PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- While No. 5 Cincinnati and No. 14 Pittsburgh are playing for the Big East title on Saturday, No. 24 West Virginia and Rutgers are battling for an upgrade.
Whoever wins gets a better bowl game.
And the Mountaineers, as it turns out, will tie for second place in the conference if they win and the undefeated Bearcats roll over the Panthers.
West Virginia climbed back into the rankings by upsetting Pitt in the Backyard Brawl last week, a victory that put the Mountaineers back on the radar screen of the Gator Bowl, which gets the Big East's second-place team. The bowl also has expressed interest in inviting Florida State out of the ACC, meaning retiring coach Bobby Bowden potentially could coach his final game for the Seminoles against a school he coached in the 1970s.
West Virginia coach Bill Stewart wants nothing to do with such talk -- yet.
"It's round seven of the Big East," Stewart said. "I can't stop what people put out there. As soon as we got off the field on Friday night, I started hearing things about the Gator Bowl and the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
"Let us get through game 12 before we worry about game 13. We are playing Rutgers before we play in any bowl."
It isn't likely to be easy, even though West Virginia (8-3, 4-2 Big East) is seeking its 15th straight victory over the Scarlet Knights. But Rutgers will be at home and will ride its stout defense, which allows the fewest yards and points in the Big East.
The Scarlet Knights also have something to shoot for. At 8-3 (3-3 Big East), a win might mean a bid to the Meineke bowl in Charlotte, N.C., which gets the No. 3 Big East selection. A loss likely puts Rutgers in the St. Petersburg Bowl or the International Bowl.
"I don't want to think about bowl games," Rutgers linebacker Damaso Munoz said. "This is a real big game. If you go into a game like this, or any other game, you want to focus on that game, not the circumstances after the game."
Damaso and 13 other seniors will be playing their final home game against a program that Rutgers desperately wants to beat. The Mountaineers are 30-4-2 in the series and have not lost to the Scarlet Knights since 1994.
Neither side wants to talk about that, either.
"To worry about what happened in the past won't help us this year," Rutgers cornerback Devin McCourty said. "They're a different team, we're a different team. We have to just focus on what we can do this year. I wish we could go back and see how they won, but it's totally different players so it won't matter anyway."
"We just have to focus on what they have," West Virginia receiver Wes Lyons said. "We want to focus on them as a team and what's going on right now."
Both teams are coming off impressive wins.
West Virginia went from No. 20 to unranked after an Oct. 30 loss to South Florida, but has won two of its last three and beat Pitt 19-16 on a field goal with no time remaining.
"These guys could have layed down," Stewart said. "America thought they were going to lie down, all the nay-sayers predicted we were going to lie down, but now people just want to tell them how wonderful they are."
Rutgers coach Greg Schiano is one of those people.
"I don't want to gush on them too much," Schiano said. "But they are playing football as good as anybody in the league right now. We are certainly going to have to perform our best to have an opportunity to be close in the game."
Rutgers has won four of five and came off an ugly loss at Syracuse to win 34-14 at Louisville last week.
"Rutgers is on fire," Stewart said. "Is it going to be the Rutgers that totally dismantled USF or the Rutgers that totally dismantled Louisville, or will it be the Rutgers that played against Syracuse and Cincinnati? I don't know and I don't care. All I am worried about is the Mountaineers."