MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Focus has been so fervently discussed around these parts lately, you'd figure a photography convention came to Touchdown City.

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Scouting Report

• Matchup: Pitt (4-7, 2-4) at No. 2 (10-1, 5-1), 7:45 p.m. today, Mountaineer Field, Morgantown, W.Va. West Virginia is favored by 28¹/₂.
• TV/Radio: ESPN; WWSW-FM (94.5) and WBGG-AM (970).
• Pitt: Leads the all-time series, 59-37-3. ... Has not won in Morgantown since 2001, a 23-17 win. ... Has lost three of past four games. ... Last win against West Virginia was in 2004, 16-13, at Heinz Field. ... Freshman tailback LeSean McCoy needs only 61 yards to tie the Big East record for yards rushing by a freshman (1,261). The record was set by Rutger's Terrell Willis in 1993. ... Tight end Nate Byham is out because he had knee surgery this week.
• West Virginia: Has won the past two games in the series and three of the past four. ... Needs a win to clinch a berth in the BCS national championship game in New Orleans. ... Is averaging 41.6 points per game and is giving up only 17.6 points per game. ... QB Pat White is the leading rusher with 1,144 yards and 14 touchdowns. ... Tailback Steve Slaton has scored 17 rushing touchdowns.
• Hidden stat: West Virginia is ranked No. 1 in the USA Today/Coaches poll. Pitt is 0-12-1 all time vs. teams ranked No. 1.GameGame

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Rather, it's only a football game, one carrying significance that resonates across college-football America.

No wonder West Virginians want everybody to know that they'll have little trouble tonight keeping their eyes on the Brawl:

• It's Senior Night, with 16 fifth-year players -- a dozen of whom are regular contributors -- bidding adieu to Mountaineer Field and their regular-season careers.

• It's an ESPN broadcast, meaning not only another national stage for the Bowl Championship Series' second-ranked Mountaineers, but also a game in front of play-by-play announcer Mike Patrick, a fellow West Virginian from Clarksburg.

• It's the 100th border skirmish with the rival from the same Western Pennsylvania that produced 19 Mountaineers regulars, a half-dozen starters and a pile of passion for Backyard Brawling.

Oh yeah, and there's that other thing.

Hanging in the cool December ether, hovering above the stadium before, during and long after this 7:45 p.m. kickoff, is the barometric pressure of what West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez openly labeled the "semifinal" to the Division I-A national championship game Jan. 7 in New Orleans.

If the Mountaineers win, they're in.

"I'm sure it'll put a little more on their shoulders, too," West Virginia cornerback-returner Vaughn Rivers of Perry Traditional Academy said of rival Pitt, "to try to upset what we got going on."

"At stake" -- those were the buzzwords that Mountaineers (10-1, 5-1 Big East) players and coaches incessantly invoked this week about everything riding on a victory. If they lose tonight to Pitt (4-7, 2-4), they may well be burned at one.

After all, this is a program that in 1988 landed an outright shot and in '93 landed a remote chance at winning a national championship, and frittered away both.

But they don't want to go there, mentally. Their minds, if not the league's potential $17 million in BCS money, are on Pitt, Senior Night and rendering their fourth Big East title in five years in an undisputed championship, one game ahead of Connecticut. Rodriguez implored them to think, look, feel no further.

The next play, the next assignment, that's where the coach wants their minds to be. He espoused advice that sounded closer to psychobabble than coachspeak:

"They've got to focus on the moment ... the now," Rodriguez said. "That's all you can think about. They did a good job of that last week. The harder game was probably last week."

He was referring to the 66-21 spanking of Connecticut barely 24 hours after top-ranked LSU lost at home to Arkansas and held open the Superdome door for West Virginia.

"And I thought the guys handled it very well. There will be no problem ... in the kids' focus on Pitt," he said. "This is an easy one to do, you've got so many factors. I'll have to tone them down. What I don't want to do is have our guys get too tight and think that there's so much on the line. When the game gets here, let it loose, have fun and play some good football."

So if the emotion and motivation and extraneous gravities can be removed from the game, it then becomes reduced to running, throwing, blocking, tackling and kicking. The little things.

West Virginia certainly displayed an edge in those categories the past two Brawls, combining for two-thirds of a mile in yardage and punking Pitt by a combined 90-40. Patrick White rushed for 220 yards in each. Steve Slaton amassed 345 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns last season. Still, Pitt's defense appears vastly improved, though it might miss that Darrelle Revis lad.

"I don't know if you guys remember the game last year?" punter-kicker Pat McAfee of Plum said, referring to Revis' 73-yard punt return for a touchdown. "The college play of the year? But I think our coverage team has done well. We'll do fine."

This Brawl could be a tailback competition: the New Generation in Pitt freshman LeSean "Shady" McCoy against the Not-So-Old Mountaineers' junior Slaton. Yet West Virginia seems unworried about McCoy and freshman quarterback Pat Bostick.

"I think there'll be things we can take advantage of as a veteran defense," Rivers said. "Mess up their reads. I don't think they've seen a 3-3-5 stack defense yet. And they're no Lousiville -- they don't have Brian Brohm back there. That young quarterback, we should be able to rattle him. A young passing game, our secondary should be able to take to that."

The question remains: Can they handle the task at hand while reaching for that glistening ring?