Pitt junior Elijah Fields is still a safety, sort of.

Fields started Saturday's game against South Florida at the nickel back/bandit linebacker spot and played almost the entire game at that position. He started in place of strongside linebacker Greg Williams, and in turn, redshirt freshman Jarred Holley started in Fields' safety spot.

Dave Wannstedt said after the game that the Panthers were in that package specifically for the matchup with South Florida -- a spread team that uses a lot of three and four wide receiver sets -- and that they will return to their base defense for teams that run a more conventional offense.

But therein lies the twist. Pitt has four games left: Three of them will be against spread offense teams (Syracuse, West Virginia and Cincinnati), and the fourth is against pass-happy Notre Dame. So the Panthers will likely be in their nickel packages a lot more than their base defense, meaning Fields will be a linebacker a lot more than a safety.

"It will be a week-to-week thing for us, depending on what the offenses we face are going to do," Wannstedt said yesterday in his weekly teleconference. "Elijah is a big guy but he has as much speed as anyone, and he can cover as well as anyone, but he's also physical enough to come up and tackle in the run game.

"To be honest with you, I see us needing it a lot against some of the teams but if we are in our base defense, he'll go back to safety and Greg Williams will be at linebacker."

Wannstedt said a big reason the Panthers have the luxury of using the formation is the play of Holley, who got his chance to start when Fields went down with an ankle injury in the Louisville game.

The Panthers played their most complete game of the season against the Bulls -- they never punted, they didn't have a penalty in the first half and they scored on their first five possessions -- but Wannstedt said the tape tells a different story.

"You can always play better," Wannstedt said. "Saturday, we played better as a team than we did all year, but when you watch the tape -- we missed some tackles, we gave up a long pass play, two or three times had chances for quarterback sacks, we missed a couple of throws. You can go through every position and point out several things.

"We have to be a lot better in these specific areas. But we improved, we did play better and that is the goal."

The Pitt-Syracuse game Nov. 7 will be a noon kickoff and will be televised by ESPNU. ... Safety Dom DeCicco (Thomas Jefferson) was the Big East defensive player of the week for his performance in the South Florida game. DeCicco had 10 tackles, nine of them solo, and led a defense that limited the Bulls to only 212 total yards. ... Wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin (six catches, 144 yards) was named to the Big East's weekly honor roll. ... Quarterback Bill Stull was named a semifinalist for the Davey O'Brien Award. ... Wannstedt was one of 20 coaches named to the watch list for the Paul Bear Bryant college football coach of the year award yesterday ... Wannstedt was asked if he thought Dion Lewis should be mentioned as a candidate for the Heisman trophy. "I think the numbers speak for themselves and nobody has been more productive for their team than he has been and he has done it against good competition," Wannstedt said. "But I've always been one to let the people voting, vote. All we can do is coach and let him play and all that other stuff will take care of itself."

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