I haven’t forgotten. I’m not trying to give the short shrift to the Thursday night game. Just that actual games take priority and Pitt basketball played on Monday (and will again tonight). Besides, I’m trying not to think too much about Pitt under Coach Wannstedt coming off of extra time to prepare.

As I said in the Pitt blog discussion today, I am worried about this game — and all the remaining ones. Pitt could still find a way to blow these game. Frankly this is as big a game for Pitt as the Backyard Brawl from a media exposure standpoint. Three national games, three losses, negative respect. Deserved or not.  You look at UCF getting ranked this week after winning Friday night on ESPN. They may be 7-2 but they dropped both non-con games of any significance (NC State and K-State). Otherwise, it has been just them rolling easy non-cons and C-USA. Winning on the national TV stage is significant.

I know the polls shouldn’t matter but at this time of year they do. The coaches and whatever that legends thing is make up a significant chunk of BCS rankings. For the Big East and Pitt, they need to win and look good doing it.

The focus of the UConn offense as always remains the running game. Jordan Todman has been the latest in UConn bruising backs to be the offensive centerpiece. No surprises there and obviously Pitt is going to focus on stopping him. Everyone and their dog knows this.

This is the good news. It plays to Pitt’s strength on defense. They aren’t too different a team. Just that Pitt has the better players. Whether they play to their level, is a different issue.

Those similarities are why I’m probably worrying so over what Zach Frazer will do at QB. The once heralded PA QB that washed out of ND — time for an aside. Who was doing QB evaluations in Eastern and Central PA at that time for recruiting services? Pat Devlin, Zach Frazer, Pat Bostick. Did any qbs pan out from that area in that time frame? Okay, Devlin might still be pretty good. Back to Frazer. He stunk early. Got benched down to 3d string. Then redshirt freshman qb Mike Box got hurt, Cory Endres couldn’t stay away from taking puffs and now Frazer is back at the helm. He’s kind of playing with nothing to lose at this point, so who knows.

This is a must win for UConn to hold hopes of making a bowl and impacting the Big East. As bad as the Big East has been, a loss for the Huskies eliminates them from any hope at winning the Big East. They know it.

As bad as UConn has been, the one area on offense where they do well is score when they get those chances.

Connecticut leads the Big East in red zone offense (27 scores in 30 trips inside the 20 for a 90 percent success rate) and is third in the conference in the red zone defense (opponents have scored 18 times in 23 trips for a 78.3 percent success rate).

The Huskies have scored 16 touchdowns in 27 red zone trips and have limited opponents to only 10 touchdowns in 23 trips in the red zone.

“When you see they are No. 1 in the conference in red zone offense, it gets your attention,” Wannstedt said. “I think even when you look at the games that we won, we weren’t as efficient as we want to be and then when you look at the games — like Utah and Notre Dame — we got down there a few times and came away with only three or even zero points.”

Pitt, well, not so much on redzone performance. Which was something they worked on with the extra time. Though, Coach Wannstedt continues to try and excuse them when it happens. Take for example 3 blown chances against Louisville.

For the season, the Panthers have converted 15 of 32 (47 percent) of their red-zone trips into touchdowns. That marks a significant drop from the production of last year, when Pitt converted 33 of 57 (58 percent), likely a reason that team averaged three points per game more than this one.

During his weekly news conference, coach Dave Wannstedt said the red zone is an area that needs improvement, but shifting situations make that a difficult task.

“All three trips were different,” Wannstedt said of the three red-zone appearances that didn’t lead to touchdowns.

“On one, we got beat on a protection and had to throw it to a checkdown receiver. We had a fumbled quarterback exchange on another on second down, and that put is in third and long, and, on the other, we had a screen we didn’t get blocked properly.

“So one was a physical breakdown, another was a mental mistake and we had poor execution on the third.

“We have got to get some things cleaned up.”

Eight games in and Pitt still needs to get things cleaned up. Okay, then. Moving on.

To be somewhat fair, the offense has improved from a broad, overall standpoint. It’s just that Pitt can’t keep missing early chances. Especially against a team like UConn. They want to run. They need to run. If they can’t because they are too far behind, it becomes an easy win.

Greg Romeus is still questionable for tomorrow.