Oh For Three
August 22, 2003 12:46 PM | General
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
August 22, 2003
West Virginia's second trip to Wisconsin in 1957 resulted in a 45-13 beating at Camp Randall Stadium (WVU Sports Communications photo).
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Three trips to Madison, Wisc., resulted in three depressing results for the West Virginia University football team.
WVU’s first journey to Wisconsin came in 1933 when Coach Earle “Greasy” Neale took an undermanned Mountaineer squad to Camp Randall Stadium following four consecutive losses and two ties to start the ’33 campaign.
Neale had developed a pretty impressive resume as both an athlete and coach. He played in a World Series for the Cincinnati Reds as a professional baseball player, and he also led Washington & Jefferson to an undefeated season and a Rose Bowl berth in 1921 as a football coach.
By the time Athletic Director Harry Stansbury hired Neale away from coaching a professional team in Ironton, Ohio in 1931, Neale had developed a pretty solid reputation in the coaching ranks.
Neale took over a Mountaineer program undergoing a depression every bit as real as the one the nation was going through. While new President Franklin Roosevelt was issuing bank holidays and forcing congress into special sessions during his first 100 days of office, Neale was trying to turn around a football program on the decline.
Since Dr. Clarence Spears left after the 1924 season with a four-year record of 30-6-3, West Virginia teams slipped down toward the .500 mark by 1931 when Neale took over. Although known as a good football strategist who stressed finesse and rhythm in his offensive plays, Neale could never quite duplicate his past coaching successes at WVU. His best season in Morgantown came in 1932 when his Mountaineer team recorded a 5-5 record.
By the time the Wisconsin game rolled around midway through the 1933 season, West Virginia limped into Camp Randall Stadium with a miserable 0-4-3 record. Hours later, West Virginia added another notch in the loss column with a disappointing 25-6 defeat at the hands of the Badgers.
Coaching Wisconsin was Dr. Spears, who like Neale, had successfully performed resuscitation acts at Dartmouth, West Virginia, Minnesota and Oregon before settling at Wisconsin. And like Neale at West Virginia, Spears couldn’t work his magic in Wisconsin. After his initial season produced a 6-1-1 record for the Badgers in 1932, Spears’ team slipped to 2-5-1 in 1933.
In addition to West Virginia, Wisconsin’s only other win that season came against Marquette. Spears spent two more undistinguished years coaching the Badgers before moving on to Toledo.
West Virginia’s next journey to Madison came 44 years later in 1957. By the late 1950s West Virginia made a concerted effort to upgrade its football schedule and play more teams from the Big Ten. Wisconsin was the first in a series of four games spanning from 1957 to 1961 featuring Big Ten teams. The Mountaineers faced Indiana in 1958, Illinois in 1960 and Indiana once again in 1961.
Mountaineer coach Art Lewis had a pretty balance team in 1957. Seven different backs shared running duties and Mickey Trimarki and Dick Longfellow gave West Virginia a formidable one-two punch at quarterback.
West Virginia was in the midst of its second great football revival in the mid 1950s. Lewis engineered the Mountaineers to an 8-1 regular season in 1953 and a trip to the Sugar Bowl against Georgia Tech. Although West Virginia lost badly to the Yellow Jackets, the Mountaineers did finish the season ranked in the top 10. Consecutive top 20 finishes followed in 1954 and 1955.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, was in the midst of rebuilding its football program. Two losing seasons followed a 7-2 record in 1954 punctuated with running back Alan Ameche winning the Heisman Trophy.
Coach Milt Bruhn replaced Ivy Williamson as Wisconsin coach in 1956 and managed a disappointing 1-5-3 record his first season. Although Bruhn had just 13 returning lettermen for the 1957 season, he did have an outstanding class of sophomores led by quarterback Dale Hackbart and running back Eddie Hart, a Wisconsin prep whiz that broke most of Ameche’s high school records.
The Badgers also had 1956 leading ground gainer Danny Lewis returning. Lewis amassed 554 yards in Bruhn’s T-formation offense as a junior.
Providing a backdrop to the game was the ongoing World Series in nearby Milwaukee between the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Yankees. Also, just a day before West Virginia’s football game with the Badgers, the Russians sent the 184-pound satellite Sputnik into Earth’s orbit, shocking Americans from coast to coast.
The West Virginia football team was apparently among those still in a daze at game time. On the second play from scrimmage, Williams hauled in a long pass and raced 62 yards for a touchdown. And the touchdowns kept coming for Wisconsin. By halftime Wisconsin had built a 28-0 lead and the Badgers tacked on two more touchdowns in the third quarter to add insult to injury. When the final gun sounded, the Badgers were on the winning end of a 45-13 score.
Wisconsin managed to rush for 332 yards and added 126 more through the air to finish the game with 458 yards of total offense. West Virginia had a respectable 312 yards of offense, but lost three fumbles and threw two interceptions.
It was West Virginia’s worst beating since losing 54-7 to nationally ranked Maryland in 1951.
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| Wisconsin bottled up West Virginia running back Avon Cobourne for most of the day. The senior finished the game rushing 18 times for 79 yards. (WVU Sports Communications) |
Turnovers played only a small part in West Virginia’s unsuccessful third trip to Madison in 2002. This time, the Mountaineers were still feeling their way around in a new defense installed on the insistence of second-year coach Rich Rodriguez.
Rodriguez’ first season after returning to his alma mater following a successful stint as offensive coordinator at Clemson wasn’t a very good one. West Virginia’s defense ranked among the worst in the country against the run and that led to a disappointing 3-8 record in 2001.
Although Wisconsin was also coming off a losing season in 2001, veteran Coach Barry Alavarez had won 30 of 37 games between 1998-2000 and had steered Wisconsin to seven bowl game appearances behind a powerful running attack.
Afraid Wisconsin was going to pound it out on the ground, West Virginia placed extra emphasis on stopping Big Ten rookie of the year Anthony Davis.
Davis wound up gaining just 75 yards on 19 carries, but Wisconsin found the going easy through the air. Quarterback Brooks Bollinger fired touchdown passes of 19 and 43 yards to Jonathan Orr on the way to a 34-point first half performance.
By halftime, the game was once again already over.
WVU recovered in the second half to score two touchdowns to make the final score a more respectable 34-17. West Virginia’s young offense recovered after that game, winning eight of its last 10 regular season games to earn a spot in the Continental Tire Bowl.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, won its first five games before losing six of its next seven games. The Badgers recovered to win its final two games against Minnesota in the regular season and against Colorado in the Alamo Bowl to finish the year 8-6.
Now for the first time in the series, Wisconsin must travel to West Virginia to face the Mountaineers in Morgantown.
Maybe this time after three unsuccessful tries on the road, the Mountaineers can finally return the favor at home.
