Pat White claims Preston Smith spit in his face

And we thought last year's band controversy was escalating this rivalry.

West Virginia quarterback Pat White, the hero of last night's 38-31 Mountaineer win, claims that Louisville linebacker Preston Smith spit in his face after a Steve Slaton fumble in the third quarter.

"That's not saying anything about that team, because they're very classy," White said. "But that one incident didn't sit too well with me at all. Never in my life has anybody spit in my face. ... I don't know his name, don't care to know his name, but I would like to see him again."

When asked about the incident this morning, Smith denied it.

"No question, we were trash-talking," said the senior. "But no way did I spit in his face."

Steve Kragthorpe (who apparently has been able to keep his x-ray vision powers a secret up until now) also denied the claim.

"Pat White's a great player, but that's total fiction," said the first-year head coach.

The two players involved have never been in any real trouble during their collegiate career, and are both guys who I can't really see lying about this sort of thing. My guess is that there was some trash talking going on and maybe Smith accidentally gave White the weather instead of the news. Whatever, there's no way of knowing what actually happened so there's no real reason to keep talking about it.

Of course after seeing White's hilariously dazed postgame interview with Erin Andrews, I wonder if he even remembers anything that happened after the game last night.

UPDATE: We've got video. Judge for yourself:

Not totally conclusive, but uh, I'm thinking this may have happened. Nice work Preston. Christ.