After watching hours upon hours of video tape, sifting through dusty, tattered news clippings and meeting on several different occasions, our esteemed panel of football experts has come up with 32 great moments in West Virginia University history for you to vote on.
Well, perhaps the process wasn’t quite that involved, but, nevertheless, where to start?
Close to the beginning seems like the logical place when coach Clarence “Fats” Spears took 19 football players out to San Diego to play Gonzaga in the 1922 East-West Christmas Classic, later to become known simply as the East-West Bowl.
It was the first-ever bowl appearance for the Mountaineers, a 21-13 victory over a Gonzaga team that actually included the first in a long line of Stocktons - John’s grandfather and David’s great grandfather Houston Stockton - who scored a fourth-quarter touchdown for the Zags.
The first-ever game at old Mountaineer Field was played on Saturday, September 27, 1924, when West Virginia defeated in-state rival West Virginia Wesleyan, but the official dedication of the stadium didn’t happen until 14 months later on Saturday, November 14, 1925, when the Mountaineers blanked Penn State, 14-0, before approximately 20,000 fans.
That was certainly a very memorable moment.
Moving on to more contemporary times, there was West Virginia’s stunning upset victory over 18th-ranked Pitt in 1952 - the first-ever win against a nationally ranked foe, and the three consecutive triumphs over Penn State in 1953, 1954 and 1955 - an achievement that was never duplicated in the long-standing, very one-sided football series.
There was Bob Dunlevy’s fourth-quarter touchdown reception to beat ninth-ranked Syracuse before fewer than 10,000 shivering football fans at Mountaineer Field - a game the Orange clearly expected to win considering Syracuse’s pregame release to announce it had accepted an invitation to play LSU in the 1965 Sugar Bowl also included a victory over West Virginia later that afternoon.
The ’65 Backyard Brawl in Morgantown when West Virginia outlasted the Panthers, 65-48, in one of the wildest games in WVU-Pitt history was also quite memorable, as was Jim Carlen’s Mountaineer team running out of a Trojan horse to completely overwhelm South Carolina in the 1969 Peach Bowl when the crafty coach caught the Gamecocks off guard by installing a wishbone offensive attack two weeks before the game.
In the 1970s, Danny Buggs’ last-second punt return to defeat Maryland in 1973 was quite memorable, as was Bill McKenzie’s kick to conclude the 1975 Backyard Brawl. There is probably some WVU student, somewhere, someplace still celebrating McKenzie’s boot to beat the hated Panthers, 41 years after the fact. Bobby Bowden’s victory over Lou Holtz-led N.C. State a month later in the Peach Bowl certainly kept the Sunnyside celebrations going.
The opening of New Mountaineer Field when John Denver flew in to help christen the new stadium was also noteworthy, as was West Virginia’s surprising 26-6 victory over heavily favored Florida a year later in the 1981 Peach Bowl.
Shortly afterward, Don Nehlen secured his employment status at WVU permanently (and his name in Mountaineer lore forever) with big victories over Oklahoma in 1982, Pitt in 1983, and Boston College and Penn State in 1984.
In 1988, Nehlen had his best team with quarterback Major Harris under center, Harris going the wrong way and faking out the entire Penn State defense for a touchdown in leading the Mountaineers to a 51-point explosion against coach Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions - the most points a Paterno-coached team ever allowed. Later that season, the Mountaineer players were asked to make a curtain call after defeating 14th-ranked Syracuse, 31-9, to complete the first undefeated, untied regular season in school history - two more great moments.
Five years later, two unforgettable plays - Robert Walker’s 19-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown run to put WVU on top of fourth-ranked Miami, and Ed Hill’s last-minute TD catch at 11th-ranked Boston College - helped preserve West Virginia’s second unbeaten, untied regular season.
A year after that, in 1994, another incredible play - Zach Abraham’s 60-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Chad Johnston - had our old friends up in Oakland up in arms when the Mountaineers snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
A pair of wins over nationally ranked Virginia Tech in 2002 and 2003 got the Rich Rodriguez regime moving in the right direction, and although the Mountaineers couldn’t pull off the big upset at No. 2-ranked Miami in the Orange Bowl in 2003, Quincy Wilson’s amazing catch and run to put WVU ahead late in the game was a play that will never be forgotten.
In 2005, there was a “Comeback in the Cards” when West Virginia, behind freshman quarterback Pat White, overcame a 17-point, fourth-quarter deficit to defeat Louisville in triple-overtime. And then three months later, on a much bigger stage, White and Steve Slaton showed just how fast those SEC defenses really are when they blew past heavily favored Georgia in the 2006 Nokia Sugar Bowl, played in Atlanta, Georgia that year because of Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. White was responsible for four bowl wins as a starting quarterback during his WVU career - the first player in NCAA history to accomplish this feat - including the 2008 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl triumph over heavily favored Oklahoma to help Bill Stewart remove the “interim” tag from his job title.
In 2008, Stewart demonstrated his appreciation for WVU’s winningest quarterback by endorsing a “White Out” game against South Florida to conclude the regular season and put a fitting wrap on White’s incredible four-year run in Morgantown.
In recent years, offensive genius Dana Holgorsen has added to our list of memorable moments with his team’s dominant, 70-33, victory over Clemson in the 2012 Discover Orange Bowl, and then eight months later, he introduced Mountaineer fans to Big 12 football in grand style by outlasting high-powered Baylor, 70-63, in the wildest football game ever played in Milan Puskar Stadium.
Finally, two months after the Baylor win, Tavon Austin showed us his impersonation of Gale Sayers by running by, past and around the entire Oklahoma defense for a staggering 572 all-purpose yards in what was, perhaps, the greatest individual performance in school history. The Sooners won the game on a last-second Landry Jones touchdown pass, to no fault of Austin, of course.
That’s 32 great moments of Mountaineer football history for you to consider.
Voting begins today and continues throughout the month of August until West Virginia lifts the lid on Year No. 125 by facing the Missouri Tigers on Saturday, September 3rd, at Milan Puskar Stadium.
We hope to see you there!
We had a large turnout for last month’s poll to select the top team in school history, and we are anticipating even greater participation for our great moments poll, so vote early, and vote often!
