MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Poll anyone who remembers West Virginia football back into the 1960s and they will rate the Mountaineers' 28-27 victory over ninth-ranked Syracuse in 1964 among the best in school history.
 
The chances are small of running into someone alive today who saw the game in person, however, because attendance that frigid November afternoon at Mountaineer Field was estimated at between 10 to 14,000, depending upon which newspaper you read.
 
And, of course, the contest wasn't televised (most weren't back then when Walter Byers was running the NCAA) and no usable footage is readily available in the athletic department's archives. It was still two years before Jim Carlen made the department produce season-ending highlight films for recruiting, and the first one they did was so hastily assembled that it did not even include narration.
 
So, we have to dig deep into the athletic vault to learn more about a West Virginia football victory the late Mickey Furfari regarded as "one of the greatest games ever played at Mountaineer Field, if not THE greatest from the (standpoint) of thrills and spills."
 
Mickey could sometimes get carried away with hyperbole immediately after games - positively and negatively - as he did a month later when he wrote after the Mountaineers' 32-6 loss to Utah in the Liberty Bowl that West Virginia "may not have to worry about football bowl bids for another 11 years."
 
He was referencing West Virginia's Sugar Bowl invite to face Georgia Tech, which the Mountaineers lost 42-19 in 1954.
 
But there were some things about the Syracuse victory that do make Furfari's description of it believable. For one, the two-touchdown favorite Orangemen, as they were known back then, were poised to accept an invitation to face LSU in the Sugar Bowl immediately following the game. 
 
As the Sugar Bowl's Dr. Fred Wolfe Jr. was extending an invitation to Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder and his team in the locker room afterward, a press release prepared before the game and handed out to the media counted a victory over West Virginia in Syracuse's final regular season record.
 
The Sugar Bowl was that certain of an Orange win.
 
And so was Syracuse. 
 
Schwartzwalder, a former Mountaineer player for Greasy Neale in the early 1930s, had dominated his alma mater with a string of Hall of Fame running backs that began in the mid-1950s with Jim Brown and continued with Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis before Jim Nance and Floyd Little came on the scene.
 
Nance and Little were considered college football's best inside-outside running tandem – that is until Larry Csonka replaced Nance in 1965 to make it Csonka and Little.
 
West Virginia, playing in the weak Southern Conference, struggled all season long to stop opposing teams' ground attacks in '64. The Citadel ran for 181 yards, Richmond 182, Rice 211, George Washington 261 and Penn State a season-high 353 yards in a 37-8 Nittany Lion victory at Mountaineer Field in late October.
 
And none of those teams had anyone close to resembling Nance and what he could do between the tackles or having the speed Little possessed on the outside. Both ran for more than 1,000 yards and accounted for 23 rushing touchdowns that season.
 
Stopping them was an impossibility, so fifth-year coach Gene Corum had to figure out another way to beat the Orangemen. That ultimately fell on the shoulders of first-year offensive coordinator Galen Hall, whose mid-year discovery of safety Allen McCune as the team's starting quarterback turned the season around. 
 
McCune's passing led to a couple of unexpected Mountaineer victories over Virginia Tech and Kentucky. Against the Wildcats, McCune threw three touchdown passes and ran for another in a 26-21 upset win at Mountaineer Field.
 
"(McCune's move to quarterback) was a surprise to us as it was to everybody else," split end Bob Dunlevy recalled in 2011. "How would somebody have thought he could do what he did coming over from defense? He was one of those quarterbacks like Terry Bradshaw - he wasn't a great passer and he wasn't a great runner; he wasn't a great anything. He was just a winner."
 
McCune's passes didn't always spiral, but they usually found their intended targets, particularly his intermediate throws to Dunlevy, fullback Ron Colaw and tight end Milt Clegg that gave Syracuse's defense fits all afternoon long.
 
A short pass to Colaw out in the flat on West Virginia's first offensive possession of the game turned into a 17-yard gainer to give the Mountaineers a first down at the Orange 31.
 
Two plays later, McCune passed 11 yards to Dunlevy to the 22 and then he hit Clegg for 20 more yards to the Syracuse 1. McCune scored on the next play, giving the Mountaineers an early 7-0 lead.
 
Then, Nance and Little took over. 

Little scored a 6-yard touchdown run on Syracuse's ensuing possession, and Nance got into the end zone early in the second quarter to give the Orangemen a 14-7 lead. Syracuse scored another touchdown, this one coming from quarterback Walley Mahle (born in nearby Taylor County) on a 1-yard keeper to give the Orangemen a commanding 21-7 halftime advantage.
 
When the two teams returned to the field for the second half, the temperature had dropped to 24 degrees and the wind had picked up to 15 miles per hour from the southwest.
 
Only about half of the 14,000 who came to the game were remaining in the stands.
 
The second half began with West Virginia facing a third and 6 at its own 24. Here, McCune shot a late pass to Clegg that gained 8 yards to the 32. His next aerial to fullback John Piscorik out in the right flat took the football to midfield.
 
Another McCune pass to Dunlevy for 10 yards provided fullback Dick Leftridge with enough room to run 11 yards on a draw play to the Syracuse 29. McCune, faking a pass this time, kept the football for 20 yards around the left side to the Syracuse 9.
 
McCune's next throw went to a wide-open Clegg in the left corner of the end zone for a touchdown. Piscorik's two-point conversion run pulled the Mountaineers to within six points and breathed new life into a cold and desolate stadium.
 
Then, the Mountaineer defense finally came alive to stop the Orangemen cold at the WVU 47 to force a punt. The two teams exchanged possessions before West Virginia got the football back when linebacker Jim Mazzella intercepted Mahle's pass on West Virginia's 34 and ran it 31 yards to the Syracuse 35.
 
