I’ve said it last year, and I said it again this year. Do not let Pitt have control of their own destiny. At the very least, keep quiet so you don’t think about it. So what do the beat writers tell us?

Paul Zeise:

Suddenly, the idea of Pitt as Big East Conference champion doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Sure the Panthers (4-2, 1-1 Big East) have a long way to go before they win the Big East title — which likely would punch their ticket to a BCS game — but, with a 20-17 overtime win against Boston College Saturday, they took a big step toward that goal.

First, the victory means the Panthers control their own destiny in the conference race. If they win their remaining conference games, they’ll win the championship no matter what other teams do. And, even if they would tie for first, they’d own the tiebreakers.

Joe Bendel:

The Panthers have a long way to go before carving their names into the league championship trophy, but they proved Saturday that they can play competitively with any team in the Big East after an eye-opening, 20-17, overtime upset of Boston College at Heinz Field.

Pitt enters its homecoming game against Rutgers with a 4-2 overall record, including 2-1 in league play. West Virginia and Syracuse are undefeated in the conference at 1-0. Rutgers and BC are 1-1, Connecticut is 1-2 and Temple 0-2.

The Panthers have only three Big East games remaining, and the next two are winnable.

Rutgers (4-2 overall) is improving, but lost to Division I-AA New Hampshire, and Syracuse (3-3), which plays host to Pitt on Nov. 6, is inconsistent. The Panthers have won their past five meetings with Rutgers and their past two against the Orangemen.

If those trends continue, Pitt and WVU could be playing for the league championship on Thanksgiving night at Heinz Field. Thus, Pitt not only controls its own fate, but also has the luxury of playing two of its final three league games at home.

I think I’m going to be ill.

While Palko still faced pressure, he wasn’t getting swarmed like the previous couple of games; and the running game was pretty good between Kirkley and Furman. Seems the O-line might actually be showing signs of improvement.

While Boston might not be paying any attention to BC and their coach, some in the Pittsburgh media noticed O’Brien’s shaky playcalling.

And in some catch-up, the Q&A with Paul Zeise from Friday has the usual good stuff, and a nice summary of the feelings about how Pitt has acted towards recruiting in Western PA.

Q: Can you expand on Pitt’s difficulties in recruiting local prospects? You made reference to their unwillingness to look at a number of top prospects and also a need to mend fences with local coaches.

ZEISE: Pitt has taken an almost arrogant approach towards recruiting locally in recent years and it has turned a lot of coaches and prospective recruits off. Pitt has also been very slow to offer a number of local guys they should have been on first. A prime example is Sean Lee from Upper St. Clair. Everybody knows the kid is a player. He recveived offers from Iowa, Wisconsin, West Virginia and a number of others over the summer. Pitt finally got around to offering him a few weeks ago – after Penn State had already offered him. The same thing happened with the John Bachman kid from Moon who just committed to Indiana. Pitt offered him, but way too late. He said he’d have considered Pitt had they got in on him early. There has been a feeling among a number of coaches in Western Pennsylvania that Pitt values second-rate kids from other states over kids in their own backyard. How this happened, I don’t know, but it needs to get corrected. The scouting of players needs to get corrected, too, because there are far too many guys getting out of Western Pennsylvania and going on to have excellent careers elsewhere who were never even offered by Pitt. It is a shame, because Western Pennsylvania used to be the top priority for this staff, but in recent years they’ve slipped. That doesn’t mean every kid in Western Pennsylvania deserves a scholarship from Pitt, but there are far too many that are good enough that don’t even get a look.

This is inexcusable.

Rutgers at noon on Saturday. It’s Pitt’s homecoming. Rutgers homecoming was this past weekend when they beat Temple 16-6. This should be an interesting game. Two teams that no one can be sure of what to expect from week to week.