MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Above everything else, what has driven Jeff Casteel the most during nearly 35 years in coaching is one thing – winning football games.

He was a winner at Paden City High, he was a winner when he played college football at California (Pa.) and he has been a winner ever since.

“That’s all that matters,” Casteel said earlier this week. “I’ve been so lucky. I don’t know exactly, but I’ve been involved with maybe three or four losing seasons in 35 years of coaching. That’s a tribute to being around good players and good coaches.”

Casteel is around another good football coach in West Virginia’s Neal Brown, who hired the Ohio Valley native last month to be his defensive analyst. The addition of Casteel continues Brown’s practice of bringing winning people into his program.

“He’s about the right things,” Brown said last week via video conference. “He’s from West Virginia, and he loves WVU and WVU football. He’s been a part of some of the best eras and the biggest wins here as a defensive coordinator.”

He has.

The one common denominator in West Virginia’s three most important football victories in school history against Georgia in the 2006 Sugar, against Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta and against Clemson in the 2012 Orange was Jeff Casteel running the Mountaineer defense.

The only other coach involved in all three of WVU’s BCS bowl wins was Bill Kirelawich, now retired and living part of the year in Florida.

Casteel never consumed himself with defensive rankings, nor did he worry much about whether or not people thought the 3-3 stack scheme he ran at West Virginia was just a gimmick. What he cared about most was those two spots on the scoreboard next to the two teams, specifically, that the number next to the good guys was greater than the number next to the other guys. 

That’s why he continues to remain so respected by his peers in the coaching profession today.

“We wanted to add experience and wisdom, and he obviously has a lot of that, especially on the defensive side of the ball,” Brown said. “It’s important to note, too, that he won’t just help us defensively. He’s going to help us from an offensive standpoint as well because he’s going to give us really good insight.

“One of the first things he did was go back and scout us from a defensive standpoint. What did he see? What are the things we did well? What did he see as a defensive coordinator he felt like he could take advantage of?” Brown added.

For his part, Casteel said he’s happy to be back in Morgantown where he spent some of the most enjoyable years of his coaching career. His wife, Rosemary, recently returned to the area to take a job at a local research facility and his daughter, Sarah, is now in graduate school at WVU.

His son, Jake, is a graduate assistant coach on Bryan Harsin’s Boise State staff.

Casteel said he is currently self-quarantining at the place he still owns up in Deep Creek, Maryland, and will start shopping for a house in Morgantown once the social restrictions are lifted.

In the meantime, with staff video conferencing sessions usually completed by mid-afternoon, he’s had a little more time on his hands to reflect on his 11-year run at WVU that included a three-season stretch from 2005-07 when the Mountaineers won 33 of 38 games and a pair of BCS bowl triumphs.

He was involved in another BCS bowl win four years later after the 2011 season, and he also coached in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl as Arizona’s defensive coordinator.

Remarkably, West Virginia’s three BCS bowl triumphs Casteel was involved with came under different coaches – Rich Rodriguez, Bill Stewart and Dana Holgorsen.

2006 Sugar Bowl
#11 West Virginia 38, #7 Georgia 35

Of the three wins, Casteel admits the Sugar Bowl victory was probably the most exciting for him.

“When people ask me I say the Sugar Bowl was the biggest win I was involved with because, being from West Virginia and experiencing the whole deal, we beat Georgia in their own backyard and the way we had to win it by hanging on at the end …

“Then, to be able to walk around the stadium afterward and soaking all of that in, I tell all of my buddies that everybody from West Virginia should get an opportunity to experience that like I did – it was awesome,” he said.

On paper, the game appeared to be a big mismatch despite West Virginia having some great, young offensive weapons in Pat White, Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt.

West Virginians down in Atlanta for the Sugar Bowl became aware of what their Mountaineers were up against when LSU, which Georgia had handled easily in the SEC championship game, routed Miami in the Peach Bowl earlier that week in the Georgia Dome. 

“LSU beat them badly and then beat them up again in the tunnel on the way to the locker room,” Casteel chuckled.

Casteel recalls his biggest concern heading into the game being Georgia’s downhill running game behind massive offensive guards Max Jean-Gilles and Nick Jones.

West Virginia had nobody close to them size-wise along the defensive line.

“They had two guards about 10-feet wide when they got down into their stance,” Casteel said. “They wanted to run the football against us, but our kids were tough, and they did a good job banging with them.”

West Virginia jumped out to a 28-0 lead, which was great for the Mountaineers, but actually not so great for Casteel’s defense.

