No. 15: Syracuse, 1988
June 20, 2010 11:08 PM | General
July 16, 2010
The clock was winding down as a capacity crowd of 65,127 cheered wildly West Virginia’s first undefeated, untied regular season in school history.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” the crowd chanted as the message on the scoreboard simply read “Perfect.”
As the team made its way into the locker room after beating 15th-ranked Syracuse 31-9, everyone in the stadium remained standing – and continued to remain standing. No one had left.
“Bo Orlando said, ‘Coach, would it be all right if we took a lap?’” Nehlen said. “I said, ‘You lead, Bo. I’ll follow you.’ And he took off from the middle of the field shaking hands with fans who reached over the wall.”
The entire team took a victory lap while the Pride of West Virginia played the fight song.
“I’ll never forget that great tribute when we went back out on the field,” said Nehlen. “I’ve heard loud cheering in my time, but I’ve never heard anything that loud and long in my life. That had to be the greatest feeling in the world.”
Before the game, the team accepted a bid to face No. 1-ranked Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship. Naturally, the old-school Nehlen was having second thoughts about letting a press conference take place in the team locker room 15 minutes before kickoff.
“All of a sudden we were faced with the biggest game in our history and we had distractions running out our ears,” Nehlen later recalled. “I have to hold a daggoned press conference in my locker room before the game. And I agreed to it.”
West Virginia took a 7-0 lead on its opening possession of the game when fullback Craig Taylor scored a 3-yard touchdown. Another short Taylor run after a Syracuse field goal made it 14-3. The big play in the game came early in the third quarter when cornerback Willie Edwards stepped in front of a Todd Philcox pass, tipped the ball up in the air to himself, and raced 47 yards to the end zone for a touchdown.
Charlie Baumann added a 28-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter and the Mountaineers put a cap on a perfect regular season with an 80-yard drive culminated by Undra Johnson’s 1-yard touchdown run.
Syracuse added a meaningless touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
West Virginia was 14 of 20 on third down and was plus-five in turnovers. A.B. Brown (103 yards rushing), Major Harris (96 yards) and Johnson (72 yards) helped the Mountaineers roll up 426 yards of offense.
“That was a great game,” Nehlen said. “Our kids played like the devil. That was an awfully good team we beat.
“Going into this game I was worried about the outcome, but I was not worried about how our team would play because I knew they would just play their hearts out.”
Syracuse managed 310 yards of offense, but could muster only 116 yards in the second half.
“They took advantage of every opportunity, and from our standpoint it was a sloppy game,” said Syracuse coach Dick MacPherson. “The offense didn’t play well. We tried, but we just didn’t do things right. We had a chance for a great win, but we’ll be back.”
Syracuse was in a similar situation the prior year in 1987 when it beat West Virginia in the Carrier Dome to lock up an undefeated season.
