Pitt Football: Dave Wannstedt Saves the Best or Worst for Last

Pitt's victory over South Florida yesterday was a highly forgettable affair. The Panthers look much more like the potential champion of Conference USA or the MAC than a BCS contender.

Don't mention the Big East's automatic bid to two teams from two non-automatic qualifying conferences that are 30 or more points better than this haphazard Pitt team or any potential champ of the Big Least Pretenders.

Boise State and TCU would be prohibitive favorites over the Big East champ if there was a play-in spot for the last team or two to earn a spot in a BCS bowl. Throw the non-descript ACC champ into this equation, too.

The Atlantic Coast Conference was supposed to excel after raiding the Big East Conference five years ago. The real result was to make two BCS conferences irrelevant.

Coach Wannstedt has his 2010 team just like he wants it: mistake-ridden and inconsistent (both at the player and coaching level) and in contention for the conference championship.

In the best-case scenario, Pitt holds off West Virginia with Tino Sunseri, Jon Baldwin, Mike Shanahan and Ray Graham/Dion Lewis outsmarting and outscoring a snarling West Virginia defense.

The Panthers would eke out a win over Cincinnati the following week to finish 6-1 in the conference and 7-4 overall. Pitt would claim an undisputed Big East title.

In the worst-case scenario, Pitt will repeat its long list of infractions (pass interference penalties being the penalty du jour) or come out too tight and conservative to prevail over West Virginia on Friday.

With the Big East title out of reach, the Panthers would fall apart at Cincinnati in the season finale. The defense, which worked so hard yesterday to secure the win, will give up against the Bearcat offense if a BCS bid goes down in smoke on Friday.

Pitt would finish 6-6. The Wannstedt apologists would be hard-pressed to defend their guy. The minimum expectation for 2010 was a Big East title.

If Wannstedt is true to form, the worst-case scenario will prevail. Although he lives for the 17-16 kind of game, with the pressure on and the stakes high, Wannstedt's teams usually fall short when there is little room for error in a game with national implications. Need evidence? Watch last year's Pitt-Cincinnati game.

His tenure at Pitt hasn't broken any of his bad habits so far, nor has anyone in the Pitt administration asked him to.

Hopefully, this prediction is wrong, although history says it isn't.