Knight-mare!
August 27, 2002 05:06 PM | General
By John Antonik for
MSNsportsNET.comNovember 3, 2001
MORGANTOWN, W.VA. – If you didn’t follow the game live on MSNsportsNET and are reading this for the first time, the following score is correct: West Virginia 80, Rutgers 7.
That’s right the Mountaineers scored 80 points for the first time in a football game since defeating Geneva, 89-0 in 1951. West Virginia’s 11 touchdowns were the most ever at Mountaineer Field, and the 59 points tallied in the first half are believed to be the most in WVU history.
“It was just one of those days,” said Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. “It’s only one game out of 11 and tomorrow we’ll go back to work.”
Rutgers will “go back to work” knowing it suffered one of the worst losses in the history of modern college football.
At the very least, it was one of the worst losses in modern Eastern college football. Complete records were not kept at WVU prior to 1940, so accurate data concerning West Virginia’s 92-6 win over Marshall in 1915 cannot be verified.
At any rate, it was the most points piled up by an NCAA Division I team this season and the worst beating in the 10-year history of the Big East Conference. The NCAA could not immediately verify the last time a Division I-A team had scored 80 points in a football game.
The records were falling faster than the West Virginia University Sports Communications staff could research them.
Here’s an abridged list:
- West Virginia’s 80-7 victory was the largest since 1951, when the Mountaineers defeated Geneva 89-0. It was also the largest margin of victory ever recorded at Mountaineer Field
- West Virginia’s 80 points were the most recorded this year by an NCAA team, topping Florida’s 71 points scored against Vanderbilt this afternoon.
- West Virginia’s 11 touchdowns were the most in Mountaineer Field history.
- Brenden Rauh’s 10 extra points were a Mountaineer Field record.
- West Virginia’s 59 first-half points were the most ever known to be scored by a WVU team in the first half, and fell just two points shy of its 61 points scored in the second half of the Geneva win.
- Rutgers’ 8 turnovers were a Mountaineer Field record.
- It was the worst loss suffered by Rutgers since an 80-0 defeat to Princeton in 1888.
- Shawn Hackett’s 2 touchdowns scored matched a WVU record of two defensive TDs scored in a game first established by Vann Washington in 1994.
- West Virginia’s 9 rushing touchdowns were a Mountaineer Field record.
- Avon Cobourne’s 4 rushing touchdowns were a Mountaineer Field record.
- West Virginia’s 446 rushing yards were a Mountaineer Field record, topping the 427 produced against Cincinnati in 1989.
Avon Cobourne scored a career-high four touchdowns and passed the 1,000-yard mark for the third straight year to help West Virginia improve to 3-5 on the year and capture its first Big East win of the season.
Cobourne now shows 1,023 yards this year and passed the 100-yard mark for the seventh time in nine games this year. He has 16 100-yard games for his career and needs five more to tie Amos Zereoue’s school and Big East record of 21 produced from 1996-98.
Cobourne finished the game with 147 yards, while fourth string tailback Quincy Wilson broke two long runs and finished the game with 129 yards on six carries. It marked the first time since the 1988 Penn State game (Anthony Brown and Undra Johnson) that two WVU backs went over the 100-yard mark in the same game.
Cooper Rego scored on a 51-yard run in the third quarter and finished the game with 65 yards on five carries. Even quarterback Brad Lewis, not known as a runner, managed a career-long 33-yard run in the first quarter and finished with 42 yards rushing. The Mountaineers piled up 446 yards on the ground and 627 overall. WVU’s rushing output was the most since it matched that figure in a 43-0 win at Syracuse in 1993.
Quarterback Brad Lewis completed nine-of-11 passes for 175 yards and two touchdowns before giving way to backup Rasheed Marshall for the second half.
Marshall was cleared to play this week after suffering a broken wrist in the season opener against Boston College.
“I was shocked that Rasheed came back and played that quickly,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez. “We wanted to have him throw some more but the score of the game dictated that (Marshall came in with WVU leading 59-0). I wanted him to get some experience and I think he benefited from that.”
West Virginia’s touchdowns came from Cobourne (four), Cassel Smith and Hackett (two each), Miquelle Henderson, Cooper Rego and Quincy Wilson (one each).
