MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - There was just three seconds left on the clock and the football was resting at the Pittsburgh Panther 28 yard line. The score was tied at 14 and most were expecting the game to end that way. For West Virginians, a tie would have been an acceptable result. Pitt was that good.

Sophomore kicker Bill McKenzie was inching closer to the field waiting for the signal to go into the game.

Mountaineer coach Bobby Bowden was looking for some reassurance from Frank Nestor, a reliable kicker for Bowden two years earlier who was now serving as one of the team’s student coaches.

“Frank, can McKenzie make it?” Bowden asked.

“Well coach …,” Nestor said, hedging his bets, “it’s certainly within his range. But that’s all I’m going to say.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for McKenzie, West Virginia’s walk-on kicker from Wheeling who didn’t try a single field goal until the seventh game of the 1975 season. At the time, West Virginia was the only school in the country not to attempt a field goal.

“I don’t know if that showed a lack of confidence from Bowden in me or if it was because we were so good,” McKenzie said.

Having really no other reasonable alternative, Bowden sent McKenzie, his holder Tommy Loadman and snapper Greg Dorn out on the field to try and win the game.

No one said a single word to McKenzie. It was almost as if his teammates were trying to avoid him like baseball players do when a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter. Just don’t be the one to screw him up.

“Everybody was just trying to stay the hell out of my way,” McKenzie laughed.

Unlike today when kickers have access to bicycles and kicking nets to get loose, McKenzie just stood on the sidelines with his hands in his pants trying to stay warm.

“You stretch around and run in place a little bit but if you remember Old Mountaineer Field there wasn’t room for kicking nets even if they had them,” McKenzie said. “It’s a whole different world now.”

Coaching was different, too. The kicking coach that year was Chuck Klausing - the team’s defensive coordinator.

“He was an outstanding coach and a great guy but he had a lot of other things to worry about besides kicking,” McKenzie said.

“One of the things Klausing stressed with me throughout the year was to keep my head down. The fans will tell you if it’s good or not. Don’t look up. Don’t think about anything. Just keep your head down and do what you’re supposed to do and the fans will tell you if you make it or not,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie also got some valuable advice from Nestor, who once kicked an NCAA record six field goals in a game against Villanova in 1972.

“One of the things Frank showed me was to paint a big arrow on the kicking tee and when you go out on the field, point that arrow at the middle of the goal post and then just follow it down and put it on the ground,” McKenzie said. “When you look at the ground and you see the arrow you know where the goal posts are.”

McKenzie said Nestor had a very good reason for doing this: he was as blind as a bat.

“He had glasses that were two inches thick,” McKenzie laughed. “Frank did it because he could barely see his hands in front of him.”

Of course, McKenzie did all of the things he had been told: placing the arrow-painted tee in the direction of the goal post, keeping his head down and blocking out everything else.

The football sailed comfortably through the uprights giving West Virginia one of the most memorable victories in school history. The name Bill McKenzie is permanently etched into the legend and lore of the Backyard Brawl.

Suspended wide receiver Bernie Kirchner, a Bobby Bowden favorite on double-secret probation for the second time, happened to be in the student section when McKenzie made the winning kick. Perhaps the only student either athletic enough or sober enough to catch the ball, Kirchner delivered it to McKenzie in the locker room after the game.

“It’s a true story,” McKenzie said. “I still have the ball in my room. He caught it and figured if anyone ought to have it that it should be me.”

Even today, McKenzie says he gets stories from people that were at that game once they realize who he is.

“There must have been 150,000 people at that game. For a while I have to admit for five or 10 years afterward it was pretty nice,” McKenzie said. “Then you get into a five or 10-year span where you’re like, ‘Geez, come on guys. That was 20 years ago.’ But now it’s nice again.”

McKenzie also correctly points out the terrific job the defense did that day containing Pitt’s All-American running back Tony Dorsett.

“Something that kind of gets lost is that Pitt had the ball with less than a minute to go,” McKenzie explained. “If the defense doesn’t get them into a three-and-out this never happens. Getting a three-and-out with Tony Dorsett and (Matt) Cavanaugh on the other side … I mean come on.

“That’s unbelievable.”

As was Bill McKenzie’s kick.