Cobourne looks for big finish against Pittsburgh
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – West Virginia’s Avon Cobourne would like to cap off his career against Pittsburgh the way it started – big. When No. 24 West Virginia plays the 17th-ranked Panthers on Saturday, Cobourne needs 101 yards to surpass Amos Zereoue’s single-season school record of 1,589 yards set in 1997.
“If it happens, it happens,” Cobourne said. “As long as we win. He took his team to a big bowl game. I want to try to do the same thing. That’s all I want to do. Records? Who cares?”
The game matching teams with 8-3 overall and 5-1 Big East records will be at Heinz Field, home of Zereoue’s Pittsburgh Steelers. Zereoue, who attended the Pitt-West Virginia game last year in Morgantown, will be with the Steelers on the road Sunday at Jacksonville.
Cobourne eclipsed Zereoue’s Big East rushing record earlier this season. If he can get 182 yards Saturday, he’ll become just the 10th Division I-A back with 5,000 career yards.
It’s a stretch, perhaps, but for Cobourne, it’s not out of the question. He ran 260 and 193 yards earlier this season against East Carolina and Cincinnati, respectively.
Cobourne ran for 210 yards against the Panthers as a freshman in 1999, his second-best career effort to date.
That day, everything went right. Marc Bulger threw for 331 yards in his final game, helping to open up the running attack.
“I felt at the top of my game,” Cobourne said. “Our receivers were catching a lot of balls. The holes were just opening up. I was making my right reads and it was just there for me.”
Cobourne’s teammates back then remember the game well.
“I knew after watching him run, it’s like, ‘This is going to be great having this guy for another three years,”‘ said offensive tackle Lance Nimmo.
Big performances from Cobourne are common and he now has 26 career 100-yard games.
Others single out his worth ethic, not his yards or 26 carries per game this season, as their top Cobourne moments.
“When he’s without the ball, he’s down there knocking people over, hitting linebackers, just mixing it up,” said wide receiver A.J. Nastasi. “Anytime you see that, it fires me up. I’ve never seen anybody so tireless like him.”
Cobourne’s first game against the Panthers was by far his best against them. He set freshman school records for yards in a game and a season (1,139) and also set a Mountaineer Field record that he broke against East Carolina this year.
Against Pittsburgh, he ran for 100 yards as a sophomore and was held to 64 yards last year.
He hopes this time to be closer to the 1999 figure, “but I doubt it,” he said. “That’s a long, long time ago and this team is ranked in the nation in rush defense. It’s going to be a tough game.”
The Panthers rank 25th against the run, allowing just 117 yards on the ground per game, while Cobourne has helped the Mountaineers become the No. 2 rushing offense in the country at 292 yards per game.
That makes the challenge fun for him.
“It’s good to have something like that on your resume when you’re trying to go to the next level, if the teams you’re playing have great defenses and are known for stopping the run,” Cobourne said.
The Pitt-West Virginia rivalry is known for a lot of trash talking. Players and coaches say that’s fine as long as a player can back up the talk with good play.
Cobourne hopes that’s the case, because he plans to be busy talking.
“It’s just a big game,” he said. “It gets me hyped, gets my team hyped, when you get out there talking. Nothing personal. It’s just to psych them out a little bit.”