At this point, it’s just linking to the stories for posterity’s sake.

You have the Pittsburgh media local game stories that try to capture the whole thing while reporting facts.

It’s a shame the local Morgantown paper doesn’t put anything online (for free). I took a look at the articles Sunday morning, and there was nary a mention of the questionable officiating. It was mainly about WVU playing horrible, and just happening to have a bad game theme. You know, WVU just didn’t execute. Of course, the WV media also saw Rich Rodriguez as “stoic” as he came into the press room after the game.

WVU Coach Rich Rodriguez walked with a silent stoicism into the interview room and arrived at the podium, a place that was supposed to be the site of his greatest moment as a coach, but was cruelly substituted as the stage for his most painful.

He paused and fidgeted, trying to find the right words when he likely knew he couldn’t possibly explain how his team had lost at home on Senior Night with so much to play for against a team 4-7 team that was a four-touchdown underdog.

Five seconds. Ten. Twenty.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed. Certainly we were off all day,” he said. “I apologize.”

How was that “stoicism” viewed by say some NY media?

West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez stood silently in front of a lone microphone, puffed his cheeks with a breath of air, and slowly exhaled.

The only sound in the postgame interview room at Mountaineer Field last night was the whooping and hollering of the victorious Pittsburgh players who were celebrating in the adjacent locker room.

“It’s just a nightmare,” said Rodriguez, looking like a man who had just shed some hard tears. “The whole thing’s a nightmare.”

…

“It’s gonna be a long month,” said Rodriguez, who shoved his hands into his pockets, bowed his head, and walked back into the despondent West Virginia locker room.

Or this view?

West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez stood before reporters Saturday night with a dazed look and cracked voice.

It’s okay, let it out. Go get some sleep.

Of course, this game has all sorts of things that will become legend.

“This thing started last week,” Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We tried to bring the tradition of the rivarly alive. We showed tapes of past games all week long. Coming in, our bus got hit with a rock and LeSean McCoy stood up and said, ‘Hey, it’s just like in the movies.’ This game will be the first one our team watches next season.”

Now, personally, one of the most frustrating things all season long, was after a loss hearing the coaches talk about how well the team practiced leading up to the game (see, Navy). WVU also saw nothing out of the ordinary during the week of practice leading up to it.

Perhaps, most painful to the Mountaineer fans, their reputation for hostility and homefield advantage took a huge hit.

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.

As an aside, this was just funny to read.

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.

LeSean McCoy only earned “Honor Roll” for the Big East, while Joe Clermond took BE Defensive Player of the Week.

The backdrop to this is that Coach Dave Wannstedt has a contract extension (leaked the day before) and that he finally has a signature win at Pitt. Vindication for Wannstedt is a big theme in the immediate aftermath. Whether it really becomes a launching pad to bigger and better things or merely a Karl Dorrell-UCLA tease of possibilities unrealized is speculation for another day.

Don’t think the Big East won’t try. No conference likes to be completely embarrassed by poor, onesided officiating that has everyone turning a jaundiced eye that way. It’s one thing for the Big East to try and gloss over what happened when the announcers during the game and even commentators right afterwards saying things on the air.

It’s something completely different when everyone is putting it in print as well.

Peter King, SI.com:

10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:

a. The officiating crew in the Pittsburgh-West Virginia game robbed Pitt, and very nearly caused the wrong team to win the game. Absolutely robbed Pitt. That crew shouldn’t sleep for a long, long time. The two fourth-quarter holding calls on Pitt were the biggest phantom calls I’ve seen in such a big spot in a long time.

Dennis Dodd, CBS Sportsline (Dec. 3 entry):

It looked like Big East officials were trying their hardest to get West Virginia through the Pittsburgh ordeal. The two holding calls on the Panthers receiver — the last one negated a touchdown run — were ridiculous.

Jack Bogacyzk, Charleston Daily Mail:

Even the Big East’s zebra crew seemed to want to pave WVU’s way to the national title game in the Superdome. A pair of holding calls on Pitt sophomore receiver Oderick Turner were particularly odoriferous, consider where and when they were flagged.

“Hey, we knew coming into the game,” said Pitt senior offensive tackle Mike McGlynn, “that the Big East, you know, they were going to try to get a team into the national championship and … they tried.”

Pat Forde, ESPN.com:

The Mountaineers fumbled the ball away three times and failed to take advantage of two highly dubious holding calls on Pitt receiver Oderick Turner that helped keep the game close.

Jacob E. Osterhout, SI On Campus:

We’d like to recognize the Big East officiating crew of the Pittsburgh-West Virginia game for calling two of the worst holding penalties ever recorded.

Matthew Zemek, CollegeFootballNews.com on FoxSports.com:

Well, if the Big East officiating crew hadn’t made a number of highly suspect holding calls on plays when West Virginia corners simply didn’t get off their blocks against Panther receivers, Pitt would have salted away this win much earlier in the evening.

A McCoy touchdown run — earned by a beautiful juke move in the open field on a 3rd-and-5 play from the Mountaineer 13 — was mysteriously called back on the kind of play that simply doesn’t get called at the FBS level. Nearly a quarter later, with Pittsburgh trying to hang on just before the three-minute mark of regulation, a superbly-executed reverse mini-option sprung McCoy for a first down on a 3rd-and-5. However, the yellow laundry emerged again, as a holding penalty was called on the same Pittsburgh receiver (Oderick Turner) who was wrongly flagged for holding on McCoy’s touchdown run.

Just for good measure, the Big East officials punished a Pittsburgh defensive back for celebrating after White’s last-ditch 4th and 17 pass sailed incomplete with 1:34 left in regulation. But by then, possession had already changed hands, and the Panthers finally ran the clock out on the Mountaineers and their national title hopes.

I’m not saying we will ever hear or read anything about this. The fact is, that officiating has been horrible throughout college football this year. The ACC had officials missing whether a FG was good. The Pac-10 has long been inept. You can bet there are complaints with Big 11 and Big 12 officials as well.

The Big East though (and these are only the games that I am thinking of off the top of my head) — the UConn-Temple game (officials on the field were MAC, but the replay official who “confirmed” no catch by the Temple player was Big East); Pitt-Rutgers, the offensive pass interference against Oderick Turner; the Notre Dame-Stanford game had 4 plays reversed by replay in one game — has really lowered the bar this year.

I am not willing to say that the Big East officials were acting under any orders from the Big East to get the Mountaineers into the BCS Championship game. I really don’t believe that. I do think that the official (or officials) in this game, though, were way too easily swayed/influenced by the home crowd/location.

John Soffey is the Big East’s Director of Football Officiating. He has work to do, and the Big East has some serious damage control. Pitt won, so there isn’t that sort of complete outrage. The coaches in the conference, though, are not going to let this go. The way the game and the season was officiated had to put a scare into all of them for future big games. It’s fairness and believing that they will be treated fairly. Right now, that’s in question.