Sky's the Limit
January 05, 2006 03:35 PM | General
January 5, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For the next fifty years or so on the sixes West Virginia University is going to be bringing members of the 2006 Nokia Sugar Bowl championship team back to its campus for banquets and testimonial dinners. The victory Monday night over Georgia was that special.
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez hoists up the 2006 Nokia Sugar Bowl championship trophy in the locker room after the Mountaineers' 38-35 win over Georgia Monday night.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
You can argue endlessly whether or not Rich Rodriguez’s fifth Mountaineer team was the best in school history. Those supporting either the 1988 or 1993 teams have strong cases.
This year’s team is one of just three to win 11 games and one of only two to finish ranked in the Top 5. The 1993 team probably played a more difficult schedule. The ‘88 team might have had more overall depth and talent in all three phases. The 2005 team was probably the fastest and most athletic of the three.
But the one thing that can’t be argued is the magnitude of the victory West Virginia achieved Monday night against the SEC champion Georgia Bulldogs in what was essentially a home game for them in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
“It's one of the most exciting nights I've experienced in college athletics. I don't know if I've ever been in a building any louder,” said Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese in Thursday’s Cincinnati Post.
While not technically a road game, the win over the No. 8-rated Bulldogs represents the highest ranked team the Mountaineers have ever managed to defeat away from home, topping the win over No. 9-ranked Oklahoma in the 1982 opener. And although the Oklahoma win put West Virginia football back on the map, WVU may have created a new map for its program with its win over Georgia.
We’re talking uncharted waters with this one. The Sugar Bowl could very well be West Virginia’s launching pad. The first early pre-season look at 2006 is already out and CNNSI.com’s Stewart Mandel has the Mountaineers rated sixth.
Being a West Virginia native, Rich Rodriguez understands the strengths and weaknesses of his Mountaineer program better than anyone. He knows what works and what fits and he also knows what doesn’t work and won’t fit. In the meantime, he’s spent the last four years accentuating the positives to buy time until he could get the signature win his program needed to give it the lift it needed to reach an even higher level.
Now he’s got it.
“He’s done a lot for the program,” said senior defensive tackle Ernest Hunter. “He pulled it up from 3-8 to 11-1. I hope in the future that he continues to do the same thing. I’m proud of him and I’m proud of his team.”
Mike Lorello, another senior, has no doubt Rodriguez is going to keep the ball rolling.
“Hopefully (the Georgia win) will raise us to another level recruiting wise and hopefully we’ll get some more guys to be like, ‘Man, I want to go there and play for the Mountaineers.’ I think the sky is the limit for our program.”
Ever since Louisville stubbed its toe at South Florida, Rodriguez has had to downplay the pressure his program felt being the sole flag bearer of a rebuilding Big East Conference, watching first-hand the toll it took on his team at the end of the 2004 season after starting the year ranked in the Top 10. Instead of propping up an entire conference, to him it was about taking care of West Virginia and letting everything else fall into place.
His message was well received by the players. “We’re representing West Virginia and the state of West Virginia,” said quarterback Pat White. “Then after that comes the Big East.”
Rodriguez has been asked the same BCS questions in conference calls and press conferences for months now. His answers aren’t rehearsed – they’re regurgitated.
Now he doesn’t have to answer them anymore.
“We’ve been getting hammered for a couple of years now,” Rodriguez said. “I understand where some of it came from initially but it’s almost been overboard. I’ve mentioned a couple of times that, hey, we’re a smaller league, eight teams, but I think that we’re a lot better than what people assume.”
“It'll shut everyone up so we won't have to talk about it,” mentioned Tranghese. “Next year West Virginia is going to be a top six, seven team and Louisville will be a top 15 team.”
Today, Rodriguez can focus all of his attention now on what he needs to do to fill in the necessary pieces around fabulous freshmen Pat White and Steve Slaton on offense, and finding some new parts for an unorthodox defense that has gotten better every year Jeff Casteel has coordinated it.
“Our guys have to stay hungry and know what they have got to do to achieve their goals,” said Rodriguez. “We still have a lot of things in our program that we can get better at and hopefully we’ll address those over the next couple of months or the next year or two.
“The biggest thing for us is we’ve got to continue to recruit fast guys that can play well and that will work hard and do what they need to do on and off the field,” Rodriguez said. “As the program continues to grow, there are a lot of things that the Georgias, the Floridas, the USCs and the Texases are doing that I would like to do at West Virginia.”
Whether you’ve got an inside view of West Virginia’s football program, or you’re following it from afar, it’s apparent to all that things are now moving at a much faster pace.
So strap on your seat belts because there is a growing sense that the ride is going to be a fun and fast one.
Note: A re-broadcast of West Virginia's Nokia Sugar Bowl victory will air on ESPN Classic on Saturday, Jan. 7, at 10 am ET. This game will kickoff ESPN Classic's "Bowl Championship Saturday."
