With four weeks of the regular season remaining, few pundits think it’s possible for any Big East team to knock off West Virginia and sneak into the Bowl Championship Series.

Boston College and Pittsburgh would beg to differ. BC will have a week to rest before hosting Rutgers and then heading to Morgantown, W.Va. The Eagles have lost to WVU in two of the last three seasons, but the two defeats came by a combined 17 points.

Should Boston College get its running game on track, watch out. The key to beating the Mountaineers might be stopping the run. BC has yielded just 100.1 rushing yards per game to opponents – first in the conference – this season. Second best is Pitt, allowing just 109 on the ground each game. West Virginia, with the top rushing attack in the conference, has run all over opponents for more than 260 yards a game.

Pitt head coach Walt Harris knows he has a young team, but even youth can be discounted in some situations.

‘I think that a lot of people just got down on us,’ Harris said. ‘And a reason we weren’t playing as well as a lot of people expected is because we were so young. We actually had 10 new starters on offense. We’ve had to overcome a lot of youthfulness, and it’s a slow process.’

After opening the conference schedule with a loss in Connecticut, Pitt has improved each week. A second-half comeback and 21 fourth-quarter points lifted the Panthers over Temple, 27-22. Two weeks ago, in what could be its most important win of the season, Pitt fought off BC in overtime, 20-17.

Pitt (5-2) – fresh off a 41-17 drubbing of Rutgers – has quietly run its conference record to 3-1. Junior quarterback Tyler Palko has tossed for 1,500 yards, and sophomore linebacker H.B. Blades (son of former Miami star Benny Blades) has been tagged by several coaches as the best defensive player in the conference. He has a pair of picks and 19 tackles for a loss.

Pitt has already played five of its seven conference games, with Syracuse and West Virginia still on the schedule. A win at Syracuse could set up a BCS showdown.

The Panthers will travel to Syracuse on Nov. 6. Should they push their conference record to 4-1, the unofficial Big East championship game would be played on Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh.

Play: Larry Taylor of Connecticut – a true freshman from Coral Gables, Fla. – put Temple in its place on Saturday. And he did it quickly. The wide out and punt return specialist took the opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown. Taylor averages 12.7 yards on 21 kickoff returns and, thanks to the touchdown run, a whopping 47.3 yards per punt return.

Ten rushing and six passing touchdowns for Temple quarterback Walter Washington. The junior has tossed six touchdowns, sixth among all starters in the conference, but has managed to rush for 10 scores. The 10 scores on the ground not only leads all quarterbacks, it leads everyone.

A week after holding Boston College to 56 yards on the ground, Pitt held Rutgers to 56 yards on the ground. The defensive star for the Panthers this week was junior Josh Lay. The cornerback returned an interception 82 yards for a score, broke up three passes and had four tackles. The effort earned Lay the Big East Defensive Player of the Week honors.

Published on October 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm