CINCINNATI -- There were 129 plays from scrimmage in West Virginia's 24-21 loss Friday night against Cincinnati.

The Mountaineers snapped the football 71 times; Cincinnati ran 58 plays.

There was, however, one span of two successive plays, a measure of about 45 seconds with about six minutes left, that seemingly everyone is talking about.

And second guessing.

Trailing, 21-14, West Virginia had marched from its 20 to the Cincinnati 25, using 10 runs on the drive, highlighted by a 7-yard burst from bruising fullback Ryan Clarke -- who gained 12 yards per carry in the game -- and 10- and 23-yard runs from quarterback Jarrett Brown.

Jock Sanders, the Mountaineers' regular slot receiver, was inserted on the drive at tailback, while West Virginia's starter Noel Devine was having his gimpy ankle retaped on the sideline.

The Mountaineers eventually faced a third-and-9 from Cincinnati's 25with just under six minutes left. A tie or perhaps a lead seemed to be on the horizon.

The play call in question was a middle power run by the 5-foot-7, 178-pound Sanders that was stuffed by Cincinnati after a 1-yard gain.

If you are going to keep it on the ground behind the heart of the offensive line, why not give the ball to the 6-foot, 228-pound Clarke, a bowling ball of a runner who was having a fine game, rather than a smaller guy who has been used primarily as a pass-catcher?

"Jock had done a nice job on that drive," offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen said of Sanders, who had four carries for 6 yards on the drive before that play, including two for losses.

"All we were looking to do was maybe make a play and make something happen, but, more likely, give ourselves a chance on fourth down there."

West Virginia coach Bill Stewart stuck by the third-down play selection as well, and that made it obvious that the Mountaineers' staff had made its collective mind up that it would be going for it on fourth down.

"It was a power play that we had been gashing for 6, 8, 12, 10 [yards]," Stewart said.

"They blitzed into it, and we got caught off the back side. It was one of those 'gotchas.' We ran for about 200 yards rushing, and that was one we got 1 or 2 yards instead of 6 or 8 or 10.

"All we were trying to do was run a basic, sound football play to get it back to fourth-and-5 or fourth-and-4, so then we could make the fourth-down conversion."

After Sanders ran into that Bearcats wall and was dumped around the line of scrimmage, it left the Mountaineers in a tough, fourth-and-8 situation at the 24.

The Mountaineers went for it. Brown was flushed from the pocket, scrambled and ended up throwing an incomplete pass near the goal line.

Stewart, who is on record as saying that, if his team would have scored a touchdown on that drive, he would have gone for the 2-point conversion and the potential win, passed up what would have been a 41-yard field-goal attempt that, if successful, would have cut the Bearcats' lead to 21-17.

Stewart understands that some coaches, in that situation, with just under six minutes left, would have brought the kicking unit into the game.

He was asked, point blank, why he didn't kick the field goal.

His response?

"Because I was going for the win," he said. "From what I saw all night, I thought it was going to happen at the end.

"At 21-14, we go 21-17, they take the ball, and we couldn't stop them, they are that good. So I could not go for the field goal at that time, that was my decision. I wanted to go for the score and play to win, not play to keep it close.

"Had we went for the kick, and I am sure our guy would have made it, then we would have kicked off ... our defense hadn't stopped them all night.

"I'll live with that and I'll make the same decision in that situation, again."

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