When Syracuse beat up on Cincinnati and WVU fell to UCONN, Pitt's path to the BCS berth suddenly became that much clearer.
Before this weekend, Pitt controlled its own destiny. With a win against Louisville, Pitt still not only controls its own fate, but can lose one more game this season, and still get the conference's BCS berth.
With Cincinnati and West Virginia having now lost two games, Pitt can now afford to lose to either of those teams and can still win the conference. The only other one-loss conference teams are Syracuse and Rutgers. After overall record, the first tie-breaker in the conference is head to head matchups. Since Pitt already has beaten those teams, even if either runs the table and Pitt loses one of its remaining games, the Panthers hold the tiebreaker.
Suddenly that road win at Syracuse is looking a lot better.
Speaking of Syracuse, Pitt really needs to be careful about losing more than one game. Two losses might not automatically be a death sentence, but the Orange have a very manageable remaining three conference games left (home vs. Louisville and UCONN and a road game at Rutgers). Based on the way they've been playing, as of now you'd have to say they should be favorites in all three.
Bottom line is that Pitt is in a much better spot than they were last weekend. But the team still has the meat of its schedule coming up with three road games and may need to go at least 3-1 to win the conference.