The coordinator explains, “I can still remember talking to the defensive staff and saying ‘uh oh, we’ve got problems’ because they’re getting into 11-personnel and opening up the field,” he recalled. “We were better equipped to play those guys in their two-back stuff and run at us and play action than we were when they started spreading us out.”

A 21-point Bulldog second quarter rally got Georgia back in the game, and they eventually reduced West Virginia’s lead to a field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Slaton, who ran for 204 yards and earned MVP honors, broke off a 52-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, but Georgia answered with D.J. Shockley’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Bryan McClendon to reduce West Virginia’s lead to 38-35.

Momentum was clearly on the Bulldogs’ side when they forced West Virginia to punt at the 48 with 1:45 left in the game. Here, Rodriguez decided to have punter Phil Brady run a fake. Casteel said it’s still gutsiest decision he’s ever seen a football coach make.

And he had no idea the fake was going down because he was getting his defensive guys prepared to go back out on the field to try and stop Georgia.

“I think (assistant coach) Herb (Hand) was the guy who was supposed to make the call from up in the booth to confirm it,” Casteel said. “Well, I don’t find out until right as they are snapping it and I’m like, ‘oh @#$%!’

“When he got that first down, we all looked at each other and said, ‘How about that?’” he chuckled.

Last month, Casteel said he happened to run into Brady and his father when they stopped by the Puskar Center for an impromptu visit.

Casteel hadn’t seen him since the Sugar Bowl 14 years prior, and he walked up to him and gave him a big hug.

“Some of the current coaches were standing in the hallway and I’m talking to them after Phil left,” Casteel said. “I said, ‘Do you guys know who that kid was?’ They said no and I said, ‘That’s the kid who won the Sugar Bowl for us!’ They said, ‘That guy?’ I said, ‘Yep, that little guy right there walking out to the car with his father.’ Amazing.”

2008 Fiesta Bowl
#9 West Virginia 48, #4 Oklahoma 28

West Virginia’s 48-28 victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl two years later came under much different circumstances.

West Virginia had blown the opportunity of a lifetime when 28 ½-point underdog Pitt upset the Mountaineers at Mountaineer Field on the final weekend of the season to knock them out of the national championship picture.

A week after that, Rodriguez accepted Michigan’s offer to coach the Wolverines, and Casteel was part of a skeleton WVU coaching staff that had to hold things together for the Fiesta Bowl. Graduate assistant Pat Kirkland, now head coach at Charleston, had to be bumped up to assistant coach to oversee the corners.

Stewart was appointed interim coach with the likelihood of not being retained once the game was completed. 

“There were a lot of different things going on at the time and one of the great things Stew did that really helped us was he cut down practice a lot,” Casteel recalled. “As coaches, we were worried how the kids were going to react to everything, and the kids went after it like nothing had happened.”

Casteel recalled the team’s first workout up in the Caperton Indoor Practice Building right after Rodriguez left being one of the best practices of the year.

It was such a mature football team with great leadership led, of course, by White.

“We didn’t have to coax them into anything,” Casteel said. “That was something we talked about coming off the field, ‘Geez, those kids did a great job!’ We were thinking it was going to be like pulling teeth to get them to do something.”

A couple of things about the Oklahoma win really stand out to Casteel.

One, the Sooners’ left tackle Phil Loadholt couldn’t block defensive end Johnny Dingle and West Virginia’s two safeties, Eric Wicks and Ryan Mundy, were able to confuse Sooner quarterback Sam Bradford.

And it wasn’t just Bradford who had a problem with them. Casteel said the NFL scouts who came to campus to evaluate Mundy often talked about how hard it was locating where he was on the field pre-snap whenever they studied West Virginia tape.

Mundy was the first-ever graduate transfer player to come to West Virginia, and he gave the Mountaineers an NFL-caliber player in the secondary. 

The Michigan import quickly adjusted to WVU’s defensive scheme during fall camp and because he was very similar to Wicks in stature, it made them virtually interchangeable on the field.

“Eric Wicks was a great player, too, and his versatility really helped us,” Casteel said. “He could play in the box, on the perimeter or back at the high safety. Those two really made us look complicated back there because of their versatility.”

Casteel believes a big moment in the game came shortly after Patrick Allen’s 73-yard kickoff return set the Sooners up at the 9-yard line with the Mountaineers leading 3-0.

On third and goal, Bradford’s pass into the end zone was picked off by bandit safety Quinton Andrews. 

