MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It's only fitting that running back Adrian Murrell was here in person this past Saturday to witness West Virginia's wild and wonderful fourth-quarter rally to defeat Kansas 32-28.
After all, he played a major role in West Virginia's biggest fourth-quarter comeback victory in Milan Puskar Stadium history when the Mountaineers defeated Maryland 34-33 on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1992.
WVU trailed the Terps 33-14 with 14:48 left in the fourth quarter after John Kaleo's 12-yard touchdown pass to Marcus Badgett. Maryland tried to go for two for a 21-point lead, but Kaleo's pass into the end zone was incomplete.
That opened the door for West Virginia to rally with backup quarterback Darren Studstill taking over for injured Jake Kelchner. Studstill engineered three touchdown drives, two of those going to Murrell on passes, including the go-ahead, 20-yard score with 1:20 left. WVU Sports Hall of Famer Adrian Murrell leads the team out to the field prior to Saturday's thrilling comeback victory over Kansas (WVU Athletic Communications photo).
Murrell, of course, was one of eight former West Virginia University athletes inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame last weekend, and he joined fellow Hall of Fame inductee Rasheed Marshall in leading the team out of the tunnel before the start of the game.
Last Saturday's thrilling comeback over the Jayhawks ranks among the greatest fourth-quarter rallies in Milan Puskar Stadium history.
Nineteen years ago, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005, WVU overcame a 24-7 deficit to outlast Louisville 46-44 in triple overtime.
Running back Steve Slaton scored a school-record six total touchdowns, but it was the passing and running of redshirt freshman quarterback Pat White that ignited the great comeback. That performance also served as White's official college football coming out party.
On Oct. 1, 2016, West Virginia needed a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to upset Kansas State 17-16 .The Mountaineers got the go-ahead score with 6:11 remaining when quarterback Skyler Howard hooked up with Jovon Durante for a 7-yard touchdown.
West Virginia had to protect the final 6:11 and withstood Matthew McCrane's 43-yard, game-winning field goal try that sailed wide left. The defense produced a key turnover and two critical stops in the come-from-behind triumph.
A year later, with Florida transfer Will Grier now operating the offense, West Virginia rallied from 18 points down in the third quarter and 11 points behind at the start of the fourth to defeat 24th-ranked Texas Tech 46-35.
The Mountaineers scored 29 unanswered points once the Red Raiders took a 35-17 lead with 9:11 left in the third quarter on Tre King's 30-yard touchdown run.
Grier fired four touchdown passes, two each to David Sills V and Ka'Raun White, with the go-ahead score going to White with 9:14 left in the game. Grier and Sills connected on an 11-yard touchdown with 3:23 remaining for insurance, and Grier finished the afternoon 32 of 41 passing for 352 yards and five touchdowns.
Last Saturday afternoon against Kansas, West Virginia fell behind 28-17 with 5:39 remaining when Luke Grimm took a reverse 32 yards for a touchdown – this coming after nearly two-hour weather delay.
The play went right past West Virginia coach Neal Brown.
"The reverse came right in front of me, and when Ty (French) let the ball get outside of him, it was over," Brown said earlier today. "(After the touchdown) you know you have to play for two possessions and so you immediately have to go into a two-minute mindset, even though there is still five minutes and change left on the clock.
"We have all of our timeouts, and I immediately tell (quarterback) Garrett (Greene) we're going into two-minute mode and if we score, we're going for two," Brown added. "It's important to let those guys know when you score, they know immediately to get in our huddle and be ready for the next play."
The Mountaineers, behind Greene's running and passing, marched 75 yards in nine plays and got into the end zone when Greene flipped a pass out into the flat to tight end Kole Taylor for an 8-yard touchdown with 3:27 showing on the clock.
WVU tacked on two more points when wide receiver Traylon Ray took a reverse handoff from Greene and lobbed a high-arching pass to the corner of the end zone where the 6-foot-7 Taylor jumped up and caught the ball before falling out of the end zone for the successful conversion.
"We had not run the ball (effectively) on the opening drive after the lightning delay, and we had two really good plays that we didn't fit up very well," Brown pointed out. "I knew we wanted to get into kind of some spread stuff, so (Greene) was either going to complete passes or run around because they were having issues with that.
"They were playing a little bit more man coverage than I thought, so if they are going to play man, that means they are not going to have as many eyes on the quarterback," Brown said.
Following West Virginia's touchdown and two-point conversion, the defense produced its only three-and-out possession of the game when Sean Martin and T.J. Jackson II hauled down Devin Neal for a 1-yard loss on third and 4.
"We sold out," Brown admitted. "We played zero coverage, and we came because, in my opinion, you play that like it's a one-play game. If you go back and look at that third-down stop, (safety) Anthony Wilson and (defensive end) Sean Martin made great singular efforts on that."
Afterward, WVU took possession of the football at its own 33 with 2:22 remaining and possessing one timeout and the two-minute timeout. Greene ran for 10 yards to the 43 ahead of the regular stoppage, and then converted a big third down when he scrambled 13 yards to the Kansas 29. He gained 4 more yards on his next run to force the Jayhawks to call timeout with 37 seconds left.
"My message to my quarterback was, 'Hey, we're playing for a touchdown, we're not going to force anything and we're not in a super hurry,'" Brown explained.
A pass interference penalty called on Mello Dotson during Greene's pass into the end zone to Hudson Clement put the football at the 10-yard line, but a false start penalty on center Brandon Yates walked the ball back 5 yards to the 15.
Here, Greene flipped a pass to Rodney Gallagher III to the nearside flat and the receiver outraced everyone to the pylon for a 15-yard touchdown. Michael Hayes II's conversion kick gave WVU a 32-28 lead with just 26 seconds remaining.
"When you get into where it gets a little hairy is we didn't have any timeouts left because we had to use one on a run when Garrett didn't get the yardage," Brown noted. "About 16 or 18 seconds is all of the time you have to run a field goal team out, which means we probably had one more play to ride before having to run your field goal team out there."
After Gallagher's touchdown, Kansas got into position to try a Hail Mary pass when quarterback Jalon Daniels completed a 36-yard aerial down the near sideline to the WVU 39, but on the next play, Tyrin Bradley strip-sacked Daniels and recovered the fumble at the WVU 48 with only eight seconds left.
Greene came out to take a knee and run out the clock, completing one of the most frenetic, late-game comebacks in stadium history – this coming just seven days after West Virginia was unable to hold on to a 10-point lead with four minutes to go at Pitt.
