Harris not overlooking South Florida

South Florida is where Pitt is heading next week.

Not New Orleans.

Not Tempe, Ariz.

South… South Florida is where Pitt is heading next week.

Not New Orleans.

Not Tempe, Ariz.

South Florida. And that’s the way the team is preparing, with all the BCS chatter echoing around the city of Pittsburgh.

“I just think that if we start pumping ourselves up, I think we’ll get our eye off the bull’s-eye,” head coach Walt Harris said in Monday’s weekly press conference. “We need to go play our game.”

The team is on the same page as Harris.

“It’s very exciting now,” senior defensive back Tyrone Gilliard said Monday. “It still hasn’t sunk in yet, ’cause we still have to prepare for South Florida.”

And prepare they will. Harris spoke highly of South Florida’s starting running back Andre Hall. The junior college transfer is averaging six and a half yards a carry this season. All together he has amassed 1,272 yards and 11 touchdowns in 10 games.

“He’s an outstanding player,” Harris said. “That always scares you.”

Pitt has struggled to contain running backs this season. Cornell Brockington racked up 185 yards for UConn, Darius Walker ran for 112 yards for Notre Dame, and both Damien Rhodes and Walter Reyes surpassed the century mark in Syracuse’s victory over Pitt.

Running backs aside, Pitt has something else to deal with in this game: a grudge.

“We still owe them,” Gilliard said. “We still have that grudge. They came up here and whooped us.”

In 2001, the Bulls traveled to Heinz Field and upset the Panthers 35-26.

“We still have a little payback,” Gilliard added.

Gilliard explained that the past three weeks have been all about payback. In recent years, West Virginia, South Florida and Notre Dame have come into Heinz Field and beat the Panthers. Payback was what they were looking for.

But a win against West Virginia was the sweetest revenge for Pitt, especially for Gilliard, whose hometown is Princeton, W.Va.

“It’s a really good taste right now, being from West Virginia,” he said. “Nobody thought we were going to beat West Virginia. It’s part of the Backyard Brawl. Got a whole year worth of bragging rights.”

The bragging rights came from what Harris deemed a “typical Backyard Brawl.” He prided special teams on their hard play and clutch performances.

“Josh had three big kicks,” Harris said of place kicker Josh Cummings. His three field goals in the game not only led Pitt to the 16-13 victory, but earned him Big East Special Teams Player of the Week honors.

Also receiving the coach’s praise was running back Tim Murphy, who ran for a career-high 106 yards in the game.

“We ran the ball like we need to, and want to,” Harris said. “I thought Tim Murphy was an outstanding player for us. It was great to finally have him back healthy. He brought it downhill at them, and that was huge.”

Also big for Pitt was the leadership of quarterback Tyler Palko on the field and on the sidelines. Harris said that Palko gets very fired up for games, and the team falls in line with him.

“The No. 1 quality he has is he wants to win,” Harris said. “[The team is] going to follow him now; he just needs to do his thing.”

Pitt will look to follow Palko at South Florida Saturday. The No. 23-BCS-ranked Panthers will kick off at 11 a.m. on ESPN2.