TOUGH SLEDDING
June 23, 2011 02:38 PM | General
There has been some talk recently about the current competitive state of Big East football and that got me thinking: which West Virginia football teams since 1950 actually played the toughest schedules?
First of all, before we get too deep into this, why 1950?
Well, because there were just too many non-Division I opponents on West Virginia’s football schedules before that, including several West Virginia Conference schools. Also, from 1950-68, West Virginia played a Southern Conference slate ranging from three-to-four games per year and I chose not to consider those games when computing (or ciphering depending upon your perspective) opponent winning percentages, meaning the year Pappy Lewis faced the gauntlet of 20th-ranked Pitt, national champion Syracuse, 12th-ranked Penn State and 14th-rated USC all in a row in 1959 must be balanced out by the fact that the Mountaineers also played Richmond, George Washington, Boston University and The Citadel that same season.
The same goes for Gene Corum’s 1960 slate that included Maryland, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Syracuse, Penn State and Oregon because the schedule that year also had games against Richmond, Boston University and George Washington (Virginia Tech was also in the Southern Conference at that time, but I didn’t categorize the Hokies with the rest of the Southern Conference because Tech played more than half of its games against high-major programs).
So with that as my starting point, I decided to dig deep into the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia on a quest to try and figure out the toughest schedules in school history.
Here is what I came up with.
The coach who faced the toughest schedules at West Virginia?
That would be Frank Cignetti, whose four-year Mountaineer tenure featured 71.1% of his games against teams with winning records. The combined winning percentage of Cignetti’s 38 D-I opponents from 1976-79 was 60.6% (Cignetti also faced six non-Division I foes).
Just seven times from 1976-79 did Cignetti’s WVU’s teams play Division I opponents that ended the year with losing records, so considering what he was up against, not to mention the atrocious facilities he had to work with at the time, it’s really not surprising that Cignetti got whacked after the 1979 season.
Gene Corum was working under similar circumstances. Corum’s six-year tenure at West Virginia featured 39 games against high-major teams with a combined winning percentage of 59.1% (Corum’s WVU teams also faced 22 games against non-major schools).
Despite playing in what some would consider a watered down Big East Conference without Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech, Bill Stewart (56.1%) and Rich Rodriguez (53.7%) also went up against reasonably competitive football slates with solid opponent winning percentages.
The coach who faced the softest schedules at WVU during the modern era?
Jim Carlen, whose brief four-year stay in Morgantown featured 24 games against high-major programs with a combined winning percentage of only 49.8%. The remaining 17 games of Carlen’s WVU tenure were against Southern Conference schools, but to his credit, Carlen realized this and he was the guy responsible for getting WVU out of the Southern Conference and on the path toward Eastern independence.
Don Nehlen’s 246-game term at WVU featured an opponents’ combined winning percentage of 52.9%. Nehlen only faced two non-Division I foes (Richmond in 1980 and 1982) and he also went up against a difficult Eastern football slate that included Penn State, Pitt, Boston College, Maryland, Virginia Tech and Syracuse, and later Miami when the Hurricanes joined the Big East. But that also has to be balanced out by the 105 games against teams with losing records his Mountaineer teams played against.
Bobby Bowden’s six years at WVU from 1970-76 came against teams with a combined 52.4 winning percentage, Bowden facing 15 non-major schools and 30 games against high-major teams with winning records. The toughest slate Bowden confronted was his last one in 1975 when the Mountaineers played eight teams with winning records that year and a combined opponent winning percentage of 57.7%.
Compare that to Bowden’s first year at WVU in 1970 when the Mountaineers didn’t encounter a high-major team that won more than seven games (Penn State) and had a combined record of 31-42 that season. When you throw in William & Mary, Richmond, VMI and East Carolina, the ‘70 slate has to rate among the softest in school history.
Perhaps the thought of playing the much tougher football schedules that Cignetti eventually inherited in the late 1970s may have made Bowden’s decision to leave for Florida State after the ’75 season a little easier.
Who knows?
Art Lewis’ 10-year stint at WVU from 1950-59 started out with teams such as Case Western, Washington & Lee, Richmond, Geneva, and Waynesburg and ended with Miami, Texas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana and USC.
When the ax finally fell on Pappy (he was retained by “the skin of his teeth” after the 1959 season but later resigned before spring football practice in 1960), he faced a ’59 schedule with a combined opponent winning percentage of 72.6% among schools outside of the Southern Conference.
As for the toughest individual season, there are five that must be considered.
Based on winning percentage, ranked teams, schools that went to bowl games and the fewest number of non-Division I opponents, I’d have to say that West Virginia’s 1979 schedule was probably the most difficult.
The opponents’ combined winning percentage of 62.9% that year only tells part of the story.
There was an 11-1 Pitt team that beat Arizona State in the Fiesta Bowl and a 10-2 Temple team that finished ranked 17th in the country and beat Cal in the Garden State Bowl.
