So with Louisville, they like to run. They have an excellent young back in Victor Anderson. Of course, that would be good for Pitt and the run defense. Where Pitt has struggled has been with teams that go vertical. Especially with big WRs against PItt’s undersized corners.

Their best WR — in terms of experience and ability — Scott Long is out for the season. The most worrisome WR is Freshman Josh Chichester. A 6-8 receiver, but not exactly of blazing speed. Pitt’s best chance, as in the ND game, is getting the pressure up front on QB Hunter Cantwell. Cantwell hasn’t been bad, but definitely hasn’t matched the hype expected. He’s thrown 10 interceptions in 8 games. He has thrown an INT in 5 straight games and 6 of the 8 this season.

Cantwell is worried about the turf at Heinz Field because he remembers 2006.

“It was like playing on a sandlot field,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a great venue. The Steelers play there, their locker rooms are nice, the sidelines are nice. … The only thing that really sticks out was in between the hashes it was dirt all the way down.

“Hopefully it will be a nice grass field to play on, it will be a fast field and we can go and put some points on the board.”

Rutgers was a little worried the previous game. I don’t think the WPIAL games are taking place there at this point. Really, it seems that the turf should be fine. It will have been about 2 weeks since the RU-Pitt and NYG-Pgh games. This year, that hasn’t been much of a problem for Pitt.

On Pitt’s side of thing, Bill Stull should be back starting at QB. He talked a little about his concussion.

“I thought the worst,” Stull said. “I thought that was it, that I broke my neck or something. I couldn’t move. I don’t know if I was scared stiff. … I really couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move at all.”

Stull spoke publicly Tuesday for the first time since suffering a concussion and stinger, which caused him to spend a night at UPMC Presbyterian and sit out Pitt’s 36-33 quadruple-overtime victory at Notre Dame last Saturday. He intended to play against the Fighting Irish, but the combination of headaches, dizziness and nausea prevented him from practicing last week.

…

Stull wasn’t so convinced about that two weeks ago, while lying on the turf. He didn’t realize the severity of the situation until he saw his father, Bill Sr., on the field and heard team doctors and trainers call to “board him” – place him on a stretcher – as a precaution.

“That was when I realized I’m not playing the rest of this game,” said Stull, whose only other concussion came as a junior at Seton-La Salle High School. “I’m stubborn when it comes to injuries. I want to play no matter what. When I saw (Stull Sr.) coming on there, I kind of lost it.”

No doubt, Pitt will be running the ball plenty. The passing game, should have opportunities, though. Louisville is not exactly strong against the pass.

Louisville is 80th in the nation against the pass, allowing 224.9 yards per game, but is ninth in the country against the run, yielding just 91.6 yards a contest.

The Cards have 7 interceptions and 14 sacks on the year. CB Woodny Turenne leads the Big East with 4 interceptions.

A bit of praise for Pitt’s defensive tackles.

One of the reasons McKillop has been able to average more than 10 tackles per game is the underappreciated work of Pitt’s two tackles — senior Rashaad Duncan and junior Mick Williams.

“I think any great middle linebacker will tell the guys in front of them are very important to their success,” said assistant head coach Greg Gattuso, who oversees the defensive line.

“Our tackles played their best game together [Notre Dame], but they had been playing very well all year. Rashaad Duncan has been very steady, eating up blockers and doing a great job for him. Obviously, Scott is a great player, but part of his ability to make some plays is those tackles creating a lot of problems inside and occupying three people on many plays.”

Gattuso praised Duncan’s attention to detail and his ability to think about the game.

When the coaches in the booth could not figure out a Notre Dame blocking scheme early in the game, Duncan explained the situation to Gattuso when he came off the field, and the problem was rectified. He has been the steadiest player for Gattuso on the front line.

Hopefully the defense will keep playing like they want to show everyone that Rutgers was just a glitch.

Who knows for sure. Coach Wannstedt refuses to say that there is any real problem with the team playing at home, despite a 2-2 record.

On winning big road games and struggling at home:

“You have to look at each game individually. I’m not going to go back and look at each game right now. Rutgers has 85 guys on scholarship too. They’ve got some good players. That’s what I would say. We weren’t as sharp as I’d like us to be in those losses. Things happen in the course of a game. The one thing I would say in all of our games – even the couple that we lost – our kids came back at some point in the game and gave us a chance to win. Against Rutgers it was 31-34 and we’re going to get the ball back. We had the crowd and the momentum and we turn the ball over. How do I explain that? I can’t. I wish I could.”

See, I would have put money on him working in an, “It is what it is.”

Not that there is any reason to worry.

Pitt (6-2, 2-1) is 0-3 at home under coach Dave Wannstedt when nationally ranked and has yet to beat Louisville (5-3, 1-2), which visits at noon Saturday, since the Cardinals joined the Big East three years ago.

“We need this win to erase some doubts about Pitt not playing well when we’re in the national spotlight,” fifth-year senior middle linebacker Scott McKillop said.

Plus, Pitt controls its own destiny.

Their season boils down to this: If they win their last four games, they win the Big East and go to a BCS bowl.

It is that simple for Pitt (6-2, 2-1 Big East) as the Panthers have played well enough to be able to say they control their own postseason destiny down the stretch. They don’t need help from any other team, they don’t need anyone else to lose and they don’t need to rely on any tiebreaker procedures.

No reason to start hyperventilating. None at all.

Louisville, of course lost for the second straight year to Syracuse. Restoring the adjective “embattled” to head coach Steve Kragthorpe. He’s not happy.

“I’m extremely upset with the way we played,” he said. “I’m as upset as I’ve ever been. I’m sick to my stomach that we lost that football game.”

How upset? How bothered? Well, he’s not making any changes.

“We’re not going to make a lineup change for the sake of making a lineup change — I think that’s foolish to do that,” he said on the Big East teleconference yesterday.

The Cards are virtually starting over from a momentum standpoint. Their 28-21 loss to the Orange snapped their three-game winning streak — the longest under Kragthorpe — and ended their ability to win the Big East without a lot of help.

“We felt like we were right back in the Big East race and lost to Syracuse,” quarterback Hunter Cantwell said. “So yeah, it hurts, but we’ve got to put that behind us and worry about the four games we have left.”

Pretty much reads like the previous week for Pitt.

Louisville struggled last week to stop Curtis Brinkley of Syracuse. It is no shock that the Cards are preparing for LeSean McCoy.

“They have the two-headed monster at tailback,” Louisville Coach Steve Kragthorpe said. “We’re going to have to do a much better job this week because we’re going to see the same type of attack employed against us, a team that’s going to line up and try to ram it down our throat.”

Louisville is ranked ninth in the nation against the run, allowing just 91.6 yards a game. Yet the Cardinals have struggled to stop conference foes from moving the ball on the ground.

The two highest rushing totals against the Cardinals this season have come in their two Big East defeats. Louisville gave up 157 yards on the ground in a 26-21 loss to Connecticut on Sept. 26 before Curtis Brinkley and the Orange dominated the line of scrimmage Saturday.

“That’s the one thing we had not seen a lot of this year,” Kragthorpe said. “People have not run the football at us much, (but) the two teams that have have had success.”