The voters apparently will heed Bill Stewart's advice of a week ago about disregarding West Virginia. They removed his Mountaineers from the polls yesterday, a day after they ran their record as a Top 25 team to 0-3 against major-college competition and ran aground their Big East title/BCS bowl navigation.

The road to the league title and bowl berth once ran through Morgantown, W.Va., so Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly had said of a West Virginia favored to share or win a fifth championship in six seasons.

Saturday night, that path suddenly veered west and north.

The Bearcats, 26-23 overtime victors against then-No. 20 West Virginia for their second consecutive conquest of a ranked foe, visit Louisville Friday and then return home for Pitt and Syracuse. In short, Cincinnati and Pitt need only to win their final three conference games to win the Big East and its BCS bowl berth, while West Virginia, after Saturday, now requires a little help from its rivals -- that is a defeat of Cincinnati -- and still win out against Louisville, Pitt and South Florida to hold any January chance.

"I really didn't think that was the way that game was supposed to end," Plum's Pat McAfee said after converting a career-high, 52-yard field goal -- his first game-tying or game-winning kick in 51 career field goals -- on the last play of regulation to send the Cincinnati game into overtime. He added a first-possession kick in overtime for a 23-20 lead. "The magic at the end? I really though we were going to win. But we got to hope something happens and we take care of our business."

West Virginia learned last season that a whole lot of losing and poll-juggling can ensue. It also learned that two Big East losses can still a champion make. This season, though, the Mountaineers (6-3, 3-1 Big East conference) seem to have something of a learning impairment, for booing fans, play-selection questions, a grounded running game and sieve-like special teams remain constants.

"Until we get in a rhythm, we're just average," Stewart said, speaking specifically of the once-vaunted offense. "There are some things we need to get better at as a football program."

Despite their rally from a 13-point deficit with barely a minute left in front of a half-empty Mountaineer Field -- "Fans were leaving," Kelly said of a defense-dominated second half, "I would have been leaving." -- the Bearcats held the upper hand starting with their 100-yard, opening-kick return by Mardy Gilyard followed by leads of 10-0, 13-7 and 20-7. It was reminiscent of Pitt 2007. As Mountaineers offensive tackle Ryan Stancek, a Cincinnati native, put it: "The team that deserved to win won. It's hard to say that."

Gilyard added of new-No. 22 Cincinnati (7-2, 3-1): "It feels like we won the Big East championship."

Not quite yet. But they're considerably closer than the Mountaineers, who limited Cincinnati to one first down in the third and fourth quarters but yielded two -- and Cincinnati's second offensive touchdown of the game (just the seventh yielded by West Virginia's defense in the past 6 3/4 games) -- on an overtime possession from the 25-yard line. One of those first downs came on a roughing-the-passer penalty on Sidney Glover for a blow to the head of Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike.

The Mountaineers also failed to score twice from the Cincinnati 6 or closer; get on track a running game that saw Patrick White and Noel Devine combine for 99 yards on 39 carries, or 2.5 yards per rush behind a troubled offensive line with backup Eric Jobe getting his first collegiate start for the injured Mike Dent (neck); fully solve Pike, who had nine consecutive completions and 134 yards in the second quarter, very little in the first, third and fourth quarters, and then that wide-open, game-winning pass to tight end Kazeem Alli on a run-play fake that fooled the West Virginia defense.

The confidence gained in come-from-behind victories against Auburn and Connecticut could vanish as quickly as the late-game magic that permitted the Mountaineers to drive downfield for a White-to-Dorrell Jalloh touchdown with 18 seconds left, a White two-point conversion run, a successful onside McAfee kick ("I've never kicked one any better, actually," he said) and the long field goal ("I thought I owed the team something from that Colorado" overtime miss).

"I was really proud of the way the Mountaineers battled back," Stewart said yesterday, beginning preparations for a West Virginia week off before it visits Louisville Nov. 22. "We fought hard and came up short at the end of the game. I'm frustrated that we got in that situation by not playing well earlier. That's something we're going to continue to try to address. It's just. ... frustrating."