By Dave Morrison
MORGANTOWN — It might have been as sweet, but it surely was more thrilling.
West Virginia’s Tyler Bitancurt kicked a 43-yard field goal as time expired Friday night as the Mountaineers upset No. 9 Pitt 19-16 at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Bitancurt was immediately mobbed by teammates and fans as the stadium erupted.
It was a little retribution for the Panthers’ 13-9 win over the Mountaineers in 2007, a loss that knocked WVU out of the national championship game.
It was the highest-ranked Pitt team a Mountaineer squad had ever beaten.
The Mountaineer drive came after Pitt (9-2, 5-1) had come back from a 10-point deficit with 10:05 remaining.
Pitt quarterback Bill Stull had just completed a 50-yard touchdown pass to Jonathan Baldwin to tie the score.
But the Mountaineers (8-3, 4-2) had one drive left.
Quarterback Jarrett Brown ran 10 yards for a first down and two plays later connected with Alric Arnett on an 11-yard pass.
On third-and-10, Brown ran 9 yards, and on fourth-and-1, fullback Ryan Clark got just enough for the first down.
A Noel Devine 7-yard yard run and a Clark 2-yard gain preceded the Bitancurt kick as the Mountaineers allowed the clock to run down to 3.2 seconds before calling a timeout.
Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt tried to call a timeout to ice Bitancurt, but it did not work.
“It just made me wait a little longer,” Bitancurt said. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything. I was walking around envisioning the ball going through the uprights. Some of the guys said, ‘Just like in practice,’ and ‘I know were going to win this game,’ and that helped a lot.”
Devine finished with 134 yards on 17 carries.
Pitt freshman Dion Lewis had 155 yards on 26 carries.
Brown was 19-of-31 passing for 164 yards but wasn’t intercepted.
Pitt’s Stull was 16-of-30 passing for 179 yards but was twice intercepted.
The Mountaineers looked primed to pull off the upset without so much excitement.
Devine, who hadn’t scored a touchdown since the Connecticut game Oct. 24, electrified the crowd of 56,123 with an 88-yard touchdown run — the run that had been missing from the Mountaineers’ arsenal since the South Florida game — to give West Virginia a 13-6 lead with 4:32 remaining in the third quarter.
“It was a trap,” WVU coach Bill Stewart said afterward. “I am probably the only coach in modern football that still runs the trap.”
Devine had been held in check by Pitt in his previous two games, with 19 carries for 28 yards in 2007 and 2008 combined.
But he more than tripled that total when he took the hand-off and outran the Pitt defense down the left sideline for the go-ahead score.
The Mountaineers’ Robert Sands, who had originally committed Pitt, had an interception in the fourth quarter that the Mountaineers parlayed into a 16-6 lead on a 39-yard Bitancurt field goal with 10:05 remaining in the game.
A 36-yard Dan Hutchens field goal made it 16-9 with seven minutes left and the Pitt defense held the Mountaineers and got the ball back with 4:08 remaining.
It took Stull and the Pitt offense just three plays to score.
“I thought that our guys were not ready to play,” Wannstedt said. “Defensively, we gave up the one play and missed a couple of tackles. Offensively, we did not execute like we had, for the most part, all year long.”
West Virginia outgained the Panthers 369-325, but 75 of the Panthers yards — and 75 of their 179 on the night — came on the last drive.
“At halftime I encouraged the offense as best I could and praised the defense,” Stewart said. “I was told the Panthers had just 31 yards (rushing) at the half. I’m proud of the way our defense kept us in the game.”
The game was deadlocked at 3-3 at the half after both teams blew prime scoring opportunities.
West Virginia took a 6-3 lead on its first possession of the second half on a 43-yard field goal by Bitancurt that just cleared the uprights.
The big play of the drive was a 24-yard Brown pass to Pittsburgh native Wes Lyons, who made a nice leaping grab.
Pitt answered with a 30-yard Hutchens field goal at the 4:52 mark of the third quarter.
That drive was highlighted by Lewis’ 30-yard run on a fourth-and-1 at midfield. The Panthers’ freshmen phenom took an option pitch from Stull and jetted down the sideline to the Mountaineer 20.
That’s when lightning struck in the form of Devine.
Pitt had a chance to cut it to 13-9, but Hutchens came up short on a 52-yard field goal.
Pitt was driving and Lewis had picked up a first down at the WVU 22, but that was overturned by a chop-block call against the Panthers.
West Virginia blew two scoring opportunities in the first half.
On its third drive, the Mountaineers drove all the way to the Panther one-yard line.
Stewart gambled and went for the touchdown, but Brown was sacked by Pitt’s Gus Mustakas for a 10-yard loss.
The Mountaineers also drove to the Pitt 28 midway through the second quarter, but instead of attempting a 45-yard field goal, the Mountaineers went for it and Brown, flushed out of the pocket, picked up just one of the necessary eight yards.
West Virginia finally broke through near the end of the half when much-maligned cornerback Keith Tandy picked off Stull and returned it to the Pitt 40.
The Mountaineers again took the ball to the Pitt one, but was flagged for a false start on first down
After a Brown three-yard rush, Bitancurt kicked a 20-yard field goal on third down to tie it at 3-3 with :04.8 left in the half.
The Panthers had their own problems on offense — the most notable Stull’s interception — and Hutchens missed a 46-yard field goal attempt on the Panthers’ first drive.
But he atoned for it with a 37-yarder late in the second quarter before Bitancurt tied it late.
Pittsburgh now holds a 62-37-3 advantage in the ancient rivalry.
West Virginia concludes the regular season next week at Rutgers.
Pitt will host Cincinnati at noon next Saturday at Heinz Field in a game that will decide the Big East championship.
— E-mail:
demorrison@register-herald.com
