rally after trailing 15-7. And those costly errors were uncharacteristic of this year’s team.
Patrick White’s two interceptions were only his fifth and sixth of the season. One did no damage because Brandon Hogan picked off one of Pitt quarterback Bill Stull’s passes two plays later with 13:25 left in the game.
But the second interception gave Pitt the ball for the first of those two closing touchdowns, and a holding penalty against tackle Ryan Stanchek killed an ensuing Mountaineer drive and gave the Panthers possession for their game-winning drive.
Don’t blame either White or Stanchek, though. Both are outstanding seniors who have contributed so much to the school’s smashing success over the past four years.
Has anyone forgotten the fact that White gave West Virginia a 12-7 lead in the third quarter with a 54-yard touchdown run? That and even longer scoring sprints are what made the Alabama native the greatest rushing quarterback in NCAA history.
West Virginia is 32-8 with White in the starting lineup.
But no one took Friday’s failure more to heart than he did. He kept blaming himself for the defeat.
“It hurts,” he said, wiping his eyes. “As you can see, I’ve been bawling my eyes out. I felt like I gave it away. We played good enough to get a ‘W,’ but I didn’t at the end.
“I feel like (the loss) was personally my fault.”
Coach Bill Stewart thought the turning point in the game was the holding penalty with 5:10 remaining which whipped out a first down and Pat McAfee had to punt. But it’s hard to fault Stanchek, who has made 45 consecutive starts.
You may recall that Big East coaches didn’t even name him to the all-conference first team last year, but he was named to the Football Writers’ Association of America All-America first team. He has been selected for several others since then.
Sure, it hurts all of the faithful when WVU loses, especially as it did on Friday. But the players would tell you that they win together as a team and lose together.
Even Jeff Mullen, the first-year offensive coordinator, offered to take the blame for the costly interception. He said he should have reminded White that “you have to take care of the ball a little better” that deep in WVU territory.
So the Mountaineers now have four losses for the first time since 2004, and they must focus now on beating South Florida next Saturday for an eighth victory in the 2008 regular-season finale. They owe the Bulls for back-to-back losses the past two years.
