Memorable Games
October 16, 2003 02:54 PM | General
October 16, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Mountaineer Field has provided a venue for some memorable West Virginia-Virginia Tech football games during the past 15 years. That is the period of time Frank Beamer has been coaching at Virginia Tech.
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| Amos Zereoue ran for 153 yards and scored a touchdown to help West Virginia defeat Virginia Tech in 1997. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Even though the Hokies will be leaving the Big East for the ACC next year, the two teams will play at least two more times during the 2004 and 2005 seasons.
“We’ve had a great relationship with them and I’m glad to see we’re going to play some more games in the future,” said Beamer. “(West Virginia) is a program that I’ve always had great respect for and their fans really support their program. Virginia Tech-West Virginia has been a great game for a long time.”
Even though 2-4 West Virginia will be a heavy underdog against the No. 3-rated Hokies this year, past circumstances dictate that anything could happen in next Wednesday night’s game.
“It will be a tough, tough, tough football game up there,” Beamer admitted.
Past games back that statement up. Consider the 1999 contest when the heavily favored No. 2-ranked Hokies need a 44-yard field goal from Shayne Graham on the game’s last play to beat a 3-5 West Virginia team, 22-20. The winning field goal was set up by a 26-yard run by freshman quarterback Michael Vick to put Tech into field goal range.
It looked like West Virginia was going to pull of the gargantuan upset when backup quarterback Brad Lewis fired two fourth-quarter touchdown passes to give the Mountaineers a 20-19 lead.
But Vick, who finished the game with 355 yards of total offense, still had a minute left when took over the football at his own 15. He hit passes of 14 and nine yards before turning what appeared to be a short gain into a 26-yard run that put the Hokies into field goal range.
“The defense thought I was going out of bounds,” Vick said. “That’s a move I work on all of the time. The defender turned his head too fast.”
“I don’t know how fast he was going, but if we’d had a watch, it would have been the fastest 40 he’s ever run,” added Frank Beamer.
Virginia Tech has had other close wins at West Virginia in the last 15 years.
Beamer’s second trip to Morgantown in 1989 gave his young program a win to build on. West Virginia was 4-0-1 at the time but was still suffering the effects of having tied Pitt 31-31 after leading 31-9 going into the fourth quarter.
Virginia Tech was without its starting quarterback, Will Furrer, who suffered a serious knee injury in the Temple game and starting running back Jon Jeffries, who re-injured his right knee in practice before the game.
Beamer hung his hat on Tech’s nationally ranked defense that was able to hold West Virginia quarterback Major Harris to just 123 yards of total offense and win the game 12-10. All four of Virginia Tech’s scores came by way of Mickey Thomas field goals. It was Virginia Tech’s first victory in Morgantown since 1967 when Beamer was a Hokie cornerback.
A disappointed West Virginia coach Don Nehlen said after the game that his team still had the Pitt loss on its mind.
“There was too much said about the Pitt game. We were still playing Pitt on Wednesday,” said Nehlen. “The longer you dwell on anything the more it hurts you.”
The coach was also quick to point out that Virginia Tech deserved a lot of credit, too.
“They beat us. It’s that simple. We have no excuses. They deserved to win,” he said.
Two years later in 1991 the Hokies once again ruined a Saturday afternoon for Mountaineer fans. This time Virginia Tech was the beneficiary of five West Virginia turnovers to escape with a 20-14 victory.
The game was halted for 50 minutes at the start of the fourth quarter when a downpour and dangerous lightning moved into the area. Once play resumed, West Virginia had a chance to win the game. Backup quarterback Chris Gray, subbing for injured starter Darren Studstill, drove the Mountaineers to the Tech one yard line with 20 seconds left. On fourth down, Gray went left on an option play and fumbled the football to end the rally.
“There was a missed assignment on the play Gray fumbled,” said Nehlen afterward. “One of our tight ends blocked the wrong guy. But if we run that play right, we score easily.”
West Virginia was able to exact a small measure of revenge in 1993 when the Mountaineers were able to hold on to win a tough, 14-13 decision.
Once again West Virginia turnovers nearly handed the Hokies a win. Still, WVU had to dodge a missed 44-yard field goal by Hokie kicker Ryan Williams to keep its unbeaten season alive.
West Virginia’s best overall home performance against a Beamer-coached Tech team came in 1997 after the Hokies had posted three straight victories over the Mountaineers from 1994-96.
With both teams fighting for first place in the Big East in ‘97, the Mountaineers jumped out to a big 27-7 halftime lead.
Trailing 7-3, West Virginia’s Sawn Foreman put WVU up for good with a 46-yard touchdown reception down the near sideline. Then a pair of short TD runs by quarterback Marc Bulger and running back Amos Zereoue gave WVU a commanding halftime lead.
Zereoue finished the game with 29 carries for 153 yards. Bulger completed 15 of 25 passes for 217 yards.
Virginia Tech managed just 66 yards rushing for the game.
And yes, there have been some blowouts, too. The Hokies completely dominated West Virginia in a 27-0 victory at Mountaineer Field in 1995, and shutdown Rich Rodriguez’ no-huddle spread offense in a 35-0 win at Mountaineer Field in 2001.
Frank Beamer’s first season at Virginia Tech in 1987 saw the Hokies drop 28-16 decision in Morgantown.
Beamer says it’s too difficult to single a few of his fondest memories playing in Morgantown, “We’ve had a couple of critical wins up there and had some tough losses up there. Don Nehlen is one of my great friends and Rich is doing a good job now. To start naming all of them it would take more time than what we’ve got here.”
By and large, if past scores are any indicator then Wednesday night’s West Virginia-Virginia Tech game could wind up being another exciting clash.
Plenty of good tickets still remain and can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging onto www.WVUGAME.com.
