Backyard Bummer
August 01, 2004 10:14 PM | General
August 9, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – To this day, West Virginia’s loss at Pitt in 1970 is one of the most disappointing moments in Bobby Bowden’s long and successful coaching career. Bowden saw his team blow a 27-point halftime lead and lose to its most bitter rival, 36-35, in a game that 34 years later can still be recalled in fine detail by those who took part in it.
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| The sequence of plays leading to Pitt's game-winning touchdown. (MSN) |
In Papa ‘Nole: The Life and Times of Bobby Bowden, the coach called it “by far the worst day of my entire coaching career.” He still uses words like “bleakest” and “darkest” to describe the loss.
By all accounts, Bowden inherited a very good football team from Jim Carlen in 1970. The vast majority of the players that helped WVU win 10 games and defeat South Carolina in the 1969 Peach Bowl were back. The boastful Carlen, just getting settled at Texas Tech, also added a little spice to Bowden’s life by making some eye opening comments in a Texas newspaper that eventually made its way back to West Virginia.
“I left Bobby a real good team,” Carlen told a Houston reporter in mid-July before the start of the ’70 season. Although Carlen “didn’t want to put any undue pressure on Bobby,” he went on to say that he thought West Virginia had “at least a half-dozen players good enough for All-America consideration.”
West Virginia didn’t produce a single first-team All-American in the ‘60s and had just a handful of second-teamers for the decade. Yet Carlen thought West Virginia possibly had six on one team and that led many Mountain State scribes to wonder which six he was referring.
Bowden had other issues, too. The Birmingham, Ala., native had been Carlen’s offensive coordinator for the past four seasons and Carlen hired him because he “needed someone who knew the throwing game.” Bowden was beginning the transition from Carlen’s grind-it-out, conservative power running game to a more modern, wide-open passing offense.
Bowden hired Houston linebacker coach Howard Tippett to coordinate the defense. Tippett returned to West Virginia after spending a season coaching WVU’s freshmen in 1966. He was responsible for devising a defensive strategy that had taken into account Carlen’s preference for smaller, quicker-type linemen similar to what Bear Bryant was using at Alabama. Not a single West Virginia defensive lineman in 1970 weighed more than 220 pounds (right end Art Holdt was the biggest starter weighing 220 pounds).
Consequently, the Mountaineers had the unusual predicament of fielding a defense in which their linebackers (Dale Farley was 240 pounds and Terry King was 222) were bigger than the guys responsible for keeping the blockers off of them.
“We were so little back then,” Farley recalled. “Our defensive line was barely 200 pounds. They did their jobs but they were awful small.”
West Virginia’s lack of size eventually caught up with it against Duke when Farley wasn’t able to play after twisting his knee badly against Villanova. Despite having one of the ACC’s top passers in Leo Hart, the Blue Devils pounded West Virginia by running up the middle. Duke finished the game with 236 yards rushing and came away with a stunning, 21-13 victory over the Mountaineers. Perhaps even more unsettling to West Virginia supporters was Bowden’s puzzling decision in the second half to punt on Duke’s 34 yard line.
Instead of kicking the ball out of bounds and pinning them near its goal line, West Virginia’s punter blasted the ball several rows up into the stands giving Duke the ball at its own 20.
"That was bad," Bowden recalled.
Some West Virginia fans were beginning to wonder if Bobby Bowden was really up to the task.
Seventy miles north in Pittsburgh Carl DePasqua was in his second season trying to clean up the mess created by Dave Hart, whose teams won just three games over a three-year period from 1966-68 before the Panthers mercifully pulled the plug on him.
They chose DePasqua, a John Michelosen protégé, who won big at Waynesburg College before spending 1968 with the Pittsburgh Steelers as their defensive line coach. DePasqua’s football philosophy could be summed up in two words: blocking and tackling.
Dick Polen, WVU’s assistant SID at the time, remembered DePasqua as being a no-nonsense type of coach.
