EL PASO, Texas -- There are many words to describe the way Pitt's offense performed yesterday in the 75th edition of the Sun Bowl.

But words such as awful, atrocious, terrible, horrendous, disgraceful and embarrassingly bad probably aren't strong enough to describe the Panthers' performance.

Despite the inadequacies, Pitt still had a chance to win all the way until the end because of a tremendous effort by its defense against an undermanned and equally inept Oregon State offense -- but it just wasn't meant to be as the Panthers couldn't make one big play to pull out the victory.

The result was a 3-0 triumph by No. 24 Oregon State in a game played in front of a sun-splashed, near-capacity crowd of 49,037 at Sun Bowl Stadium.

The game was so poor, in fact, that the largest cheers by far came when the Village People performed at halftime and set a mark according to the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest performance of the "YMCA" dance.

There is no truth to the rumor that organizers of the Sun Bowl, which was billed as one of the showcase games of the bowl season because it involved two ranked teams hailing from two of the six major conferences, were considering canceling the fourth quarter and letting the Village People have an encore performance -- but nobody would have blamed them if that thought had crossed their minds.

Leading the way for punchless Pitt was quarterback Bill Stull, who had struggled through most of the second half of the season, but usually made a play or two that gave the Panthers a chance to win three of their final four games.

Yesterday he played so poorly -- going 7 for 24 for 52 yards passing with an interception and a fumble -- that Pitt's coaching staff finally opted to bench Stull in favor of little-used backup Pat Bostick -- and that was for the game's final two series with the outcome hanging in the balance.

To Stull's credit, he took blame for the offense's ineptitude and said he felt bad for letting his teammates down. He said what made accepting his performance harder was that his grandfather had died last week and he had dedicated the game to him.

"Things just didn't click, but I blame myself for playing [so poorly]," Stull said.

"This is the worst game I ever played in my life. It is just horrible, I feel sorry that my teammates had to be a part of the way I played and I feel so sorry for the seniors.

"[The wind] didn't affect anything, I just played horribly. This is definitely not how I wanted to play for my grandpa and everything, it is just horrible."

Oregon State (9-4), which played without its two star offensive playmakers, Jacquizz and James Rodgers, took a 3-0 lead with 2:18 to play in the first half on a 44-yard field goal by Justin Kahut, and that proved to be enough.

The Beavers kept it simple on defense -- stack the line and stop Pitt's running game and force Stull to beat them throwing the ball.

It has a formula many teams have tried this year against Pitt and many have failed mostly because Stull has been able to make at least one or two plays.

Pitt's offense was so bad that coach Dave Wannstedt opted to try a 58-yard field goal by Conor Lee with 2:08 to play instead of going for it on fourth-and-8 -- or better yet, with three timeouts remaining, punting and pinning the Beavers deep in their own territory.

"This is not the first time we've faced what Oregon State did," Wannstedt said,

"I give them a lot of credit. They put their safeties up there, they put their corners up and they forced the passing game, and in other situations this year we made plays throwing the ball.

"I think it summed it up when it was fourth-and-8 and I had more confidence kicking a 58-yard field goal than going for it.

"I did feel like Conor could make it, I did not feel like our offense could, and when you are 2 of 15 on third down, I felt like I needed to give our team the best chance to win."

Pitt's defense limited the Beavers to 273 yards of offense, forced three turnovers and sacked Oregon State quarterback Lyle Moevao five times. The Panthers had 178 total yards, 91 rushing from tailback LeSean McCoy.

"We got knocked around at the line of scrimmage and at times our routes were not clean," said Wannstedt, trying to explain the offense's woes. "But when we had a chance to make some throws and catches, particularly on the deep balls, we were not accurate."