“I think that play really propelled our kids, at least defensively,” Casteel said. “Some people were saying Oklahoma was the best team in college football. I remember meeting with the TV people before the game and Pat Haden said, ‘I’ve watched these guys, and I think they are the most talented team in the country. Some might say USC, Ohio State or LSU, but these guys are better.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why did you have to tell me that?’ Like I don’t have enough problems already!”

Later in the second quarter, with West Virginia leading 20-6, Casteel said his guys came up with another big defensive play.

The Sooners had the ball at their own 45 and were faced with a fourth and 1. Casteel was frantically trying to change personnel for that play but was unable to get his nickel defenders off the field in time.

“I’m thinking to myself ‘ugh’ and then our guys just knock the @#$% out of a power going toward Oklahoma’s bench,” he said. “The kids just blew it up, and even though we didn’t end up scoring, it was big because we stopped them with a bunch of defensive backs out there. What helped us was Johnny Holmes was a linebacker in our nickel package, and they happened to run over to where he was.”

When the game was over, an exhausted Casteel celebrated a little bit with the staff and then went to bed not knowing if he was going to be the defensive coordinator at West Virginia or Michigan when he woke up the next day.

Stewart knocked on his door early the next morning and the two went for a stroll around the hotel complex.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I wanted to stay at West Virginia if I could and it ended up working out that way,” he said. “We had a bunch of good guys on that staff. The guys just hung in there and tried to do what they had to do to win the game and keep the kids focused.”

2012 Orange Bowl
#23 West Virginia 70, #15 Clemson 33

Circumstances were again different for Casteel four years later when he was now working for Holgorsen, an early-summer appointee who had spent the spring of 2011 as Stewart’s head coach in waiting.

The arrangement was unusual to everyone to say the least, particularly Holgorsen, who didn’t have the benefit of assembling his own coaching staff. He had the guys he wanted on the offensive side of the ball but he inherited the defensive coaches, led by Casteel.

That basically meant that West Virginia had two different coaching staffs, which makes its 10-3 record and 70-33 demolition of Clemson in the Orange Bowl so remarkable.

Holgorsen was a masterful play caller who took full advantage of the offensive weapons he inherited such as quarterback Geno Smith, flanker Tavon Austin and split end Stedman Bailey.

Casteel also had a good number of players returning from his outstanding defense in 2010, including future NFL players Bruce Irvin, Najee Goode and Keith Tandy.

“We had some really good players out there,” Casteel said.

The play of the game occurred early in the second quarter when linebacker Doug Rigg alertly knocked the football out of Andre Ellington’s arms as he was about to twist into the end zone to give the Tigers their 23rd point.

Safety Darwin Cook then grabbed it and took off in the other direction 99 yards for a touchdown.

“When Cookie took the ball and started running … I can still remember standing on the sideline saying, ‘Are they going to give us that?’” Casteel recalled. “The guys up in the box said, ‘Yeah, that’s legitimate.’ I said, ‘There is no way they are going to give us that’ and we got it. Then we turn around and get a pick and score again.”

Those two big defensive plays helped West Virginia take a 49-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Until Cook’s game-changing turnover, West Virginia was having great difficulty stopping the Tigers.

“They had some dudes,” Casteel said. “They had DeAndre Hopkins and Sammy Watkins at wide receiver, and I think Martavis Bryant was out there as well. Their running back (Ellington) was a good player, too.

“I remember early in the game he popped a big run on us when we run-blitzed and we didn’t get under them,” Casteel said. “They got 60 or 70 yards out of that basically untouched and that first quarter was just a back-and-forth game.”

But unlike the Sugar Bowl when West Virginia’s early lead turned out to be detrimental to Casteel’s defense, this time it was a blessing.

The lead took Ellington out of the equation and made Clemson one dimensional with quarterback Tajh Boyd relegated to being a pocket passer. Boyd completed just 52 percent of his 46 throws with two picks and a strip-sack by Irvin that turned into more points for the Mountaineers.

“Getting a chance to go to the Orange Bowl and playing Clemson was a pretty neat little deal,” Casteel said. 

Now, the veteran coach gets an opportunity to help get West Virginia back to one of those games in the near future. He’s been impressed with what he’s seen from Brown’s program so far in the short time he’s been back.

“It was a lot of fun and I’m glad to be back around here,” he said. “I’ve heard from a lot of the guys who were here when I was here so it’s been good.

“I get back here and we get two spring practices in and then, boom, (the COVID-19 virus) hits and everyone is on the computer. I still don’t really know the coaches that well yet, but I can’t wait to get going again,” he concluded.