Pitt's defense has improved since the poor showing Sept. 26 at North Carolina State, a 38-31 loss in which the Wolfpack shredded the Panthers for 530 yards of offense, but how much the Panthers have improved will be tested tonight.

Pitt (5-1, 2-0 Big East) will play at Rutgers (4-1, 0-1) tonight in a Big East clash which will be televised nationally on ESPN.

The Panthers have not beaten Rutgers since 2004 -- a losing streak of four games in the series -- but believe they have the team this season to snap that losing streak.

The Scarlet Knights are not the same high-powered offense they were last year when they had senior quarterback Mike Teel and three veteran receivers, but they will pose a challenge to Pitt because the Panthers have no idea what to expect from them.

The Panthers have spent the week preparing for just about everything.

Rutgers has been rather vanilla in recent weeks against weak competition, but Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt knows the Scarlet Knights will pull out all of the stops tonight.

The Scarlet Knights have a freshman quarterback, Tom Savage, a veteran and talented offensive line and a running-back-by-committee approach so they can throw a lot of formations and looks at Pitt's defense.

Wannstedt said that Rutgers coach Greg Schiano's conservative approach with Savage during the early part of the season has helped him gain confidence and become a more dangerous player than most true freshmen.

"It's a matter of giving him confidence," Wannstedt said. "They do a nice job of protecting him from the standpoint of they've got a very good running game. They'll still do enough things from a quarterback standpoint of throwing in a little bit of Wildcat with [Jabu] Lovelace, and doing a little bit of quarterback run game.

"So they have a nice variety of things that they do on offense to not put all of the burden and all of the pressure on their quarterback."

As Wannstedt said, one thing the Panthers may have to be ready for is the Wildcat formations Rutgers has in its offensive arsenal but hasn't really shown this season.

The Wildcat formations are generally a set of running plays, but it involves a direct snap to a skill position player, usually a running back but occasionally a receiver or a quarterback.

Every so often, as the defense cheats up to stop the run, the player taking the snap will throw a pass, often to a wide open receiver.

The Scarlet Knights haven't used the Wildcat yet, but mostly because they haven't had to as they've played a weak schedule -- except for their opener against Cincinnati -- to this point.

But Rutgers can run the Wildcat with either Lovelace (who is a back-up quarterback) or tailback Joe Martinek taking the direct snaps from center and either handing off to the motion man, or faking a handoff and running or, on rare occasions, passing out of it.

Still, in the game of cat and mouse that always seems to go on the week leading up to this game, Schiano denied that the Scarlet Knights have been working on the formation or saving it for tonight.

"There's only so many snaps you get here [at practice]," Schiano told the Newark Star-Ledger. "Like [Tuesday], I was watching the clock all the time because we were running late. So, how much can you practice? [We] have a freshman quarterback and a freshman wide out and a first-year starter at tight end -- yeah, I'd love to do other stuff. I love it.

"It is just maybe down the road a little bit."

That road Schiano is speaking about going down, however, is likely to end tonight.

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