After playing nearly four quarters of football, Boston College and Pittsburgh faced this irony: The biggest game on the Big East’s biggest day hinged on one of the conference’s smallest players.

With his team down, 16-13, with five seconds left in regulation, Pittsburgh’s 5-foot-10, 175-pound kicker, David Abdul, booted a 30-yard field goal to send the defensive battle into overtime.

In the extra session, the contest again rested on players who wear mismatching shoes. After Pitt failed to gain a yard on its possession, Abdul gave the Panthers a 19-16 lead with a 42-yard field goal, his fourth of the day.

Abdul’s heroics turned BC kicker Sandro Sciortino into a goat. The Eagles mustered just three yards on their overtime possession, leaving Sciortino with 39 yards between a second overtime and defeat. Sciortino yanked the try wide left, giving Pitt a 19-16 victory.

The kicking exploits of the BC-Pitt thriller sent the two squads to opposite ends of the Big East spectrum and helped establish order in the conference. Pitt earned its first 3-0 start in the Big East, and Boston College deepened its conference hole to 0-3.

‘It was really a good college football game,’ Pitt coach Walt Harris said. ‘Both teams played extremely hard. We did enough of the right things in order to win it.’

‘It was an extremely tough loss for our football team,’ BC coach Tom O’Brien said. ‘We got ourselves in a position in the fourth quarter to win the game but were not able to do it.’

Pitt and BC weren’t the only teams to discover where they stand as the season enters its final month.

For the only time this season, all eight Big East teams played conference games on the same Saturday. The day’s action categorized teams into the elite (Pittsburgh, Miami, Virginia Tech), the respectable (Temple, West Virginia, Boston College) and the irrelevant (Syracuse, Rutgers).

Grouping the Eagles with Temple at the outset of the season would have seemed ludicrous. But one of the toughest early conference schedules in the nation has left Boston College just half a game ahead of last-place Rutgers.

The Eagles’ standing could change, though. While BC’s chance of winning the conference has gone down the tubes faster than Draino, it still has the talent, and a weak enough schedule, to climb back to respectability.

BC will get a chance to reclaim credibility this week when it travels to South Bend, Ind., to continue its annual rivalry with Notre Dame.

If the Eagles needed some tips about playing the Irish, they could have stuck around Heinz Field and asked Pitt. The Panthers tested now-No. 4 Notre Dame on Oct. 12, outgaining the Irish, 402 yards to 185, before falling, 14-6.

The Panthers — winners of 12 of their last 14 games — are tied with Miami and Tech for first place. Pitt’s two losses have come by two — against Texas A&M — and eight points.

‘(The Panthers) are very, very good,’ Virgina Tech coach Frank Beamer said. ‘They could easily be undefeated. This team is certainly good, if not the best team we’ve played this year.’

One would suspect that standing atop a Bowl Championship Series conference would assure Pitt a spot in the Top 25. But the Panthers accumulated just 58 votes, 61 behind No. 25 Tennessee. Seeing how the Volunteers have sulked to a 4-3 record and lost two in a row, perhaps Pitt is the more deserving choice.

‘I feel they are (the most underrated team in the nation),’ O’Brien said. ‘They continue to find a way to win. (Not being ranked in the Top 25) is a slight to them and the conference.’

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A warning for the Hurricanes

The past two seasons, Miami has shown fewer flaws than a Maxim cover model. But it seems the Hurricanes’ opposition has finally found a vulnerability in the defending national champions.

In Miami’s 40-23 win over West Virginia, the popular theory that the Hurricanes can be beaten by a strong running game — which was born when Florida State’s Greg Jones slashed the ‘Canes for 189 yards — was strengthened.

The Mountaineers pounded Miami with 62 rushes for 363 yards. They trailed by one, 24-23, after Quincy Wilson’s 1-yard touchdown with 5:41 remaining in the third quarter. Avon Cobourne led the WVU attack with 175 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries.

‘We went into the West Virginia game with the goal of stopping the run,’ Miami coach Larry Coker said. ‘And we didn’t achieve it. We’ve got to play better to shore up our run defense. Without question, it’s a concern.’

