What a Season!
December 05, 2002 02:09 PM | General
By John Antonik for
MSNsportsNET.com
December 5, 2002
Postseason release
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Maryland was the turning point of the 2002 West Virginia University football season. And what a season it turned out to be!
 Rich Rodriguez leads the team out for the 2002 Beanie Bowl"
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The Mountaineers were looking forward to playing the Terrapins, a team that went to the Orange Bowl a year ago and was starting a quarterback that once wore the Gold and Blue in Scott McBrien.
Most believed it was going to be a close contest and with the game being played in Morgantown West Virginia was proclaimed a slight favorite by the odds makers.
Before the Mountaineer Field crowd of 55,146 could get settled into their seats, the Terrapins were already winning 28-0 and any chance of a West Virginia victory was all but eliminated.
West Virginia lost the game 48-17 and its promising 3-1 record was now a more tenuous 3-2. The 2002 season could go either way.
"We had that ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look in our eyes," said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez.
Instead of faltering like it did a year ago when it lost eight of 11 games, West Virginia rededicated itself to playing winning football. And because of that, the 2002 Mountaineers turned in one of the more enjoyable and exciting seasons in recent memory.
West Virginia’s reclamation effort got started in earnest at Rutgers – a team WVU demolished by 73 points a year ago and was eager for redemption.
The Mountaineers used a smothering defense to completely take the Knights out of the game. A punishing running game helped WVU to a 16-0 halftime lead, and the Mountaineers tacked on 10 more in the third quarter to widen its advantage to 26-0. An interception for a touchdown by senior defensive back Angel Estrada and a touchdown pass from backup quarterback Danny Embick to backup tight end Ryan Thomas completed the 40-0 blowout.
The West Virginia defense allowed Rutgers only six first downs and 90 yards of total offense, including just 20 yards rushing.
A relieved Rich Rodriguez was glad to get this one behind him: "I was nervous all week for two reasons," he said. "One I was worried about our psyche because we played so bad (against Maryland) and two, they had two weeks to get ready and they had last year's game as kind of a motivating factor."
Senior Avon Cobourne became just the seventh back in NCAA history to rush for more than 100 yards against the same team all four times for his career. Cobourne led WVU with 133 yards on 30 carries.
Cobourne was in the midst of one of the most productive rushing seasons in the history of the Big East. His finest game came against East Carolina in a 37-17 win in Morgantown when he piled up a Mountaineer Field record 260 yards on 30 carries. Teammate Quincy Wilson added 198 yards as WVU rolled up an amazing 536 yards rushing.
Cobourne didn’t hit his stride until a breakout, 193-yard effort in an exciting 35-32 win at Cincinnati. Prior to that, Cobourne had an ordinary 106 yards in a blowout win against I-AA Tennessee-Chattanooga and 79 in a deflating 34-17 loss at Wisconsin. He finished the year with nine 100-yard games and has 27 leading into WVU’s bowl game. His career rushing total of 5,047 yards is a West Virginia record, and his 4,922 yards (does not include the 2000 Music City Bowl) is the best ever in the Big East and ranks 13th in NCAA history.
Cobourne may have been the anchor to West Virginia’s offense, but the unit was also getting a lift from two budding stars in sophomore quarterback Rasheed Marshall and junior running back Quincy Wilson.
That was became evident against Syracuse, which followed WVU’s win at Rutgers.
Marshall ran for two touchdowns and passed for another and Wilson added 99 yards and another score to lead West Virginia to a 34-7 victory. The Mountaineers rolled up 279 yards on the ground and held Syracuse to just 242 yards of total offense.
No. 1-ranked Miami was next.
The Mountaineers stayed right with the Hurricanes for three quarters, trailing just 30-23. But the pinpoint passing of Ken Dorsey took control of the game in the fourth quarter and the Hurricanes escaped with a 40-23 win.
Although West Virginia dropped to 5-3 with the loss, the Mountaineers opened eyes by rushing for 363 yards against Miami’s nationally ranked defense. Cobourne gained 175 yards and Marshall rushed for 93 in one of the most productive running efforts ever against Miami.
"We’re not in to moral victories," said a disappointed Rodriguez after the game.
But it was a moral victory and it gave West Virginia the much-needed confidence to finish the season against four tough Big East opponents.
"Even though we didn’t win against Miami we knew we played well for three quarters," said Rodriguez. "We could see that when we watched film together on Monday."
The key four-game stretch began at Temple.
Any notion of an Owls upset was discarded quickly when West Virginia scored touchdowns the first three times it had the football to take a 21-point first-quarter lead. By halftime WVU led 33-0 and cruised to a 46-20 victory. Interceptions by Jahmile Addae, Grant Wiley, Lance Frazier and Pac Man Jones helped WVU secure five Temple turnovers.
Tanardo Sharps, Temple’s leading rusher, gained just 30 yards on 17 carries and the Owls finished the game with just 52 yards on the ground.
Although West Virginia won the game by 26 points, Rodriguez was irritated with his team’s second-half effort. "I thought we let up in the second half and we’re not the type of team that can afford to do that," said the coach.
The win gave West Virginia six victories to make the Mountaineers bowl eligible. But West Virginia wasn’t satisfied.
A win over Boston College would give WVU an important seventh win to solidify its bowl standing. A victory would also extract a small measure of revenge for last year’s humiliating loss at Chestnut Hill that set in motion a disastrous 3-8 season.
