Backyard Beatdown — Mountaineers stuff Pitt in Thanksgiving clash

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – With the score at 14-13 early in the 2nd quarter, Pitt coach Dave… MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – With the score at 14-13 early in the 2nd quarter, Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt thought his team was in for a shootout during the 98th renewal of the Backyard Brawl against West Virginia (9-1 overall, 6-0 Big East) Thursday night.

They would have been if the Panthers’ offense didn’t forget to fire back when the Mountaineers started to run away with the game and a Big East championship.

Led by quarterback Pat White’s 220 rushing yards, West Virginia’s offense tallied 451 yards on the ground en route to a 45-13 victory over Pitt (5-6, 4-3). White’s 220 yards broke the Big East record for rushing yards by a quarterback, previously held by Michael Vick.

“That’s got to be a Pitt record. Please tell me it is,” Wannstedt said of West Virginia’s dominance with its rushing attack against his defense. “Nothing could be worse than that.

“It’s ugly, it’s bad and it’s unacceptable.”

The Mountaineers’ ground game made its presence known on just its second drive of the game.

White rushed for 61 yards, including a 47-yard scamper to the 1-yard line that set up a touchdown pass to Steve Slaton two plays later.

Pitt responded with its own touchdown when quarterback Tyler Palko found a streaking Greg Lee down the right sideline for a 63-yard touchdown. White and Slaton, however, combined for 65 more yards on the ensuing drive, resulting in a 4-yard touchdown run for White – his first of two in the game.

Palko and Lee answered the Mountaineers’ score with another hookup, this time from 31 yards out. Palko finished the game 24 of 43 passing for 308 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

With a shot to tie the game at 14, though, a bad snap on the extra point kept the Panthers down by one.

And they would fail to score another point on the night.

“I honestly thought it was going to go to the wire because of how the game was going so far in the first quarter,” Lee said. “They got the momentum, though, in the second half and never turned back after that.”

The Panthers looked to mount a comeback at various times in the second half, beginning with their first possession.

The offense picked up one first down, but turned the ball over when West Virginia’s Jay Henry forced a fumble on Erik Gill. Gill’s fumble led to three points for the Mountaineers for a 24-13 advantage.

Another first down on Pitt’s next drive got the offense in motion until running back LaRod Stephens-Howling fumbled on a rush through the middle.

“Offensively, we stopped ourselves,” Wannstedt said. “I really felt like from an offensive standpoint that we were going to score a lot of points today.”

As the Pitt offense stuttered through the second half, West Virginia’s kept rolling along behind White and Slaton, with three separate drives of at least seven plays or more that equaled 17 points.

In addition to White’s 220 yards, Slaton piled up 179 of his own on 34 carries and two touchdowns.

“When you have two fast guys and they get a crease, they can make things happen,” West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said of White and Slaton. “I think it’s taken a while for our guys to get comfortable, but I think they are now.”

Not helping Pitt in its effort to stop the run game was the absence of its leading tackler, linebacker H.B. Blades. Blades left the game early in the first quarter with an ankle injury and never returned.

While his loss hurt the defense, Wannstedt believes it’s still no excuse.

“It does [hurt us]. He’s our leader and all that stuff, but it’s not equal to 400 yards rushing,” he said.

The Mountaineers sealed the game in the fourth quarter, intercepting Palko twice and having one result in a 40-yard return for a touchdown by Jahmile Addae – the first touchdown of his career.

The loss denied Pitt its bowl eligibility, sending the Panthers home early in the season for the first time in six years.

“That’s not the type of ending to our season that anybody wanted, particularly our seniors,” Wannstedt said. “We feel bad about a lot of things right now.”

West Virginia, on the other hand, will have its shot at a BCS game after a South Florida loss secured them the Big East’s automatic bid.