A Backyard Ball
November 13, 2003 09:58 AM | General
November 13, 2003
Zach Abraham scores the first of his two touchdowns to help West Virginia to a remarkable 47-41 victory over Pitt in the 1994 Backyard Brawl ((WVU Sports Communictions photo).
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – As we move closer toward another West Virginia-Pitt game this Saturday I can’t help but think back to some of my favorite memories as a second-hand observer to one of college football’s finest rivalries.
In 1989 as a WVU student assistant, I recall the entire Pitt sports information staff wearing out a patch of carpet in the back of the Mountaineer Field press box as the Panthers made their unbelievable fourth-quarter comeback.
Whatever they were trying to do – relieve stress or conjure up the football Gods -- it worked. Pitt came back from being down 31-9 at the start of the fourth quarter to tie the game 31-all.
A year later, I remember an agitated West Virginia coach Don Nehlen kicking the student assistants out of the Facilities Building (as it was known back then) on a Monday evening, thinking we were reporters about to ask his players incendiary questions. All we were trying to do was write stories for that week’s game program.
How about the 1987 game that ended 6-3 in favor of Pitt? If memory serves me correct didn’t Eugene Napoleon rip off a long run that would have given West Virginia a great chance to tie the game, only to step out of bounds at midfield? That was the most interested I’ve ever been in a football game where neither team scored a touchdown.
Prior to the 1991 WVU-Pitt game, Nehlen and his offensive board of strategy planned on using a no-huddle shotgun offense. This was top-secret with only those closest to the program being given clearance to witness it in practice.
Therefore, during the periods when West Virginia practiced the no-huddle shotgun, members of the news media were to be escorted from the practice field so West Virginia could prepare in secret. Once the team was finished with that part of practice, the reporters and photographers were allowed back in to watch.
I was one of those responsible for “escorting” them out. I use “escort” in quotations because it was more like remove, especially those seasoned reporters who had frequent access to classified information under prior coaching regimes.
For those of you who went to the WVU-Pitt game sober in 1991 and don’t recall West Virginia using a no-huddle shotgun offense, your memory is still sharp. WVU didn’t get a chance to use it because starting quarterback Darren Studstill got hurt after about the third play of the game and the futuristic no-huddle was completely scrapped in favor of an old Nehlen standby -- the fourth and 20 draw play up the middle.
By the way Pitt won that one, 34-3.
Years later, I remember taking my dad up to one of the WVU-Pitt games at Three Rivers Stadium, pawning him off with some of my friends in the parking lot, and meeting back up with him afterward and bringing him into the locker room where he could listen to Nehlen’s post-game speech. I know my dad enjoyed listening to the old coach as much as the old coach enjoyed talking about another Pitt butt kicking.
Afterward, we hopped in the car, drove down to see my old high school team get beat by a Weirton team that happened to have a pretty good player on it in Quincy Wilson. Maybe you’ve heard of him? If you have, can you please tell Chris Fowler and Lee Corso his name is Quincy Wilson, not Quincy Morgan!
But my favorite West Virginia-Pitt memory took place in 1994 up at old Pitt Stadium, where the brand new Petersen Events Center currently sits. Unlike most others, I actually liked Pitt Stadium -- a circular structure tucked tightly in the middle of campus.
Of course it had seen better days and they even tried to fix up one side of it by constructing a new weight room, but the real charm of Pitt Stadium rested in the ghosts that reside inside. In fact, it was so dark down in the bowels of the stadium underneath the bowl where the locker rooms were that I actually thought I did see ghosts.
At any rate, this game had all of the predictability of the weather. Just as soon as you thought one team was about to take control of the game something crazy would happen and the other team was back in it.
Near the end I watched Pitt’s Chad Askew wiggle his way into the end zone with 38 seconds left and I knew we were done.
My stomach upset, partly due to the late Pitt score and partly due to the Pitt Stadium hotdogs, I went inside above the locker rooms to purge myself of those hotdogs and try and regroup before the disappointed players and coaches made their way off the field.
At the time, it was my job to try and round up players and coaches for post-game interviews. What a fun job that was going to be.
Nevertheless, just about the time I was finished regrouping, I heard a big commotion outside in the hallway and listened to a series of expletives by one of the stadium ushers.
I asked him what happened and he said that West Virginia had just scored on a long pass and won the game.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?” I said.
“I wish I was,” he replied.
I worked my way downstairs just in time to see the jubilant players and coaches racing into the locker room. I grabbed one of the managers and asked what had happened and was informed that Zach Abraham had just made the catch of a lifetime – a 60-yarder with just a couple of seconds left to win the game, 47-41.
Here I am, spending the first three and a half quarters watching the Keystone Kops, then the Pitt Stadium hotdogs kick in, and I have to miss the play of the decade trying to unglue a couple of hotdogs that just won't let go.
As a side note, Nehlen never enjoyed playing at Pitt Stadium and didn’t care to be there any longer than he absolutely had to.
While we were wrapping up post-game interviews with quarterback Chad Johnston and wide receivers Zach Abraham and Rashaan Vanterpool patiently answering the same questions over and over, I looked over and saw the team busses pulling out of the stadium on their way back to Morgantown.
In their haste to get out of dodge, the team forgot its three star players! Abraham, a Wheeling native, rode back with his parents while I had the duty of safely returning Johnston and Vanterpool back to Morgantown in my 1990 Honda Civic.
If they were on Cloud 9 after the game, the trip back down I-79 in my beat-up car certainly brought them back to earth.
