Kicker Pat McAfee set the tone for West Virginia by missing two field goals in the first quarter. AP

It wasn't supposed to be this silent. The Mountaineers' house seats only 60,000 but has a reputation for being a menacing place during all of its Big East night games on ESPN. And yet when Pitt faked a punt for a first down on its opening drive of the second half, while trailing 7-3, an eerie silence fell over the place. At the 9:48 mark, when Panthers quarterback Pat Bostick finished that drive with one-yard touchdown run to take a 10-7 lead, the silence grew weirder, more tense. The unthinkable -- an epic collapse against a weakened version of their rival -- suddenly became a very real possibility. What Schmitt would later call "the curse of the No. 2" was rearing its head.

Could it really go down like this? The Sugar Bowl, the hosts of BCS championship, sent two reps to Morgantown, expecting to get a look at one half of the participants in its featured event; they alternated between watching top-ranked Missouri fall behind to Oklahoma on TV and viewing the stunning events on Mountaineer Field. At one point, a rep returned to his seat and simply said, "I'm truly shocked." The West Virginia band spelled out "BCS" on the field at halftime, and as the tubas and drums and trombones and trumpets marched off the field, the letters dissolved into the sideline -- foreshadowing, perhaps, for the dissolution of the Mountaineers' title hopes. After Bostick's touchdown, an ESPN camera cut to two WVU fans holding bright yellow signs in the front row. One read "Pitt" and had a stop sign next to it; the other read, "to New Orleans." The fan holding the New Orleans half let it fall to the turf. The crowd's silence would occasionally be pierced by one woman's frantic yells, audible from the press box. "C'mon!" she'd say. "Do you want it?"

The answer, on this Saturday, was no. Pitt gave the Mountaineers ample opportunity to put up points; Bostick threw two interceptions, and the Panthers converted on just 6 of 18 third downs. But White, Steve Slaton & Co. could get nothing going against the Panthers' D. Slaton had just 11 yards on nine carries; super-freshman Noel Devine, their speediest weapon, had only 11 yards on seven carries. Between White and Brown, they were 9-of-16 passing for a measly 79 yards. Said Rodriguez, "[We] took a bad time to play our worst game offensively in years."

While the Mountaineers' backs were being contained, Panthers freshman LeSean McCoy had a career day: 38 carries for 148 yards, out-gaining the entire WVU team on the ground. Amid teammates who were chest-bumping and screaming, "We shocked the world!," McCoy ran off the field carrying a game ball, stopping only to do a double-take on a blond TV reporter. "She's beautiful!" he said, in the kind of random, euphoric moment one would expect out of a 19-year-old.

Senior linebacker Scott McKillop, who came into the weekend leading the nation in solo tackles, helped contain WVU's vaunted rushing attack. "We knew we could come in here and play with these guys," he said. "But no one's been able to stop West Virginia all year, and everybody thought we were going to get creamed.

"We were 29-point underdogs. But we put four quarters of great football together, and the rest was history."

This had been the first full week in which West Virginia controlled its own destiny for its first shot at a national title since 1988, when a Major Harris-led Mountaineers team lost to Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. WVU began 2007 ranked No. 3 in the AP's preseason poll, behind USC and LSU, and No. 6 in the coaches' poll. On Sept. 28, the Mountaineers lost at South Florida and dropped from 5th to 12th in the AP; the New York Times story from that game said the defeat "harmed their reputation and all but eliminated them from the national championship discussion." WVU would enter the first BCS rankings, which were released on Oct. 14, in ninth place. It was from there that the slow, improbable climb back to the top of the heap began.

On the weekend of Oct. 20, three teams ranked ahead of WVU in the AP poll lost: South Carolina, Kentucky, and most importantly, Big East-leading South Florida. The Mountaineers jumped from ninth to sixth, and then hovered for three weeks until, on Nov. 10, top-ranked Ohio State was upset by Illinois. WVU entered the following weekend ranked No. 5 -- and then watched as No. 3 Oklahoma was upset by Texas Tech, and No. 2 Oregon -- after losing Heisman candidate QB Dennis Dixon to a knee injury -- was upset by Arizona. The Mountaineers climbed to No. 4 before the season's penultimate week, and while holed up in a Morgantown-area resort on the eve of their game against UConn, saw No. 1 LSU get stunned by Arkansas in triple overtime. A WVU player reportedly streaked through the hotel celebrating the news; the next day, they streaked past the Huskies, 66-21, and clinched a Big East title and BCS berth.

All that was left between the Mountaineers and the BCS championship was the Backyard Brawl, a series that began in 1895 with future Michigan coach Fielding Yost powering WVU's offense. And, as Pitt lineman Mike McGlynn said after this game, which took place 112 years after the first, "Anything can happen in the Backyard Brawl."

Anything is right: Like a dislocated thumb to a star quarterback. Or a final score 35 points off of the spread. Or a loss that dropped West Virginia from the verge of national championship into a consolation berth in a lesser BCS bowl.

The Mountaineers' loss may have been symptomatic of the most upset-riddled season in the history of the BCS, but that offered them little comfort in the aftermath. Said defensive lineman Johnny Dingle, "It hurts. We were one game away from the big dance. That's what we play the game for. That's why we lift the weights, practice hard, go in camp in the offseason, and it just ain't happening.

"It just probably wasn't meant to be."