There was 9-3 Tulane that lost to 8-4 Penn State in the Liberty Bowl (another Mountaineer opponent that season), a 7-5 Syracuse team that beat McNeese State in the Independence Bowl, a 7-4 NC State team that won the ACC and a 6-6 Arizona State team that had to deal with the dismissal of its coach Frank Kush.
The three ‘bad teams’ on West Virginia’s schedule that season were Kentucky, Boston College and Virginia Tech, all finishing with 5-6 records.
There were certainly no cake walks for the Mountaineers in '79.
Finishing a close second was Nehlen’s 1982 team that faced a docket that won a combined 61.8% of its games that year. Penn State finished 11-1 and beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship; Pitt ended the year ranked 10th in the country after losing to SMU in the Cotton Bowl; Oklahoma recovered from its season-opening loss to the Mountaineers to finish the season with an 8-4 record; Maryland had an 8-3 regular season record before losing to Washington in the Aloha Bowl; Boston College finished with an 8-3-1 mark after falling to Auburn in the Tangerine Bowl and Florida State ended the year 9-3 after beating the Mountaineers in the Gator Bowl.
The only two blotches on the ’82 schedule were games against 2-9 Syracuse and 4-7 Temple.
If not for games against Boston University, William & Mary, George Washington and Furman, Gene Corum’s 1963 schedule would have easily rated as the toughest in school history. The remaining six opponents for Corum that year had a combined winning percentage of 79%, with Navy, Oregon, Pitt, Penn State, Syracuse and Virginia Tech all winning at least seven games.
Rich Rodriguez’s first season at WVU was also a bear, the Mountaineers going up against national champ Miami, 11th-ranked Maryland, 14th-ranked Syracuse, 18th-ranked Virginia Tech and 21st-ranked BC. WVU also played a 7-5 Pitt team that knocked off NC State in the Tangerine Bowl. The combined winning percentage of West Virginia’s 11 opponents in ’01 was 60.9%.
The 1976 schedule during Cignetti’s first season must also warrant consideration. The Mountaineers that year faced top-ranked Pitt, an eighth-ranked Maryland team that lost to Houston in the Cotton Bowl and an 8-4 Kentucky squad that defeated North Carolina in the Peach Bowl.
A Tulane team that went 2-9, a 3-8 Syracuse team and non-Division I foes Villanova and Richmond were the only weak spots.
I’d still say that’s some pretty tough sledding, wouldn't you?
How’d I do? Am I missing any? Let me know what you think on Twitter.
First of all, before we get too deep into this, why 1950?
Well, because there were just too many non-Division I opponents on West Virginia’s football schedules before that, including several West Virginia Conference schools. Also, from 1950-68, West Virginia played a Southern Conference slate ranging from three-to-four games per year and I chose not to consider those games when computing (or ciphering depending upon your perspective) opponent winning percentages, meaning the year Pappy Lewis faced the gauntlet of 20th-ranked Pitt, national champion Syracuse, 12th-ranked Penn State and 14th-rated USC all in a row in 1959 must be balanced out by the fact that the Mountaineers also played Richmond, George Washington, Boston University and The Citadel that same season.
The same goes for Gene Corum’s 1960 slate that included Maryland, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Syracuse, Penn State and Oregon because the schedule that year also had games against Richmond, Boston University and George Washington (Virginia Tech was also in the Southern Conference at that time, but I didn’t categorize the Hokies with the rest of the Southern Conference because Tech played more than half of its games against high-major programs).
So with that as my starting point, I decided to dig deep into the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia on a quest to try and figure out the toughest schedules in school history.
Here is what I came up with.
The coach who faced the toughest schedules at West Virginia?
That would be Frank Cignetti, whose four-year Mountaineer tenure featured 71.1% of his games against teams with winning records. The combined winning percentage of Cignetti’s 38 D-I opponents from 1976-79 was 60.6% (Cignetti also faced six non-Division I foes).
Just seven times from 1976-79 did Cignetti’s WVU’s teams play Division I opponents that ended the year with losing records, so considering what he was up against, not to mention the atrocious facilities he had to work with at the time, it’s really not surprising that Cignetti got whacked after the 1979 season.
Gene Corum was working under similar circumstances. Corum’s six-year tenure at West Virginia featured 39 games against high-major teams with a combined winning percentage of 59.1% (Corum’s WVU teams also faced 22 games against non-major schools).
Despite playing in what some would consider a watered down Big East Conference without Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech, Bill Stewart (56.1%) and Rich Rodriguez (53.7%) also went up against reasonably competitive football slates with solid opponent winning percentages.
The coach who faced the softest schedules at WVU during the modern era?
Jim Carlen, whose brief four-year stay in Morgantown featured 24 games against high-major programs with a combined winning percentage of only 49.8%. The remaining 17 games of Carlen’s WVU tenure were against Southern Conference schools, but to his credit, Carlen realized this and he was the guy responsible for getting WVU out of the Southern Conference and on the path toward Eastern independence.