“We had a press conference up in Pittsburgh before the game where they had a telephone hookup with Bowden and DePasqua,” said Polen. “One of the West Virginia writers asked DePasqua a question he didn’t like and he said, ‘That’s the damned dumbest question I’ve ever heard.’ This was right in the middle of the press conference and you just didn’t hear things like that back then.”
Pitt quarterback Dave Havern, now a coach at Shadyside Academy and a Hart recruit, recalled DePasqua’s quirky coaching style. Before the ’71 season DePasqua received a card from then-Miami coach Fran Curci that listed percentages of when and when not to go for two-point conversions.
“It was like the bible to him,” Havern recalled.
DePasqua went to that card after every Panther TD and Havern said it seemed like they almost always chose to go for the two-point try.
Later that year, Pitt was playing a miserable game against Navy and finally took the lead by one point late on a touchdown pass. It seemed only logical that DePasqua would go for two to try and make it a three-point lead.
Pitt center Bobby Kuziel, who wound up having a long career in the NFL and was a member of the Washington Redskins’ offensive line prior to the famed ‘Hogs’ unit of the early 1980s, was one of the team’s wise guys and he always had something to say out on the field during games.
“He was the type of guy who talked about getting captured by defensive linemen and weird things like that,” Havern laughed.
Kuziel is lying on the bottom of the pile with Havern, and just as the Pitt Stadium scoreboard changes to 36-35, Kuziel said to Havern: “I bet you DePasqua kicks the extra point instead of going for two.”
Right then the coach sends out his kicker, who promptly clunks one off the upright, and the Panthers had to sweat out their one-point lead the remaining few minutes of the game.
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| It was said that DePasqua thought WVU coach Jim Carlen ran up the score in 1969. (WVU Sports Communications) |
By 1972, things had deteriorated so badly that Pitt was forced to fire DePasqua and hire Tennessee native Johnny Majors.
“I was coaching at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) at the time and I happened to get back for a game in 1972 during DePasqua’s last year to see them play Penn State,” Havern said. “They were really bad and I was thinking to myself, ‘We were bad when I played but this team was horrible.’ That’s when they brought (Johnny) Majors in.”
It was said that DePasqua was not a big fan of Jim Carlen, who he felt had run up the score his first season in 1969 when Eddie Williams turned a simple dive play into an 80-yard touchdown run to make the score 49-18 in favor of the Mountaineers.
“He was mad and he told Coach Carlen after the game something to the effect that it would never be that bad again,” said West Virginia quarterback Mike Sherwood.
Unfortunately for West Virginia fans, DePasqua’s words proved prophetic.
Even though Pitt had its troubles the prior three seasons against West Virginia, the Duke game film hinted that 1970 might be different. The Blue Devils ran at will on West Virginia’s undersized defense and administered a pretty good beating on the Mountaineers that left defenders Charlie Fisher, Danny Wilfong, Terry King and Dan Hannahs bruised and battered.
“I played a lot of football games but I thought Duke hit us harder than anybody,” said defensive back Mike Slater, now living in Williamson, W.Va. “All they did was run right at us. It was just a hard-hitting game.”
Yet surprisingly, the following week Pitt began the West Virginia game trying to run the ball wide. That played right into the hands of the much quicker Mountaineers.
“I can’t understand why they didn’t do that (run the middle) in the first half,” Bowden said after the game. “They put three big backs in there and ran the ball right at us. I was afraid of it.”
“The first half we made a lot of tackles on the outside because they tried to do some things wide on us. Pitt just wasn’t fast enough to do that,” said Slater.
“We just couldn’t get outside against West Virginia,” admitted Havern. “We were just running our normal offense and they were stopping us.”
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| West Virginia running back Bob Gresham is stopped for a short gain. He finished the game with 149 yards rushing. (Pitt Photo) |
Meanwhile, WVU running backs Williams and Bob Gresham, as they had done the year before, were gouging the Pitt defense with long runs. With Mike Sherwood mixing in timely passes, West Virginia built up what seemed to be an insurmountable 35-8 halftime lead.
