Nighttime in Morgantown
October 11, 2005 09:48 AM | General
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
You don’t get many chances to win championships in sports. West Virginia University won’t officially win the Big East football title with a win over Louisville on Saturday, but it would be safe to start ordering the champagne or Gatorade or whatever college team’s pour on each other in the locker room after winning a league crown.
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| Although Saturday's game is a 3:30 pm start, the game will end at night and Tony Caridi says magical things often happen in Morgantown when the sun goes down.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
For the second straight year, the Big East’s BCS championship berth will be decided in Morgantown. A year ago, the Mountaineers blew their chance at the BCS when its special teams blew up against Boston College. Now a year later, birds of a different feather are headed to our state’s land-grant institution with the same goal in mind.
The Louisville Cardinals are one of the hottest offensive teams in the country. They’re averaging 65 points per game in their last two outings. This is the football team were talking about -- not Rick Pitino’s basketball team. Defensively, Elvis is alive and doing quite well. The Card’s Elvis Dumervil is a freak show posting 15 sacks, 16 tackles for losses, and bringing the crowd down with his rendition of Hound Dog.
Quarterback Brian Brohm is playing as well as advertised. He’s thrown 10 touchdown passes and just two interceptions while completing nearly 70 percent of his attempts. In the backfield, Michael Bush, who looks more like an oak tree than a shrub, weighs 250 pounds and averages almost six yards per carry.
But the Cardinals defense has been criticized and I’m not sure why?
The Louisville D allows fewer than 2.5 yards per rushing attempt. They’re given up 12 points per game over the last two weeks while the U of L offense has been averaging 65. That’s a 53-point average margin of victory.
With these eye-popping stats why should the Mountaineers even show up on Saturday? Why not just call the league office up forfeit the game and head down to Tampa early to work on the tan and the following week’s game with South Florida?
Here’s why: Because the game is in Morgantown and it will start in daylight and end in the darkness. To the casual outside fan that might not mean much, but to Mountaineer fans this brings about memories of other games WVU wasn’t supposed to win and did. Doug Flutie and his BC Eagles (1984), Warren Sapp and the Miami Hurricanes (1993), the Virginia Tech Hokies (2003) and the Nittany Lions of Penn State (1984) have all come to town favorites and left with a loss in the darkness of a Morgantown night.
Twelve years ago the University of Louisville came to Morgantown fresh off consecutive victories over nationally rated Arizona State, Texas, and Pitt. The Cardinals behind the quarterbacking of current U of L assistant coach Jeff Brohm (yes, that’s Brian’s brother) outscored those three teams 105-34. The Mountaineers, led by the two-headed quarterbacking tandem of Jake Kelchner and Darren Studstill, beat Louisville by a final score of 36-34.
This Saturday the Mountaineers will again use a two-headed quarterback to try and beat another Brohm and the rest of the Cardinals. Odds makers say it won’t happen.
However, 60,000 fired-up fans know it has happened before and with an efficient effort from Coach Rich Rodriguez’ football team on Saturday, it very well could happen again.