Don Nehlen’s 246-game term at WVU featured an opponents’ combined winning percentage of 52.9%. Nehlen only faced two non-Division I foes (Richmond in 1980 and 1982) and he also went up against a difficult Eastern football slate that included Penn State, Pitt, Boston College, Maryland, Virginia Tech and Syracuse, and later Miami when the Hurricanes joined the Big East. But that also has to be balanced out by the 105 games against teams with losing records his Mountaineer teams played against.
Bobby Bowden’s six years at WVU from 1970-76 came against teams with a combined 52.4 winning percentage, Bowden facing 15 non-major schools and 30 games against high-major teams with winning records. The toughest slate Bowden confronted was his last one in 1975 when the Mountaineers played eight teams with winning records that year and a combined opponent winning percentage of 57.7%.
Compare that to Bowden’s first year at WVU in 1970 when the Mountaineers didn’t encounter a high-major team that won more than seven games (Penn State) and had a combined record of 31-42 that season. When you throw in William & Mary, Richmond, VMI and East Carolina, the ‘70 slate has to rate among the softest in school history.
Perhaps the thought of playing the much tougher football schedules that Cignetti eventually inherited in the late 1970s may have made Bowden’s decision to leave for Florida State after the ’75 season a little easier.
Who knows?
Art Lewis’ 10-year stint at WVU from 1950-59 started out with teams such as Case Western, Washington & Lee, Richmond, Geneva, and Waynesburg and ended with Miami, Texas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Indiana and USC.
When the ax finally fell on Pappy (he was retained by “the skin of his teeth” after the 1959 season but later resigned before spring football practice in 1960), he faced a ’59 schedule with a combined opponent winning percentage of 72.6% among schools outside of the Southern Conference.
As for the toughest individual season, there are five that must be considered.
Based on winning percentage, ranked teams, schools that went to bowl games and the fewest number of non-Division I opponents, I’d have to say that West Virginia’s 1979 schedule was probably the most difficult.
The opponents’ combined winning percentage of 62.9% that year only tells part of the story.
There was an 11-1 Pitt team that beat Arizona State in the Fiesta Bowl and a 10-2 Temple team that finished ranked 17th in the country and beat Cal in the Garden State Bowl.
There was 9-3 Tulane that lost to 8-4 Penn State in the Liberty Bowl (another Mountaineer opponent that season), a 7-5 Syracuse team that beat McNeese State in the Independence Bowl, a 7-4 NC State team that won the ACC and a 6-6 Arizona State team that had to deal with the dismissal of its coach Frank Kush.
The three ‘bad teams’ on West Virginia’s schedule that season were Kentucky, Boston College and Virginia Tech, all finishing with 5-6 records.
There were certainly no cake walks for the Mountaineers in '79.
Finishing a close second was Nehlen’s 1982 team that faced a docket that won a combined 61.8% of its games that year. Penn State finished 11-1 and beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship; Pitt ended the year ranked 10th in the country after losing to SMU in the Cotton Bowl; Oklahoma recovered from its season-opening loss to the Mountaineers to finish the season with an 8-4 record; Maryland had an 8-3 regular season record before losing to Washington in the Aloha Bowl; Boston College finished with an 8-3-1 mark after falling to Auburn in the Tangerine Bowl and Florida State ended the year 9-3 after beating the Mountaineers in the Gator Bowl.
The only two blotches on the ’82 schedule were games against 2-9 Syracuse and 4-7 Temple.
If not for games against Boston University, William & Mary, George Washington and Furman, Gene Corum’s 1963 schedule would have easily rated as the toughest in school history. The remaining six opponents for Corum that year had a combined winning percentage of 79%, with Navy, Oregon, Pitt, Penn State, Syracuse and Virginia Tech all winning at least seven games.
Rich Rodriguez’s first season at WVU was also a bear, the Mountaineers going up against national champ Miami, 11th-ranked Maryland, 14th-ranked Syracuse, 18th-ranked Virginia Tech and 21st-ranked BC. WVU also played a 7-5 Pitt team that knocked off NC State in the Tangerine Bowl. The combined winning percentage of West Virginia’s 11 opponents in ’01 was 60.9%.
The 1976 schedule during Cignetti’s first season must also warrant consideration. The Mountaineers that year faced top-ranked Pitt, an eighth-ranked Maryland team that lost to Houston in the Cotton Bowl and an 8-4 Kentucky squad that defeated North Carolina in the Peach Bowl.
A Tulane team that went 2-9, a 3-8 Syracuse team and non-Division I foes Villanova and Richmond were the only weak spots.
I’d still say that’s some pretty tough sledding, wouldn't you?
How’d I do? Am I missing any? Let me know what you think on Twitter.
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