Ray Graham rushed for 226 yards and two touchdowns as Pittsburgh dominated No. 16-ranked South Florida 44-14 in college football Thursday. Graham's 13-yard touchdown gave Pittsburgh the lead for good late in the first half and his 8-yard sprint up the middle early in the fourth quarter sealed it as the Panthers broke a five-game losing streak against ranked opponents. Pittsburgh kept USF quarterback B.J. Daniels under wraps all night. One of the nation's top quarterbacks couldn't get it going with his arm or legs. Daniels ran for just 43 yards – almost all of it coming on a last-gasp drive – and completed only half of 36 passes for 223 mostly ineffective yards. Panthers quarterback Tino Sunseri threw for 216 yards and a score. Wisconsin, Nebraska built on toughness, winning Wisconsin and Nebraska have a lot more in common than red-and-white uniforms and their new Big Ten allegiance. Thirty years after he finished his playing career at Nebraska, Barry Alvarez went to Madison, Wis., and built the football program in the image of the Cornhuskers. No one's more excited than Alvarez about No. 8 Nebraska visiting the seventh-ranked Badgers for its inaugural Big Ten game Saturday night. “My background and what I believe in football were established at the University of Nebraska,” said Alvarez, now Wisconsin's athletic director. “I felt fortunate to play for a great coach in Bob Devaney, and he had a tremendous staff. And as far as fundamentals – physical play, sound play – all those things are things I took with me to this program.” Wisconsin had lost 36 of 45 games before Alvarez began his 16-year run as coach in 1990. Alvarez won 118 games and three Big Ten championships before he turned the program over to Bret Bielema, who is 53-16 in six seasons with a Big Ten co-championship. Wisconsin and Nebraska football is predicated on toughness, something Devaney emphasized immediately upon taking over a downtrodden Huskers program in 1962. Devaney went 9-2 his first season and was 101-20-2 over 11 years with national titles in 1970-71.
