MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Except for one instance, the big plays never came. Fourth downs seemed almost as common as first downs for West Virginia in a peculiarly poor effort on offense against South Florida.

Saturday's 24-19 loss to the Bulls dropped West Virginia seven spots to 15th in The Associated Press poll and vanquished the Mountaineers' Bowl Championship Series hopes.

All that remains is the chance for an unprecedented second-straight 10-win season when the Mountaineers (9-2, 4-2 Big East) host first-place Rutgers (10-1, 5-1) on Saturday. But that's little comfort.

"We still have one more regular season game left and we want to win one for the seniors," quarterback Pat White said.

One week after White and running back Steve Slaton became the third set of teammates in NCAA history to surpass 200 yards rushing in the same game in a win at Pittsburgh, they sputtered.

Wide receiver Darius Reynaud was the nation's second-best rushing team's top rusher with 67 yards on only two carries, which included a career-long 57-yard reverse. The misdirection play was about the only one that fooled South Florida's speedy defense, which held Slaton to 43 yards on 18 carries while White had just 17 yards on 15 carries.

"Before the game, we prayed to give our linebackers wings like eagles, we really did," said South Florida coach Jim Leavitt. "We really ran the field well.

South Florida outgained the Mountaineers 363-310. The win gave the Bulls the biggest boost in the program's 11-year history while West Virginia was left to think how things could have gone so bad.

So instead of looking forward to playing in a New Year's Day bowl, West Virginia will be left guessing for another week where it will go.

The Mountaineers are drawing comparisons to the 2004 team, which lost its final two games to Boston College and Pittsburgh. The Panthers earned the conference's automatic BCS spot while West Virginia went to the Gator.

"I think it is ridiculous people talking about the 2004 team as being a bust or whatever. They won a share of the Big East championship and went to the Gator Bowl," coach Rich Rodriguez said Sunday. "This team has won nine games and has a chance to win 10 and go to another bowl game. Is it what everybody wanted? No, but are we at that point when if we're not in a BCS bowl that it's a bad year at West Virginia?

"I don't know — I guess we're finding out."

Rodriguez was so bewildered by his team's performance that he left his weekly list of team awards blank.

"We didn't execute very well and we could have done a better job of play calling on both sides of the ball," Rodriguez said.