“The wire service guys had already written their stories,” said veteran newsman Mickey Furfari. “All they had to do was add the final stats and polish up their leads.”
As they were jogging off the field toward the tunnel leading to the locker room, Bowden felt secure enough to joke with Sherwood, “It looks like you own these guys,” he said.
Sherwood, who passed for a school-record 416 yards against the Panthers in 1968 and led WVU to an easy win over Pitt in 1969, ominously replied: “For two and a half quarters anyway, Coach.”
There was jubilation in the West Virginia locker room at halftime and Bowden had a tough time getting his team calmed down. “We were just cutting it up and having a good time,” Slater admitted.
In the Pitt locker room, DePasqua was trying to figure out what to do for the second half. He didn’t give a big speech and rally the troops. In fact, Havern doesn’t recall DePasqua saying anything at all. It got back to the West Virginia players later that DePasqua had given up on the game and instructed his team to run the clock and try and keep West Virginia from embarrassing them once again.
But Havern doesn’t quite remember it that way. He says DePasqua’s only adjustment was to use the Power-I at the start of the second half -- a short yardage formation they often used.
“I don’t remember us really doing anything different,” said Havern.
Bowden also planned to keep things conservative.
“He said we were going to just run the ball at them and that we weren’t looking to run up the score up: that kind of thing,” said Sherwood.
Bowden was accused by Lou Holtz of running up the score in his very first game against William & Mary a few weeks earlier. West Virginia won the contest easily 43-7.
“For crying out loud they still had (Jim) Braxton in the game with a minute left,” said a steaming Holtz. The William & Mary coach was born in Follansbee, W.Va., and was raised across the river in East Liverpool, Ohio, and had several friends and family at the game.
Holtz’ complaining may have unconsciously played a part in Bowden’s decision to play things conservatively at the start of the second half against Pitt.
It was a decision he still regrets to this day.
Pitt returned West Virginia’s kickoff to its own 42 to begin the second half. The Panthers, in their adjusted Power-I alignment, marched 58 yards in 15 plays to reach the end zone. DePasqua went for the two-point conversion to make the score 35-15, West Virginia.
Bowden, his conservative plan in place, called three straight running plays. Havern recalled: “They ran a trap and Lloyd Weston made a great play on second down and they lost a yard. We stopped them on third down and they had to kick it back to us.”
Like its first drive of the second half, Pitt kept the ball mainly between the tackles and once again methodically marched downfield. This time it took the Panthers 14 plays before backup running back Dave Garnett fought his way in from the five.
DePasqua tried for two once again and Havern used some ingenuity to complete Pitt’s second two-point conversion.
“They had me trapped and I’m rolling out the wrong way and so I just flicked the ball underhand to our tight end Joel Klimek -- a guy who had just come back from ‘Nam and was a Silver Star guy. He makes the catch for the two-point conversion. So then I’m thinking it’s 35-24 and it’s about time something breaks our way.
“It was about that time you could see the West Virginia guys across the field thinking, ‘Geez, what’s going on here?’”
"They went for fourth down six or seven times and made it," Bowden said. "Every time they'd measure for a first down they'd stop the clock and I was sitting there trying to milk that clock."
Farley, who tried to play but had to come out after the third play of the game, confirms Havern’s observation: “I kept thinking to myself that there is no way they are going to come back and beat us,” he said. “But they just kept scoring and scoring and we couldn’t stop them.”
After Pitt’s second touchdown Sherwood said the West Virginia sideline grew very concerned. “We tried to go back to the things we were doing in the first half and we just couldn’t get it going,” he said.
“Football is a game of momentum and it’s an art to be ahead and maintain that momentum,” said Sandusky, Ohio, resident Eddie Williams, who ran for 199 yards against the Panthers in 1969 and added 118 yards in the 1970 game.
