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A national college football analyst, on a national broadcast, said Rutgers wasn't on Pittsburgh's level.

By early Sunday morning, Greg Schiano had heard the open-faced insults. And shrugged.

"I don't know if we are in Pitt's league. We'll find out," Rutgers' head coach said, standing behind a podium he'd gripped just 15 hours before.

Saturday's pounding of Texas Southern gives Rutgers four straight victories, by a combined score of 144-35. Pittsburgh is a team the Scarlet Knights have knocked off four times in a row. But five days from a Friday night visit by Pitt, and as the denigration threatened to turn trendy, Schiano dismissed all the affronts. He's long said halftime speeches are overrated; Sunday, he said so too is a bulletin board tacked with clips.

"I don't spend a lot of time on that," the ninth-year coach said. "You are what you do on the field. None of it matters -- the polls don't matter, the preseason, the people who talk about it. What matters is what you go out and do on the field. You do it, then people can say whatever they want."

What Rutgers did do early is ultimately why people are saying what they want now. Though Pittsburgh (5-1, 2-0 Big East) was the league's preseason favorite, Rutgers -- coming off seven straight wins - was considered a viable contender. The Scarlet Knights (4-1, 0-1) were then thoroughly outclassed by Cincinnati in a nationally televised Labor Day opener and their steady improvement the last four weeks -- coming against teams with just six wins amongst them and two of which aren't even in the Football Bowl Subdivision - has understandably gone unnoticed.

But Friday, Rutgers will again have ESPN's analysts in its booth and a national football audience to itself. And if Schiano wouldn't see slights as motivation, he conceded those cameras and this stage certainly could be.

"Any competitor I'm sure wants to get back there. The last time people saw us we were 0-1. Now we're 4-1," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to be ready to play Friday I don't know where that will put us in relation to Pitt. We are a work in progress -- there's no doubt about it. We're not where we need to be."

Neither, apparently, is Pitt. The Panthers' offensive line got a "they're very good" from Schiano and the backfield of Dion Lewis and Ray Graham got a "very good" too. Schiano said 6-foot-5 sophomore Jonathan Baldwin might be the best receiver in the conference and he guessed that Dave Wannstedt, a man he coached under in the NFL, "is probably very pleased with the makeup of his football team."

At the same time, Pitt has been very schizophrenic in its play, and as Wannstedt moaned Saturday, has yet to put together a complete game. The Panthers led N.C. State 31-19 at N.C. State, then lost 38-31. They trailed Louisville -- which until Saturday had gone eight games without a win over an FBS school - at the half. Saturday, against UConn, they were down 21-6 late in the third quarter, sending many of their own home fans toward the exits.

The Panthers stormed back to win that one, though, on a last-play field goal from new kicker Dan Hutchins. And if that's enough to make Pitt superior, or on a higher level than Rutgers, Schiano is fine with that. After all, it may only be so until Friday.

QUICK HITS: Schiano reported no injuries Sunday. ... He called Rutgers' 12 penalties "discouraging." He said, "There were two holds that brought back big plays, and you can't sit there and say, 'Ooh, that was a bad call.' They were deliberate." ... Tickets are still on sale for Friday's game. The Rutgers ticket office can be reached at 866-445-4678...