Mr. MVP
January 02, 2007 12:09 PM | General
January 2, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The person holding the Toyota Gator Bowl MVP trophy on the field at Alltel Stadium late Monday afternoon certainly earned it. And Patrick White is most likely a very sore man today.
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| West Virginia's Patrick White displays his Toyota Gator Bowl MVP trophy he earned in the Mountaineers' 38-35 comeback victory over Georgia Tech Monday at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“He’s a warrior,” said WVU assistant athletic trainer Tony Corley.
The admiration for what White endured Monday runs deep in the West Virginia program and starts with the man at the very top.
“Patrick White is swollen all over his body. He kind of willed us to victory,” said Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez, now 50-24 in six seasons at WVU. “We had some guys give some absolutely courageous performances – some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
White missed the Rutgers game with both a sprained ankle and turf toe suffered in the Pitt win on Nov. 11 and re-injured in the loss to South Florida. By halftime of yesterday’s Gator Bowl, White had re-re-injured his ankle, hurt his neck after absorbing a crushing hit and his throwing hand was swollen to the point that he was having trouble holding onto the football.
“I think he kind of got rolled up a little bit and he fought that off. He got hit on the hand and at the end he could hardly grip it. And then his neck got bent over a little and his neck was swelling up,” Rodriguez said. “The trainers checked him out and he just kept fighting through it. If you notice at the end we kept putting the ball in his hands.”
“I was hurting a lot, but I had to block it out. I had to play ball,” White said. “It makes me want to play harder — when I'm injured I get a little angry.”
Yeah, like a wounded tiger.
White carried four straight times and eight overall on West Virginia’s 5:02-eating drive to win the game. In between timeouts, White was getting medical treatment from teammate Steve Slaton, who was banged up himself with a deep thigh bruise that forced him to leave the game in the second quarter.
“At the end of the game Pat’s hand was swelling up. He took a shot on it and Steve was making him grip it during timeouts because he knew we were going to run it and he wanted to make sure he could grip the ball,” Rodriguez said. “Steve is in there shaking his hand saying, “Grip my hand.’ He was working like a trainer.”
At one point Rodriguez seriously considered removing his star quarterback.
“We were getting Jarrett (Brown) loose particularly because of the ankle,” Rodriguez said. “I know Pat pretty well and he’ll go through just about anything and when I asked him ‘are you OK?’ and he hesitates a little bit then that makes me nervous. He shook it off and once the adrenaline is going Pat is a tremendous competitor. He made some huge runs and throws for us.”
White was responsible for all three third-quarter touchdowns that turned what looked like a Georgia Tech runaway victory into a Mountaineer lead – all in a span of about seven minutes. After Tanard Choice’s 5-yard touchdown run gave the Yellow Jackets a 35-17 lead, White took over.
“When you've got Patrick White in the backfield,” Tech linebacker KaMichael Hall said, “there's a lot that can happen.
“The kid is tough,” Hall continued. “There were a couple times on the field you could hear him scream out or you see him limping, but he played the whole game. He ran around like there wasn't anything wrong with him and that's all heart.”
White fired a 57-yard touchdown pass to Tito Gonzales on a ‘freeze play’ that looked like something from a backyard two-hand-touch game; he found Brandon Myles in the corner of the end zone for 14 yards, and called his own number, weaving his way through the Georgia Tech defense for 15 yards and the go-ahead score with 5:57 left in the third quarter.
The game’s final drive was reminiscent of last year’s Sugar Bowl victory when White carried the ball right through the teeth of the Georgia defense, getting crucial first down after first down.
Against Georgia Tech, White had runs of 13, 12 and 9 yards to move the sticks and force Tech to burn all three of its timeouts. His final scramble covered 10 yards and consumed the remaining six seconds to preserve a 38-35 victory.
White was able to do this without the country’s best diversion in Slaton, a consensus All-America runner who gained 1,744 yards this year and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. The star sophomore carried three times for 11 yards and caught two passes for 20 yards before heading to the sidelines. That meant the entire Georgia Tech defense was locked in on White and they still couldn’t stop him.
“Pat White is one of the best football players in America,” beamed Rodriguez.
White’s final stats read 22 carries for 145 yards and a touchdown and 9 of 15 passing for 131 yards and two scores. Those numbers pale in comparison to Georgia Tech quarterback Taylor Bennett’s surgical 19-of-29, 326-yard, three-TD performance.
One Georgia writer made note of Bennett’s gaudy passing numbers, mentioning that they were far superior to White’s. The difference, however, is that it was White holding the trophy at the end of the game.
Unless you’ve been out there -- or were out there -- you can’t fully appreciate the courage White displayed Monday afternoon getting all those yards and touchdowns.
He truly was the game’s most valuable player.