Clipping was called on Mazzella's return, however, requiring a 15-yard walkoff back to the WVU 35.
 
Immediately, McCune went back to the air, hitting Clegg in stride for a 34-yard gainer to the Syracuse 34. Two plays later, McCune passed to Clegg for 12 yards to the 17, and then he hit Clegg down the middle for 11 yards to the 6 on the final play of the third quarter.
 
When the fourth quarter began, two runs, the first by Piscorik for 4 yards and the second by Leftridge for 2 yards, got the football across the goal line. Doug Stanley's conversion kick gave West Virginia a 22-21 lead with 14:25 remaining in the game.
 
Then it was back to Nance and Little. 
 
On a second and three play from the Orange 32, Nance broke loose for 35 yards before he was finally chased out of bounds by George Morris at the WVU 33.
 
Little got 6, Nance 4 and Little 4 more to the WVU 19. Three more Nance bursts into the middle of the Mountaineer defense moved the ball to the 10 where the Orange faced a fourth and 1.
 
Mahle crossed up West Virginia by handing the ball to right halfback Ron Oyer, who gained 3 yards to the 7. Two plays later, Nance plowed in from the 1 to put Syracuse back in the lead, 27-22, with 8:08 to go. Little caught Mahle's two-point conversion pass, but his momentum carried him out of the back of the end zone and the conversion play was ruled no good.
 
Following Dick Rader's 15-yard kickoff return, the Mountaineers started at their own 33. Two unsuccessful plays left West Virginia with a third and 10 at its own 33 and the clock winding inside of seven minutes to go. McCune threw a pass in the direction of Dunlevy, but the ball was deflected right into the waiting arms of an alert Clegg for a 12-yard gainer to the WVU 45.
 
"That pass deflection hurt us badly," Schwartzwalder said. "It was one of the breaks. Our man touched it after it hit Dunlevy, then Clegg got it. Had we stopped that play, the result might have been different."
 
Piscorik was stopped for no gain and Syracuse was penalized 5 yards for lining up offsides, giving the Mountaineers a second and 5 at the 50.
 
Here, McCune fired a long pass down the near sideline that Dunlevy hauled in with his fingertips at the Syracuse 28 and raced untouched into the end zone for a touchdown. Syracuse defender Terrell Roe had fallen down on the play, leaving nobody within 15 yards of Dunlevy.
 
"As he ran past me, I had a sinking feeling and I wanted to go out there and make the tackle myself," Schwartzwalder said.
 
McCune's two-point conversion pass was unsuccessful, requiring the defense to protect a 28-27 lead for the remaining 6:06. Following two short gainers by Nance and Little, Mahle slipped through a big hole to his left for 24 yards to the Mountaineer 39. Syracuse eventually got to the WVU 23 where it faced a fourth and 6.
 
Passing specialist Rich King, in the game for Mahle at quarterback, flipped one to Oyer out in the flat, but Karwoski and Morris converged on him 2 yards short of the first down marker at the WVU 19.
 
West Virginia had the football back with 2:02 to kill.
 
Piscorik picked up 6 to the 25 and Leftridge hit the center of the Syracuse defense for 3 more to the 28, but McCune's third-down sneak came up short of the 29. That forced a 33-yard Stanley punt that was downed at the Orange 39.
 
Syracuse had 38 seconds to score.
 
End Gordon Lambert rode King out of bounds for a loss of 3, and Mazzella broke up King's long pass intended for right end Harris Elliott. Then Lambert and Karwoski teamed up to haul down Brad Clarke after he caught King's pass for 6 yards, bringing up a fourth and 7 at the 42.
 
Mazzella batted down King's pass intended for Clarke, giving West Virginia the football on a change of possession at the Orange 42 with only 14 seconds remaining.
 
McCune fell on the football to end the game, but three Syracuse players jumped on him, causing both teams to begin throwing punches. They were soon joined by both benches and a couple hundred spectators, who jumped over the wall to join in the melee. Order was eventually restored after it took the Orange nearly five minutes to get off of the field with assistance from state police.
 
Schwartzwalder and Corum were unable to shake hands afterward because they were too busy trying to get their players to the locker room.
 
"I'm glad the game is over," Corum said afterward. "Syracuse was powerful – overpowering. I was very proud that my team came back after Syracuse's three straight touchdowns."
 
McCune completed 13-of-17 passes for 245 yards and two touchdowns while Clegg caught a school-record eight passes for 139 yards. Dunlevy's three catches went for 71 yards, while Leftridge led an ineffective WVU ground attack with 56 yards on just nine attempts.
 
"The big factor in the game was that we couldn't stop those hook passes," Schwartzwalder complained. "Our linebackers were a step too slow covering them, although we tried to adjust."
 
McCune's 245 yards passing fell 9 yards short of Dick Longfellow's school record 254 yards achieved against Boston University in 1958. His 60.6 completion percentage for the season (60 of 99) established a regular season WVU record.
 
Nance ran 28 times for 163 yards and scored two touchdowns, while Little added 96 yards and a touchdown on 21 attempts for the Orange. Syracuse had a 19 to 13 advantage in first downs and a 366 to 341 edge in total yardage.
 
The Orange lost 13-10 to LSU in the 1965 Sugar Bowl to finish their season 7-4, while West Virginia's 26-point defeat to Utah in the Liberty Bowl also made its final record 7-4.
 
A year later, following a disappointing 6-4 record in 1965, Corum was fired.
 
The Sugar Bowl loss to LSU was Schwartzwalder's last major bowl appearance for Syracuse, his declining Orange teams making just one more bowl trip to the Gator in 1966 before he eventually retired in 1973.