West Virginia upends Panthers, 24-17
PITTSBURGH – Phil Braxton caught a 79-yard touchdown pass from Rasheed Marshall to give West Virginia a 14-point lead and the Mountaineers hung on to defeat Pittsburgh, 24-17, at Heinz Field on Saturday. The winner of the key Big East battle, known as the Backyard Brawl, has a chance for a Gator Bowl bid, which means WVU could be headed for the New Year’s Day bowl. The win gave West Virginia sole possession of second place in the Big East behind top-ranked and undefeated Miami.
Braxton, a Connellsville graduate, got behind the Panthers’ secondary and Marshall found him after scrambling out of trouble. Braxton, who had two catches for 108 yards, took the pass in stride and raced into the end zone to give the Mountaineers a 24-10 advantage. It proved to be the winning score.
“I knew I was open and I put my hand up,” Braxton said. “I was wondering if Rasheed saw me.”
Marshall did and the WVU defense held on at the end, holding off a potential game-tying drive by the Panthers in the final seconds.
The Panthers watched a potential nine-win regular season and that Gator Bowl bid go up in flames with the loss.
“This was a very difficult game to stomach because we did not do the things that you have to do to win a football game,” Pitt coach Walt Harris said. “In every game we lost this year, we were our own worst enemy.”
The Panthers committed four turnovers and all came at critical times in the game, when Pittsburgh was threatening to score. The vaunted Pitt run-defense, among the best in the Big East, was also shredded for 246 yards by the Mountaineers, whose almost 300-yard-per-game average is the second-best in the country.
“You can’t turn the ball over four times and expect to win,” Harris said. “We also came out to control the run, but that did not happen.”
The announced crowd of 66,731 was the largest crowd at Heinz Field and the second-largest crowd in Pitt history. The thousands of West Virginia fans in attendance were the ones who left the game making plans for the Gator Bowl after the Mountaineers played almost a perfect game, committing no turnovers.
“I told our players we had a real good year and I feel bad for our seniors,” Harris said. “You have to learn how to win football games, but we should have one more opportunity to play and I believe we will improve on our execution by then.”
The Mountaineers finished their regular season in style, beating Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh on the road, to reverse a 3-8 season last year to a 9-3 season this year. It is the biggest turnaround in Big East Conference history.
“Our team had the right attitude and a sense of commitment,” WVU coach Rich Rodriguez said. “I am proud of our team and this was probably the biggest win of the season for us.”
Pitt scored on its first possession after Rod Rutherford completed a 32-yard touchdown pass to Larry Fitzgerald, who finished the day setting catching and scoring records for a Pitt freshman.
The Mountaineers responded on the ensuing drive with a 42-yard Todd James field goal to keep the score close at 7-3. On their next possession, after the West Virginia defense stopped Pitt on fourth down, the Mountaineers took over on their own 32 and put together a 10-play, 68-yard touchdown to take a 10-7 lead and never trailed again. The Mountaineers took a 17-10 lead into halftime.
“They (WVU) had a good scheme coming in and they did a nice job,” Harris said. “(Avon) Cobourne is phenomenal and he finished all their runs.”
Cobourne ran 25 times for 104 yards and a touchdown in leading the Mountaineers in a 231 running attack.
“We tried to stop the run, but they managed to cut the ball back on us and that hurt us,” said Pitt linebacker Gerald Hayes. “They also threw in a few wrinkles that we did not know about.”
The Mountaineers ran four reverses, including one play that resulted in a 25-yard throw-back pass from backup quarterback Danny Embick to Marshall.
“We did a great job in executing the reverses today,” Rodriguez said. “We needed to stop the flow of Pittsburgh’s defense and the reverse worked.”
Meanwhile on offense, the Panthers managed to stop themselves as much as being stopped by the Mountaineer defense. All four turnovers the Panthers committed stopped their own scoring drives and three of the turnovers resulted in Mountaineer scores.
“Most of our interceptions were done in the red zone, so Rod has to be more conservative in those situations,” Harris said. “Whenever you get flushed from the pocket and are scrambling, the quarterback is a tough position to play.”
Rutherford finished the game completing 17 passes on 30 attempts for 159 yards and two touchdowns, both caught by Fitzgerald.
“That has been the typical Pitt attack this year, Rutherford to Fitzgerald,” Rutherford said. “We fought hard for four quarters but you have to execute for four quarters, so this game left a bitter taste in our mouth.”
Down by 14, the Panthers responded on the second play of the fourth quarter with a touchdown drive of their own which was capped by the second Rutherford-to-Fitzgerald touchdown of the day.
On a last-ditch attempt to tie the game, the Panthers put together a 79-yard drive and had a first down at the WVU 11. Rutherford was stopped for a three-yard loss on a quarterback draw, however, and the Mountaineers then forced three consecutive incompletions to wrap up the win.