Pitt had the momentum and remarkably, the Panthers were bludgeoning the Mountaineers to death with a rubber mallet. Pitt’s third drive of the second half covered 70 yards in 14 plays and ended once again in West Virginia’s end zone when fullback Tony Esposito bulled in from a yard out. Havern’s conversion pass this time failed, leaving West Virginia leading 35-30 with less than 10 minutes to go.
Once again West Virginia couldn’t get a first down and had to punt the football back to Pitt. “The defense didn’t play well but the offense did their part (in aiding Pitt’s comeback), too,” said Farley, now living in Sparta, Tenn.
Pitt latched onto the football at its own 30 and drove 70 yards, making two fourth-down conversions along the way, to get to the West Virginia five with 55 seconds left in the game.
Havern, who was playing with a bruised sciatic nerve, says the play 58X delay came in from the Pitt sidelines. The passing play was designed for Havern to choose either running back Ferris going out in the flat or tight end Billy Pilconis running down the middle.
Slater says Pilconis was his man. “They flared a guy out of the backfield and our free safety was supposed to take him but I took one step toward (Ferris) thinking for sure they were going to throw the ball to him and they threw it over the middle to Pilconis.”
“As soon as I let the ball go I got nailed right in the sciatic, I went down, and I’m dying,” said Havern. “I heard the crowd and I figured he caught it. He was so wide open that there couldn’t have been a guy within 10 yards of him.”
Dick Polen recalled the changing mood in the press box in the second half.
“In the first half when we built up that big lead all of the West Virginia sportswriters were cheering after the good plays. Dean Billick, Pitt’s SID at the time, got on the press box PA system and said, ‘There will be no more cheering in the press box!’ He was really mad,” said Polen. “Well in the second half when Pitt started turning it around and all of the Pittsburgh sportswriters began cheering, Billick just stood up there as silent as a tree.”
Pitt came all the way back from a 27-point halftime deficit to take a one-point lead with less than a minute left. Still, DePasqua kept things interesting by going for the extra point instead of trying for the two-point conversion to put Pitt up by three.
“DePasqua kicks the extra point, we miss it and now a field goal beats us,” Havern moaned. “So of course West Virginia started marching right down the field and they’re inside our 40.”
With 19 seconds left Sherwood hit Wayne Porter on a short pass over the middle and he fumbled the football into the arms of Pitt defensive lineman John Stevens. One play later Havern took a knee and Pitt won the game, 36-35.
The final statistics tell the story of the game. Pitt ran a total of 61 plays in the second half and 97 for the game. By comparison, West Virginia managed just 10 second-half plays before its final drive. Most amazing of all was the fact that Pitt’s 27-point comeback victory came without the benefit of a long pass, a long run or a West Virginia turnover. Pitt’s longest play of the game covered just 21 yards.
“It was a pass down the middle to Doug Gindin,” said Havern.
Tears flowed freely as a stunned West Virginia team left the field. “Going into the dressing room after the game was really a sad state,” said Slater.
“The locker room was so quiet,” said Dale Farley. “You could hear a pin drop.”
“It was sort of a mixture of sadness and shame,” added Eddie Williams. “We knew we should have done better.”
Some West Virginia fans were feeling more than just sadness and shame. Many were out for blood.
Mickey Furfari recalls waiting outside the West Virginia locker room to interview players and coaches. Amongst the reporters were several dozen West Virginia fans who began pounding on the door of the locker room and yelling “come on out Bobby” and “bye-bye Bobby.”
“Because the team bussed up to Pittsburgh he took his time in the locker room,” said Furfari. “He was smart enough to know not to come out with all those people still around.”
“Our fans mobbed my dressing room door after the game,” Bowden said in Papa ‘Nole: The Life and Times of Bobby Bowden. “I couldn’t come out. They’d probably lynch me.”