Miami’s woes stopping the run come as a surprise. Before the season, it was generally accepted that Miami’s defensive line was the best in the nation. Scouts said there were seven future NFL players on the Hurricanes’ defensive line two-deep roster.

But the success of Miami’s line — and the rest of its quicksilver defense — is predicated on speed. FSU and West Virginia succeeded against Miami running the ball up the middle, where speed is as useful as a North Face jacket on South Beach.

While the ‘Canes have been exposed, they remain unscathed. Twice, Miami’s offense has bailed out the porous defense.

On Saturday, Miami eventually pulled away behind quarterback Ken Dorsey’s 422 passing yards and running back Willis McGahee’s three touchdowns. But the message had been sent: A powerful running game is the key to beating Miami.

If stopping the run is Miami’s Achilles’ heal, Virginia Tech may have Paris’ arrow. Tech’s ‘Untouchables,” tailbacks Lee Suggs and Kevin Jones, combine for 191.5 rushing yards per game and form the nation’s most revered backfield.

‘Those running backs are the two best running backs on any team,’ said Harris, whose Panthers play Tech. ‘And probably two of the top 10 backs in the United States.’

What Virginia Tech also has is a defense — ranked fifth in the nation — that the Hurricanes won’t simply outscore.

‘I predict Virginia Tech will win the game,’ an anonymous Division I head coach told ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski. ‘They will beat Miami. Virginia Tech matches up with what Miami does. I don’t think (the Hurricanes) got enough in their (defensive) package to match them.’

***

Going bowling?

A mention of the word ‘bowl’ around Temple’s campus usually conjures thoughts of Kellogg’s or the local lanes.

Things are different for the Owls this year, though, and coach Bobby Wallace has his players associating a late-December football game with the B-word.

Temple appears to be a legitimate entity in the Big East this season after last Saturday’s performance against Virginia Tech. Temple, 27.5-point underdogs to the No. 3 Hokies, managed to keep the game close, losing, 20-10. The Owls allowed Suggs and Jones to combine for 119 yards, about 70 yards below their season average.

‘Temple deserves a lot of credit,’ Beamer said. ‘They played hard and played well against us.’

‘(Temple) has done a great job,’ West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. ‘They’ve got a lot of good football players, and they’re very, very well-coached.’

The Owls now stand at 3-5 overall, three wins away from bowl eligibility.

‘We’ve got these next four Big East games next that will determine any kind of success we have this season,’ Wallace said. ‘We’ve got to go 3-1 these next four games (against West Virginia, Pitt, Rutgers and BC). Everybody pointed to November to be key to win six games and be bowl eligible, and our kids want to do that.’

***

This and that

Not many people know what the heck a Hokie is, but chances are it doesn’t get along with computers. In the most recent BCS standings, released Monday at 6 p.m., Virginia Tech, No. 3 in both polls, slid from No. 4 to No. 6 because of a weak schedule. Miami remained No. 2, behind Oklahoma. … Boston College is No. 37 in the country in total defense, but that’s only good enough for fifth in the Big East. Ahead of the Eagles are West Virginia (No. 18), Miami (10), Pitt (8) and Tech (5). … Miami’s Dorsey was named Big East Offensive Player of the Week. Pittsburgh’s Claude Harriott and Syracuse’s Rich Scanlon earned defensive honors, while Pitt’s Abdul and Nate Jones of Rutgers shared Special Teams Player of the Week. … Temple’s star defensive end Dan Klecko had to leave Saturday’s game after being kneed in the head by Suggs. Klecko had an MRI on Monday, and his status for Saturday’s game against WVU is uncertain. … After last year’s 38-7 drubbing of Virginia Tech, Pitt’s players taunted the Hokies by calling them overrated. The rematch is this Saturday in Blacksburg, Va. … Weekly shot at Dorsey: After he threw for a career-high 422 yards and broke Gino Torretta’s school records for completions (564), passing yards (8,024) and total offense (7,981 yards), we’ll give the Miami signal-caller some slack.

Published on October 29, 2002 at 12:00 pm