Like it did against Temple, West Virginia jumped out early and claimed a 17-0 lead before the Eagles answered with a touchdown to close the gap to 10. But a Phil Braxton touchdown run on a nifty 10-yard reverse broke the back of the Eagles and helped the Mountaineers to an important 24-14 victory.
BC, which upset nationally ranked Notre Dame the week before, became the first team with a winning record to succumb to a Rodriguez-coached team at WVU.
The snowball that was becoming the West Virginia Mountaineers rolled into Blacksburg, Va., for a key Big East contest on Wednesday, Nov. 20. Playing before a nationally televised audience on ESPN2, West Virginia used the same formula that helped it win three in a row: run the football, play tough defense and create turnovers.
After spotting the No. 13-ranked Hokies a 7-0 lead, West Virginia answered on a nine-yard Cobourne TD run. WVU tacked on a short Marshall touchdown run to take a 14-10 lead into the locker room at halftime. WVU opened up a 21-10 lead in the third quarter when Wilson broke free on third and short for a 42-yard touchdown run. But the Hokies answered quickly on a short Bryan Randall touchdown pass.
It looked like Tech was going to reclaim the lead and win the game with 3:51 left, but WVU, led by linebacker Grant Wiley, held its ground and produced one of the most memorable goal line stands in school history.
Tech had one more shot at the Mountaineers after a safety gave the Hokies a three-point deficit. Randall led the Hokies deep into West Virginia territory well within range of a game-tying field goal. Instead, he tried to win the game with a pass that was intercepted in the end zone by Brian King.
WVU’s tandem of Cobourne and Wilson out-rushed Tech’s more publicized duo of Lee Suggs and Kevin Jones, 205-107.
"It was a tribute to these young men and the seniors who have taken this team on their shoulders and carried us," said Rodriguez after the game.
West Virginia’s 21-18 victory over Virginia Tech snapped a four-game Hokie winning streak over the Mountaineers and was the first WVU victory over a nationally ranked team since 1998.
The win propelled West Virginia into the national rankings for the first time since 1998 and set up a season-ending showdown with Pitt for second place in the conference standings.
The Panthers, coming off a seven-point loss at No. 1 Miami, was one of the hottest teams in the country.
Before the loss to Miami, the 17th ranked Panthers won 14 of their last 17 games dating back to last year and owned a solid 8-3 overall record. Pitt won the last two games in a series that West Virginia was beginning to take control of.
A Heinz Field record crowd of 66,731 and an ABC regionally televised audience was anticipating a classic eastern football game.
The two teams complied.
Just like the Virginia Tech game, West Virginia fell behind early when Panther quarterback Rod Rutherford hit freshman wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald for a 32-yard touchdown.
But West Virginia didn’t panic and stayed with its game plan of running the football. The Mountaineers tied the game on a nifty 19-yard touchdown run by Marshall – his 12th of the season – and Todd James hit a 42-yard field goal in the wind to give the Mountaineers the lead. Pitt later tied the score at 10, but Cobourne wedged his way through the Pitt defense for a two-yard touchdown run that confused all of the Panther players and even the umpire watching the middle of the pile.
A Marshall 79-yard touchdown pass to Braxton widened West Virginia’s lead, and the Mountaineer defense withstood another furious rally to keep its season-ending winning streak intact.
Pitt scored a late touchdown and was looking for the game-tying score when Ben Collins batted down a pass in the end zone on fourth down to give West Virginia an exciting 24-17 win.
"It was a hard-fought, physical football game," said Rodriguez.
It was WVU’s second straight win over a nationally ranked team for the first time since 1994 and the first time West Virginia produced back-to-back wins over a ranked team on the road since 1983.
The win boosted West Virginia to 15th in the AP and 16th in the ESPN/USA Today poll.
"There were a lot of close ball games that we’ve been able to get this year that I think you have to have," said Rodriguez. "You have to win some close games to get a nine-win season."
Marshall finished the regular season completing 127-of-241 passes for 1,401 yards and nine touchdowns.
Cobourne was the top ball carrier gaining a school-record 1,593 yards. He was followed by Wilson’s 863 yards and Marshall’s 618.
Miquelle Henderson, sidelined during the Boston College game with a high ankle sprain that kept him the Tech and Pitt contests, led the team with 38 receptions for 421 yards and two touchdowns. His best game was an eight-catch, 105-yard performance at Cincinnati.
Braxton came on at the end of the year with a 108-yard performance at Pitt and finished the regular season with 16 catches for 271 yards and two scores. Senior Derrick Smith added 15 catches for 193 yards.
Grant Wiley (129), James Davis (116) and Angel Estrada (112) each produced 100-tackle seasons and senior defensive tackle David Upchurch controlled the line of scrimmage with 14 tackles for losses and three sacks.
Sophomore Jahmile Addae led an improved secondary with four interceptions; West Virginia picked off 19 passes in all.
Perhaps the most telling statistic of the 2002 season was West Virginia’s plus-21 turnover margin that ranks among the NCAA’s best.
"We’ve run a low-risk offense and we’ve been opportunistic on defense," said Rodriguez.
The Mountaineers have also managed to avoid the major knockout injuries that plagued Rodriguez’ first season. That has helped turn 3-8 into 9-3 and make West Virginia bowl-bound for the first time since 2000.
The Mountaineer team at the end of the year was dramatically different than the one that lost by 31 points to Maryland on Oct. 5. That’s a certainty.
Now all that awaits West Virginia is its final bowl destination.
