BCS National Championship Game

MORGANTON, W.Va. -- More than 60,000 people filled Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday for the most incredible night in West Virginia football history. And they got it.

Poised to claim the program's first spot in a BCS championship game, the No. 2 Mountaineers instead pulled off the most incredible defeat in program history -- surely one of the worst defeats in college football history -- by losing 13-9 to a bad team from Pittsburgh.


Larry Williams can't believe West Virginia blew a chance at a national championship game. (US Presswire)
Instead of playing for the national championship on Jan. 7 in New Orleans, the Mountaineers will go to another BCS bowl game as champion of the Big East -- and chokers of the century.

"It's just a nightmare. The whole thing is a nightmare," WVU coach Rich Rodriguez said. "Just a flat-out nightmare. I didn't sleep well all week -- and I don't think I'm going to sleep well for the next couple."

Rodriguez won't be the only insomniac in the Big East. Commissioner Mike Tranghese attended Saturday night and his mood went from jovial to dour to stunned silent. His conference will still get an enormous BCS paycheck, but it won't get a national champion. Instead it will get another stain as the worst league in the six-conference BCS.

And the Big East officials working this game did all they could to help West Virginia. I'm not saying the officials tried to influence the outcome. Not at all. But they did call two mystifying holding penalties at the best possible time for West Virginia -- first nullifying a Pittsburgh touchdown in the final minute of the third quarter, then wiping out a Pittsburgh first down with 3½ minutes left to play. Those penalties were the only reason the Mountaineers had a chance, but obviously those penalties weren't enough. Not on a night when nothing but the officiating went right for West Virginia.

Quarterback Pat White missed half the game with a dislocated thumb on his non-throwing (right) hand, but he was ineffective before the injury. Kicker Pat McAfee missed field goals of 20 and 32 yards in the first quarter. The Mountaineers fumbled five times and lost three, the worst when backup quarterback Jarrett Brown simply dropped the ball while winding up to throw from the WVU 17. Preseason All-America halfback Steve Slaton slipped deeper into his late-season funk with nine carries for 11 yards. A 15-yard late hit on WVU linebacker Reed Williams moved Pittsburgh into field goal position for Conor Lee's 48-yarder on the final play of the first half.

The Mountaineers didn't just lose horribly. They played horribly, so bad that they could have pulled out this game in the final seconds and still I'd have written -- and I bet I wouldn't have been the only one -- that West Virginia didn't deserve its place in the BCS title game. The Mountaineers were that bad.

And they had to be bad to lose to Pittsburgh (5-7). Beating Pittsburgh was easy this season. Seven teams did it, including mediocre squads from Navy, Louisville and Michigan State. Connecticut beat Pittsburgh by 20 points, and that's the same Connecticut team that West Virginia throttled 66-21 just last week.

And it's not like the Panthers played over their head on Saturday night, because they didn't. Pittsburgh was a one-man team, getting 148 of its pedestrian 225 yards in total offense on runs by freshman tailback LeSean McCoy. He carried 38 times, wearing down a WVU defense that knew he was coming but couldn't stop him. Pitt quarterback Pat Bostick threw for just 67 yards and had two interceptions. Other than McCoy, the Panthers ran 14 times for 10 yards. It was McCoy or bust, and West Virginia busted.

Afterward, West Virginia players and fans lingered, too stunned to leave. While the Panthers celebrated on the field and then in the end zone with the school band and then into the tunnel before finally disappearing, a large group of WVU players and fans didn't move. WVU receiver Darius Reynaud sat down on the 17-yard line, his backside obscuring the Big East logo, and seemed catatonic. After more than five minutes, two teammates finally noticed Reynaud and helped him up and off the field. That triggered the final exodus of WVU fans, whose reward for waiting was parking lot gridlock of epic proportions.

The city expected a far different kind of night. Before the game one exceptionally classless West Virginia fan hit the Pittsburgh team bus with a rock, but WVU fans as a whole are not known for their gentility. Because of the tendency to celebrate big victories by burning couches, garbage or whatever else they can find lying around, the city fire department had doubled its normal workload and police were planning to infiltrate known hotspots with under-cover patrols. Trash bins all over town were emptied earlier Saturday to take away potential bonfire materials.

Nothing in the preceding paragraph was a joke. But West Virginia is. It has to be. The Mountaineers were four-touchdown favorites. They were at home. They were playing Pittsburgh, their most heated rival. This was the 100th edition of the Backyard Brawl. What would have been the greatest victory in team history instead became the most shocking loss.

Rodriguez didn't bother putting on a brave face, either. He looked devastated, as well he should. Unless he wins a national championship -- and wins it at West Virginia, not at any of the schools that might one day try to pry him away from his alma mater -- this loss will be his legacy.

"Obviously I'm shocked we didn't play better," he said. "We weren't looking above and beyond."

Oh, really? Even the West Virginia marching band was looking ahead. At halftime the WVU band titillated the crowd by spelling out BCS for its grand finale. As the band strutted off the field, compressing into four tightly packed rows near the bleachers, the letters "BCS" melted away into nothing.

Source: http://cbs.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/10507338