Mike Sherwood remembers hearing some of the stuff that happened later on but he doesn’t specifically recall any incidents after the game.
“I remember there being talk of it,” he said. “There are all kind of bizarre things that kind of grew out of the game like there being players getting into fights and so forth. I really don’t recall any of that.”
“It was not a pretty picture up there I can tell you,” said Polen, who says his post-game responsibilities did not include pulling Bowden out of the locker room to talk to reporters after the game. That job fell on the shoulders of SID Ben Lusk.
Bowden, who looked as if he had just seen a ghost, told reporters afterward: “This is going to be the most heartbreaking loss I’ve had in coaching – when I wake up tonight.
“I’ve seen games like this before but I’ve never been through one,” he continued. “I can’t help thinking we did our best. That’s what worries me.”
Naturally DePasqua was elated. “It’s a great day of joy,” he said. “In all my 17 years of coaching, this is the most fantastic comeback I’ve ever experienced.”
Tippett offered this post-game assessment of his beleaguered West Virginia defense: “We lined up everything we could line up and still couldn’t hold them. Pitt was too strong for us: They knocked us out of there.”
The next day Furfari tried to make sense of the loss. “What happened to the West Virginia defense?” he wrote in Sunday’s edition of the Dominion-Post. “Where was the marvelous mixture of speed and finesse Bobby Bowden’s boys had parlayed into a big lead?
“Pitt simply stole the show after the intermission with an awesome act the likes of which these eyes had never seen. Some weird happenings have taken place in sports down through the years, but this observer can’t recall one the equal of this. Never. Never. Never.”
Colleague Tony Constantine was equally stunned, “If anything written in this corner today sounds ridiculous, or crazy, blame it on a state of shock,” he began. And he finished by writing, “The second half is hard to believe.”
Three days later the game was still on the mind of Charleston Daily Mail sports editor Bill Smith, a personal witness to the insults being lobbed toward the WVU dressing room. His Tuesday afternoon column turned into a sermon on fan behavior.
“Only persons second-rate were outside the dressing room door,” he wrote. “The ones inside had nothing to be ashamed of. Fans stunned! Fans disappointed!
“Imagine how the players felt? With fans like those who came out of their holes Saturday, the young athletes don’t need enemies. So, sue me!”
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| Coach Bobby Bowden learned his lesson and never sat on a lead after losing to Pitt in 1970. (WVU Sports Communications) |
Thirty four years later Sherwood maintains that West Virginia was the better football team. “We really felt like we had Pitt’s number and we really did. I think it was one of those freak things that happened and there is really no explanation for it. We played Colorado State the very next week and beat them when they had Lawrence McCutcheon and Pitt didn’t have any Lawrence McCutcheons, I’ll tell you that.”
“You just can’t forget that one: It just sticks in your craw for some reason,” said Slater.
“When you hear people say ‘that’s football.’ Well, that was what that game was really like,” said Williams, whose three first-half touchdowns were completely erased by Pitt’s second-half comeback. “I don’t know whether we relaxed or something happened to us mentally going into that second half.”
West Virginia finished the 1970 season with an 8-3 record and a two-year mark of 18-4. Two losses to Penn State and upset losses to Duke and Pitt kept WVU from going to back-to-back major bowl games.
Pitt, meanwhile, managed a .500 record in 1970 to snap a string of six straight losing seasons. The period from 1964 through 1972 is considered among the bleakest in Pitt football history.
Some West Virginia observers believe bad fortune was the cause for the Pitt loss in 1970. If WVU had Dale Farley in the middle or strongside tackle George Boyd (injured during the Indiana game) Pitt wouldn’t have been able to exploit the middle of West Virginia’s defense. Also, right before the game Bowden announced the suspension of right end Art Holdt for missing team curfew.
“I would have liked to think I could have made a difference,” said Farley. “It’s a team effort so I don’t know. When a team gets momentum like that it’s hard to stop them.”
