Baby, It's Cold Outside...

Wow...could they have found a more chilling night for the WVU/Pitt game? Has Ed Pastilong ever heard of a dome? Geesh, it was cold out there...but, the -7 wind chill couldn't stop WVU from running all over the Panthers for 60 minutes. It was amazing...the Mountaineers lined up and said "stop us" and the Panthers fell over themselves trying to. It was impressive...I would have never believe you could for 451 yards against a team knowing you're going to run the ball. Anyway, a quick recap of the game:

I think I wore about 4 layers of clothing...including gloves, hat, scarf...etc. But it was still cold...luckily, the family behind us brought an extra blanket and that helped for the legs. Besides my toes freezing off, I stayed pretty comfortable. Every once in a while the wind would whip around there causing a little discomfort but, other than that, it was horrendous. But, I think it might be the coldest game I can remember...or it's very very close.

The fans were excellent...for 17-degree/-7 degree wind chill weather, I'm amazed that 53,000 showed up. That might be a little high but there were at least 50,000 there. And, they tried to make noise...it's hard to get real animated when you're freezing. You can tell it's cold when everything the band plays is much slower than you're used to. I think the crowd did cause a couple timeouts from Palko that he wouldn't have called otherwise. West Virginia fans are some of the best in football and last night proved it...

Pitt wanted to come out and get into a slugging fest...literally. There were a lot of extra shoves and talking following plays in an attempt to get the Mountaineer players to bite and lose composure. For the most part, they didn't...and that shows good coaching. Line up...do your job...trash talk later. Good deal. And, speaking of trash talk, the "Eat Shitake Mushrooms Pitt" chant really needs to go...I understand the sentiment but it's pretty crude and is too juvenile for WVU fans. It shows a real lack of class...leave that to the Pitt fans to cuss and carryon...let's be adults and show that WVU can win and be classy and be a bigtime program. I don't think those type of cheers are going on at the Texas' and USC's of college football.

And, some things to watch -- Pat White is fast and can run. Throwing is still up in the air...he missed some easy ones and that makes me worry. We might be able to run like this against USF...I'm not sure. But, I still think we need the passing threat and I still don't see it. Also, the passing defense is weak. The prevent defense got burned once but we gave up a lot of 3rd down and 5+. Short passes were available for Palko all game long...a good team would exploit that more.

So, passing offense and defense are kinda weak...not a big surprise...but, something that needs to be addressed. In all the reports of this game, expect to hear the disclaimer that the Mountaineers have guaranteed themselves a tie for the Big East title but still must beat USF to get a BCS bowl. Don't expect a lot of good publicity...the media is going to knock the Big East for USF still being in the title run and won't even talk about WVU. That's my guess anyway...

But, next week will end that discussion. Until then all that matters is this: WVU 45 - Pitt 13