KDKA-TV's Bob Pompeani hit a nerve, as he so often does on our twice-weekly hair-pulls on the "Subway Nightly Sports Call" on Pittsburgh's CW. He said the Pitt-Utah game tonight is a "must-win" for Pitt. I told him he was ridiculous.

What if Pitt loses?

Pompeani conceded the Pitt season hardly would be over after just one game. But he insisted Pitt's image as a national program is at stake tonight and that a loss surely would sully that. I told him he was nuts.

There's just no way this Pitt season will be determined one way or the other by what happens in Salt Lake City shortly after 8:30 p.m.

Say Pitt beats Utah. No, let's go a lot further than that. Say Pitt beats Utah, Miami at home and Notre Dame on the road, starts 5-0 and climbs into the top 10 in the national polls. If it loses a couple of Big East Conference games and doesn't win the league championship, its season will be a major failure.

You read that right.

Pitt's season will be a failure if it goes 10-2, doesn't win the Big East and plays in, say, the Pinstripe Bowl or some similar nondescript, meaningless bowl.

Sorry.

But say Pitt loses to Utah and maybe even to Miami and Notre Dame. If it wins the Big East and plays in the Sugar Bowl, its season will be an enormous success.

The Big East is the big prize, people.

You, too, Pomp.

That doesn't mean a win tonight wouldn't be a terrific start for Pitt. It could set Pitt up for a wonderful season, maybe its first season with fewer than three losses since 1981 when Jackie Sherrill was the coach and Dan Marino the quarterback. This is year six of the Dave Wannstedt era. Slowly but surely, the coach has built a program that maybe should be able to win a tough game against a tough team on the road to start the season. You can argue it's time, I suppose.

I almost can hear it already should Pitt lose ...

"Same old Wannstedt! Same old Pitt! Can't win the big game!"

I can't speak for my friend Pompeani, but I won't be among those doing the screaming.

There's a good reason Utah is a 3-point favorite; it's a very good team, especially at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Beyond that, Pitt is starting a new quarterback. Everyone on the team is convinced Tino Sunseri will do the job, but we won't know for sure until around midnight. I certainly won't be surprised if Pitt loses. Nor should you.

I'm thinking a nice, comfortable 38-3 home win against New Hampshire would have been a better way to start the season than risking getting beat at Utah.

But a loss tonight wouldn't be like Pitt's loss at home to Bowling Green in its 2008 opener, one of the worst defeats in school history. It still seems almost unbelievable after Pitt finished the '07 season by stunning No. 2 and 28 1/2-point favorite West Virginia in Morgantown, 13-9, for one of its greatest victories. Wannstedt did a magnificent coaching job to get that '08 team back on track for a nine-win season.

A loss tonight also wouldn't be similar to Pitt's home loss to Notre Dame in its '05 opener. Heinz Field was packed and throbbing that night. It was Wannstedt's first game as Pitt coach and there was a buzz around town about him coming home, back to the school where he played and started his coaching career under Johnny Majors and Sherrill. Unfortunately, that buzz lasted only until Notre Dame took the field and the Pitt players saw how much bigger and faster its offensive and defensive linemen were. Notre Dame won, 42-21. Pitt knew it was in for a long season and finished 5-6.

No matter what happens tonight, these Pitt players have to know they are pretty good. They should have won the Big East last season and would have won it if they hadn't blown a 21-point, first-half lead and a two-touchdown, fourth-quarter lead at home to Cincinnati in the final game. They're good enough this season to go 7-0 in the conference and win the title and a trip to a Bowl Championship Series game.

I repeat:

The Big East is the big prize.

You want to talk about "must-wins"?

There's only one for Pitt this season.

It must win the Big East.