WVU’s other score came on a Brenden Rauh 19-yard field goal, his 10th in 12 tries.
West Virginia’s 80 points fell just 31 short of its season total of 111 coming into the game.
“Our guys played all four quarters,” said Rodriguez. “It was time to put a total game together and we did that. We had a total team effort.”
The coach could not recall a team of his scoring more than 80 points in a game. He did mention that a couple of times at Glenville State, his teams scored 70 in a game.
“This was the first time it became contagious,” Rodriguez said. “Everyone was into it and got excited today.”
As impressive as things were for West Virginia, the same could not be said for the Scarlet Knights.
Rutgers true freshman quarterback Ryan Cubit actually had more interceptions than pass completions (four to three) before matching his completion total with a seven-yard pass to backup tight end David Stringer with 3:20 left in the third quarter.
Cubit finished the game completing just four-of-14 passes for 27 yards before Ted Trump relieved him in the fourth quarter.
The Knights did not get a first down until Cubit was flushed out of the pocket for a 14-yard run with 6:42 left in the first half. Rutgers finished the first half with five first downs and 54 yards on 35 plays.
RU had six first-half turnovers and eight for the game, giving the Knights a conference-worst 32 turnovers for the season.
Trump finally got Rutgers on the board in the fourth quarter. The backup engineered a 17-play, 91-yard drive that ate up 8:09 off the clock against a Mountaineer defense comprised mostly of third stringers and walk-ons. Marcus Jones scored from three yards out and finished the game with 105 yards on 30 carries.
About a third of the 44,685 fans left in the stadium gave the Knights a standing ovation after their score.
West Virginia answered the Knights' only TD when Wilson raced 60 yards for a touchdown on the Mountaineers' ensuing possession. The Weirton native had failed to reach the end zone after he was caught from behind at the WVU 7 during a 51-yard run a series earlier.
The game went so well for West Virginia that it managed to convert 50 and 35-yard extra point tries following celebration penalties.
Rutgers is now 0-13 in games played in Morgantown and is 4-23-2 overall against West Virginia.
The loss drops Rutgers to 2-6 overall and 0-5 in Big East play. The Knights have now been outscored a combined 191-7 by Virginia Tech, Miami and West Virginia. Rutgers hosts Pitt next Saturday.
West Virginia travels to Syracuse for a Noon Big East game at the Carrier Dome on Nov. 10. It is West Virginia’s last regular season road game.
Scoring Summary
WV – Cobourne
15 run (Rauh kick)
WV – Cobourne 32 run (Rauh kick)
WV – Smith 2 run (Rauh kick)
WV – Smith 27 pass from Lewis (Rauh kick)
WV – Rauh 19 FG
WV – Cobourne 3 run (Rauh kick)
WV –Hackett 10 fumble return (Rauh kick)
WV – Henderson 4 pass from Lewis (Rauh kick)
WV – Hacket 50 interception return (James kick)
WV – Cobourne 6 run (Rauh kick)
WV – Rego 51 run (Rauh kick)
RU – Jones 3 run (Sands kick)
WV – Wilson 60 run (Rauh kick)
Statistical Summary
Rushing: RU – Jones 30-105, Cubit 8-22, Trump 4-15, Smith 4-5, Anderson 9-5, Colon 1-1, Carty 1-minus 3, Total 57-150; WV – Cobourne 19-147, Wilson 6-129, Rego 6-65, Lewis 5-42, Marshall 8-40, Brown 1-14, Smith 3-9, Total 48-446.
Passing: RU – Cubit 4-14-4-27-0, Trump 0-1-0-0-0, Total 4-15-4-27-0; WV – Lewis 9-11-0-175-2, Marshall 2-4-0-6-0, Total 11-15-0-181-2.
Receiving: RU – Moses 2-14, Stringer 1-7, Martin 1-6, Total 4-27; WV – Page 2-69, Abraham 2-28, Johnson 1-28, Smith 1-27, Braxton 1-15, Henderson 1-4, Brown 1-4, Rego 1-3, Swindall 1-3, Total 11-181.
Attendance: 44,645
