PISCATAWAY, N.J.

Searching the dank North Jersey night for some shelter from his own sordid history against Rutgers, Dave Wannstedt found it in the stark memory of an old strategical friend -- in simple handoffs to a simply outstanding running back.

When freshman Dion Lewis took one 58 yards around right end for a two-touchdown lead in the third quarter, it did a lot more than fulfill one quirky requirement of this still very promising Panthers autumn -- Pitt needs either a 100-yard game from Lewis or a 100-yard game from wideout Jonathan Baldwin to secure a victory; the only time it got neither it absorbed its only loss.

No, it was so much more than just that; when Lewis ran his total well up over 100 on that play, and when fullback Henry Hynoski started biting off chunks of yardage with almost quaintly old-fashioned bursts between the tackles, it was clear Pitt was getting out from under the hex Rutgers coach Greg Schiano had long since put on its running game.

In eight games against Schiano, Pitt had averaged 2.7 yards on 284 carries.

Last night, Pitt was taking gashes out of Rutgers' defense every time Bill Stull handed it off, gashes that averaged more than six yards through three quarters of a game in which the Panthers were outrunning Rutgers by a ratio of roughly 8 to 1.

Somehow dissatisfied with all that, Pitt had Stull drop to pass at the start of the fourth quarter -- after three consecutive rushes that gained 27 yards -- and Stull's fumble set up a startling Scarlet Knights rally that sliced the lead to seven with more than nine minutes left.

Suitably chilled, Wannstedt went back to Lewis, who put together the rest of his brilliant 180-yard performance and swallowed just enough clock to secure Pitt's sixth win, its third on an unblemished Big East appointment book.

"You know how I always talk about our players in that I'm always conservative when I do it, but this guy is special," Wannstedt said of Lewis near the satisfied warmth of the Pitt locker room. "He is something. I mean it's one thing to run the ball when no one's really noticed you yet, but, when everybody in the stadium knows you've got to run the ball ..."

At times last night, it appeared Pitt's coaching staff was among the last to know it, but there was no latitude for interpretation on how they secured this 24-17 win, the first by Pitt's seniors against the state university of New Jersey.

"We came out in the second half and made a commitment to running the ball," Wannstedt said. "That's who we are at Pitt; we have to be able to run the ball."

Last night, Pitt ran it 46 times (or nearly double its pass attempts) for 223 yards and validated itself as a conference force in the process.

It was only by the social conventions of scheduling that Rutgers was coaxed back into the Big East hostilities in the first place, either that or by the unhappy fact that you can only eat so many cupcakes. Having been mortified in the conference opener here by Cincinnati six weeks ago (47-15), the Scarlet Knights steered their season toward more hospitable atmospheres, breezing through Florida International, Texas Southern, Maryland, and Howard Fineman.

All right not Howard Fineman. Howard University, but still ...

For too frequent portions of the elongated ESPN telecast last night, Pitt let the Scarlet Knights fiddle with the notion that a return to the Big East might be at least palatable. A special teams' gaffe set the Knights up at the Panthers' 11, from where wide receiver Mohamed (what's) Sanu took a direct snap and took it home from the wildcat formation for a 7-0 Rutgers lead.

Pitt spent most of the next 30 minutes trying to establish the kind of dominance suggested by its 5-1 record and back-to-back conference victories, scoring 17 unanswered points in its next four possessions that should have carried it to the intermission with a 10-point lead.

But this is Pitt, and no Pitt victory against Rutgers had come easily in the Wannstedt era. In fact, no Pitt victory in this administration had come at all. Is that what Pitt's defense was thinking on the final possession of the half, when Rutgers streaked from its own 18 to the Panthers' 3 in less than three minutes?

That Rutgers settled for a field goal at all indicated only that the Knights were still uncomfortable with the possibility of their own competence.

As they should have been.

The Panthers, by immediate contrast, can now be comfortable with the idea that Lewis has made an important transition. He is no longer anyone's curiosity; he is someone Pitt can count on when it is critical to do so.

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