West Virginia, suffering through four straight losing seasons, declining fan support and poor morale, desperately needed a football coach capable of injecting some passion and enthusiasm into the program. Don Nehlen turned out to be the right man at the right time for Mountaineer football.
When the Canton, Ohio, native came to West Virginia in 1980 after three years as a Michigan assistant coach, he changed everything. The veer offense that West Virginia had used since the Jim Carlen days was scrapped in favor of the more modern I-formation and pro offense. The defense was going to attack and blitz more often. His guys were going to live in the weight room and build themselves up physically and mentally. He changed the uniforms because he couldn’t tell which team West Virginia was from the film he watched, demanding a look that was simple and identifiable.
Most of the changes Nehlen made looked a lot like Bo Schembechler’s Michigan program, the exception being a simple W and V for the team’s new logo - the flying WV that has become so popular today.
Nehlen’s first season in 1980 wasn’t a winning one, but it wasn’t a losing one either. A strong 4-1 start turned into a 4-5 record after a difficult mid-season stretch brought losses against Hawaii, Pitt, Penn State and Virginia Tech, but the Mountaineers recovered to win two out of their last three to finish with a 6-6 record.
The second season saw West Virginia win eight of 11 regular season games to earn a bid to play Florida in the 1981 Peach Bowl. The Gators were regarded as heavy favorites.
“At the press conference (Florida coach) Charley Pell didn’t know my name. He kept calling me ‘Nellun.’ He said, ‘This new guy Nellun has done a pretty good job with this West Virginia program.’ Well, my two captains are snorting when they get out of there,” Nehlen once recalled. “We leave the press conference and (tight end) Mark Raugh comes up to me and says, ‘Coach, I’m going to tell you one thing, that Charley Pell is going to know your name by the end of the game!’”
He did. Everyone did after Nehlen’s Mountaineers stunned Florida, 26-6, and nine months later, he produced an even more stunning victory when West Virginia went out to Norman, Oklahoma, and defeated the ninth-ranked Sooners 41-27.
It was, perhaps, the most important nine-month stretch in school history. The Oklahoma victory gave the team the self-confidence it needed to defeat Pitt, which finally happened after seven straight losses in 1983. After that came wins over fourth-ranked Boston College in 1984, and finally, Penn State a week later. The victory over the Nittany Lions ended 29 years of frustration and validated Nehlen’s status as one of the college football’s great coaches.
The next two seasons, Nehlen’s teams hit a wall while he searched for another good quarterback before finally coming up with an outstanding one in Pittsburgh’s Major Harris.
Harris and a veteran cast of players Nehlen had assembled around him got West Virginia to the pinnacle of college football in 1988 when the Mountaineers won all 11 regular season games, reached No. 3 in the national polls and faced Notre Dame in the de facto national championship game in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona.
A mere 13 points separated West Virginia University from winnings its first-ever national championship.
Nehlen developed another team that won all 11 regular season games in 1993 before losing to Florida in the Sugar Bowl. That squad also consisted mostly of developmental players.
Nehlen thought his best coaching job came a year later in 1994 when he took a team that began the season with a 1-4 record to a bowl game.
“We opened with Nebraska,” Nehlen said. “We needed some Dairy Queen in the opener and not Nebraska. (Defensive back) Mike Logan gets a broken arm and another kid blows his knee out in the tunnel before we even get out onto the field before the kickoff. I think the highlight of the game was Todd Sauerbrun kicking a 90-yard punt. We left there licking our wounds and then we find out at the end of the season that we played Nebraska better than anybody did that year.
“That game cost us and our kids were down in the dumps but somehow we got them back together.”
If Nehlen thought his best coaching job came in 1994, one of his most disappointing seasons happened four years later in 1998. He felt that might have been his most talented team with a number of future NFL players on the roster.
“That’s the best team I ever had,” he said. “Had we played anybody but Ohio State (to open the season) we run the table. But we played the best team in America. We were a great football team but we were never the same after that game. If we open the year and win 35-0 … look out.”
Then, late in the fall of the 2000 season, Nehlen decided that 20 years at West Virginia University, and 34 total years as a college football coach, was enough.
Nehlen won his final game - a 49-38 victory over Ole Miss in the Music City Bowl - and walked off into the sunset with a 149-93-4 overall record at WVU, easily the most victories in school history. He was named the Walter Camp, Bobby Dodd and AFCA coach of the year in 1988, and was named the Kodak coach of the year in 1993.
He took 13 teams to bowl games, produced 17 winning seasons, coached 15 first team All-Americans, 82 all-conference players, six first team Academic All-Americans and 80 players who went on to play professional football.
In 1997, Nehlen served as president of the 10,000-member American Football Coaches Association, the culmination of an administrative tenure that saw him serve on the AFCA Board of Trustees, chair the College Football Association’s coaches committee and nominator for the College Football Hall of Fame.
After quarterbacking Bowling Green to a Mid-American Conference championship, Nehlen began his coaching career at in 1958 at Mansfield (Ohio) High. He served as head coach at Canton South and Canton McKinley Highs, and was an assistant coach at Cincinnati, Bowling Green and Michigan. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Bowling Green in 1958 and received his master’s degree from Kent State in 1966.
He is a member of the Mid-American Conference, Bowling Green and Gator Bowl halls of fame.
Compiling a 53-35-4 record as coach at his alma mater from 1968-76, Nehlen’s overall coaching record was 202-128-8, becoming just the 17th coach in college football history to win 200 games.
Five years after his retirement in 2005, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame - the only coach with WVU ties to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame based solely on his record at West Virginia.
“When I stood up with that group and they put that (Hall of Fame) ring on my finger I’m only one of 162 to have ever got that ring,” he said at the time of his induction. “How in the world did I ever do it is beyond me. I coached at Bowling Green that hadn’t made a commitment to football. And then I came here and some of the people were saying we ought to drop football. Now I’m in the Hall of Fame. It’s absolutely amazing to me.”
Bobby Bowden, who spent six years coaching the Mountaineers from 1970-75, understood better than anyone what Don Nehlen was able to accomplish at West Virginia University.
“Don did an amazing job,” Bowden said. “No. 1, he had that Michigan background. He used to coach at Michigan when he was an assistant coach and he was used to being big-time all the way so when he comes to West Virginia he just assumes he’s going to do the same thing here. He changed the uniforms to even look like Michigan. Don is one of the best coaches ever, in my opinion.”
He was named an inaugural member of WVU’s Mountaineer Legends Society in 2016.
