MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- This loss wasn't the nadir.

Yet it was painfully close to Pitt, by their own admission.

The Mountaineers last night used an improbable 13-point rally in the final 71 seconds, which started with a gift safety and ended with 11 points crammed into the final 18.4 seconds, on a Patrick White touchdown pass to Dorrell Jalloh, a White 2-point conversion run, a like-it's-drawn-up recovery of Pat McAfee onsides kick and a 52-yard McAfee field goal. All that sent this game into overtime, on the final flourish of the first such tying or winning kick of McAfee's four-year career. He even presented the home side, playing before a half-empty Mountaineer Field even after it's final-seconds comeback, with its first lead of the game after the opening overtime possession.

Still, they lost, 26-23, to touchdown-underdog Cincinnati by allowing the Bearcats a second touchdown of the game, this in an overtime that they will replay over and over.

"The team that deserved to win won," concluded West Virginia offensive tackle Ryan Stanchek, a Cincinnati native. "It's hard to say that."

For the first three quarters, when Cincinnati (7-2, 3-1 Big East) held a 20-7 advantage crafted midway through the second period and continued to stymie West Virginia (6-3, 3-1) like no other team since, uh, Dec. 1, 2007, it felt hauntingly familiar. The Mountaineers gained just 151 yards through three quarters, giving reason to more than half of the 59,834 patrons to exit early. "How they kind of knew where we were going to be," Jalloh said. "They had a great game plan." Then the Mountaineers conjured 166 in the fourth quarter and the first overtime to make a game of it, even take a 23-20 overtime lead, only to see Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike throw 2 yards to Kazeem Alli after a 15-yard, personal-foul penalty on safety Sidney Glover for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Pike extended that drive. They showed heart, and the Bearcats promptly ripped it out and stomped on it.

"Nothing's as bad as last year, the Pitt game," West Virginia nose guard Julian Miller said of the careening emotions. "This was pretty bad, though. But we still have a chance."

Laid to waste all in one sour game for West Virginia were: rankings at The Associated Press No. 20 and Bowl Championship Series No. 25; a five-game winning streak and its hands-on control of the conference race plus its subsequent BCS berth; and perhaps even the mojo it just seemed to recover with victories against Auburn (which owned a 17-3 lead on the Mountaineers) and Connecticut (10-0 and 13-7).

This upset before a home crowd that was alternately stunned, occasionally booing, electrified and then stunned again means these Bearcats and Pitt chug alongside the Mountaineers in the standings, but for the time being turn this into a three-team title chase. Cincinnati plays at Louisville Friday before returning home to play Pitt and Syracuse. West Virginia has a week off to think about this -- "and fix all the loose screws and tighten everything up," Jalloh said -- before visiting Louisville Nov. 22, visiting Pitt Nov. 28 and finishing at home against South Florida Dec. 6.

For the Mountaineers to have a title shot, they must win all three and hope either, or both, Cincinnati and Pitt lose.

Harbingers were everywhere. Cincinnati returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown, which was a fate bound to happen sometime against major-college football's worst kicking team statistically, if not under Murphy's Law for a West Virginia that hadn't yielded one in 18 years -- since Pitt's Ricky Turner in 1990. Cincinnati got two field goals thereafter in the first quarter while gaining just 25 yards, though Jake Rogers did clank one off the left upright, his first miss after 13 in a row. Both teams gained just 36 yards on 28 snaps in a truly ugly third quarter. And twice West Virginia reached the Cincinnati 6 or closer, but both fourth-down attempts at scoring ended in vain.

White finished with 20 completions on a career-high 38 attempts for 219 of West Virginia's 317 yards, mostly in the hurry-up offense and frenetic finish. He also took another blow to the helmet that the week off might help to ease, though coach Bill Stewart called White more angry than hurt when he went down on the third quarter's final play but returned immediately.

In the end, Pike, aj unior, motioned like he was throwing a tense jump-shot in basketball, trying to illustrate his winning pass.

"That's probably the hardest throw I've ever made in my career," said Pike, who finished 16 of 30 for 178 yards and ran for Cincinnati's other touchdown. "The ball seemed like it was up there for a minute." To West Virginia, it might still be in the air.

"But we can't let this affect us at all," Jalloh said.

"We'll be all right," Stanchek added. "We've got a bunch of veterans. It's not for a lack of effort."

Just the same, three is the largest number of losses since 2004 for a team that suffered defeat just five times between 2005-07.

"Absolutely not, this doesn't pull the heart out of anybody," Stewart said of the loss. "I saw a group of guys who fought back to get it to 20-20, overtime. ... That's all I could ask of them. We just didn't finish the deal. ... And I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses, either."

NOTE -- Center Mike Dent of Jeannette (neck) gave way to first-time starter Eric Jobe.