No. 7: Miami, 1996
June 22, 2010 09:50 PM | General
July 24, 2010
For anyone who believes in signs or premonitions, the West Virginia football team got several of them after its listless, 30-10 victory over Temple in Veterans Stadium.
1. The Mountaineer offense played sluggish against a very average Temple defense, finishing the game with only 292 total yards.
2. Injuries were beginning to pile up, the biggest concern being WVU's star running back Amos Zereoue, who left early in the game with a very painful turf toe injury.
3. Despite playing an afternoon game in Philadelphia, the team charter was delayed until early Sunday morning because of a mishap at New York's LaGuardia Airport that closed the runway where the plane being used to pick up the team was grounded.
4. The entire travel party went back to a fully booked Philadelphia Marriott, the team having to sprawl out in the hotel ballroom to watch East Carolina upset Miami (West Virginia's next opponent) 31-6 before the charter could get to Philadelphia to pick them up.
Now that's plenty of bad karma.
And there was more.
To put it politely, West Virginia's punt team was not very good in 1996, the unit already having five punts blocked before the Miami Hurricanes blew into Morgantown for a meeting against the 11th-rated Mountaineers on Oct. 26, 1996.
Compounding matters, Miami's speedy defensive back Tremain Mack had seven career blocked punts to his credit.
His eighth against West Virginia would snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat for Miami.
With only 29 seconds remaining on the clock and the Mountaineers leading 7-3, all West Virginia had to do was get off a decent punt - it didn't even have to be a good one - to win the football game. The way West Virginia's defense was playing, the Hurricanes had no chance whatsoever of getting a touchdown.
But West Virginia couldn't get the ball airborne, Mack blowing past West Virginia's David Saunders like a turbo-charged Ferrari to literally pick the football off of punter Brian West's foot. The ball bounced into Jack Hallmon's arms at the 20, where he handed it to Nathaniel Brooks. Brooks ran the ball into the end zone to give the Hurricanes one of the unlikeliest game-winning scores in Mountaineer Field history.
The scene on West Virginia's sideline was stunned disbelief. Miami players celebrated wildly, thrusting their helmets into the air and jumping up and down wildly.
Flags were thrown and the officials convened. Was Hallmon's handoff to Brooks an illegal forward lateral as it appeared on television replays? No. Excessive celebration by the Hurricanes was the call. Miami 10, West Virginia 7, game over.
The following afternoon, West Virginia coach Don Nehlen offered an explanation for why Mack was able to get to West so quickly.
"We had a guard lined up way too close to the football, and everybody else lines up off him," Nehlen said. "So then Saunders couldn't see the football and Mack went around him. But it was the same rush they used all game, the same rush we worked on all week."
Immediately after the game, Mack hinted that the block was a result of flawed blocking schemes.
"I don't think their punt protection is very sound," he said. "Once you get outside, there's no one there to stop you. Their up back stays in the middle to block the guys coming through the middle. We had the block planned out and it worked."
Boy did it ever.
