WVU pads Big East lead
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A couple thousand fans retreated out of Milan Puskar Stadium in the third quarter of West Virginia’s game on Saturday. They were all but certain their offensively-inept Mountaineers, down by 17 points without much of a drive-sustaining passing game, couldn’t match wits with one of the nation’s highest-scoring teams, the 19th-ranked Louisville Cardinals. Well, they sure could, and it took three overtimes and the teams scoring the most points in stadium history to prove it.
The Mountaineers outlasted the Cardinals, 46-44, in a triple-overtime cliffhanger after WVU’s fevered fourth-quarter comeback. The win gives West Virginia (6-1, 3-0) a solid lead in the Big East Conference standings, while Louisville, the league’s only ranked team and preseason favorite to win the title, drops to 0-2 and 4-2 overall.
The decisive play was WVU defensive back Erick Wicks yanking down Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm on a draw play for the Cardinals’ two-point conversion try just shy of the goal line.
“What a game,” said WVU head coach Rich Rodrguez, who is now 5-9 against ranked opponents. “I’m proud of our guys. I told them to keep climbing out of that well and they kept climbing.”
After a 24-24 tie at the end of regulation, each team scored touchdowns in the three overtime periods, and NCAA rules force teams to go for two on extra points beyond the second overtime.
True freshman running back Steve Slaton scored all three overtime touchdowns for the Mountaineers, giving him six for the game (five rushing, one receiving). He broke the school record for touchdowns in a game set three times with the most recent coming in 1932.
Slaton’s overtime scores were on runs of 2, 23 and 1 yards, respectively, while his 4-yard score with 8:16 remaining in the fourth quarter started the comeback and his 1-yard run with 1:00 remaining sent the game to overtime.
“He runs hard,” Rodriguez said about his running back. “He’s got a great feel for this game. His progression as far as running has exceeded what we thought as a true freshman.”
Slaton finished with 188 yards on 31 carries.
After his fourth-quarter touchdown, which cut the Louisville lead to 24-14, another true freshman, kicker Pat McAfee, booted a high-arching onside kick that WVU recovered.
McAfee nailed a 28-yard field goal 10 plays later with 3:41 left to cut the deficit to 24-17.
“We got a surprise kick,” Rodriguez said. “I was thinking here we go, we are on our way.”
Louisville went three-and-out on its ensuing possession, which included linebacker and Uniontown native Kevin McLee batting down a Brohm pass on second down. McLee, WVU’s leading tackler on the season, had 10 stops and two pass break-ups.
The sudden burst of offense by the Mountaineers came as a surprise after West Virginia had negative passing yards (-1) at halftime, ran only 22 plays, and possessed the ball for 10:16 less than Louisville.
“Not only were we down, it wasn’t even a ball game,” Rodriguez said. “They were in control of the game and they controlled the ball. We didn’t execute on offense for a long time. I told our guys to keep battling and all you got to do is make one play to win.”
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” said Louisville coach Bobby Petrino. “We didn’t tackle well and we had opportunities to come up with the stop and we didn’t.”
The comeback was orchestrated by back-up redshirt freshman quarterback Pat White, who came into the game in the fourth quarter for injured starter Adam Bednarik.
White completed 5 of 11 passes for 49 yards, and also rushed for 69 yards on 11 carries, while Bednarik was 8-of-16 passing for 60 yards and a 14-yard touchdown completed to Slaton for WVU’s first score of the game in the second quarter.
Louisville, which ranked 10th in the nation in total offense entering the game and third in scoring, took a 17-7 lead by halftime, thanks to running back Michael Bush.
Bush, the nation’s leading scorer with over 14 points per game, had 159 yards on 37 carries, including six touchdowns runs of 5, 4, 14 and 3, the latter two in overtime. He broke the 100-yard barrier with just over four minutes left in the first half.
Brohm finished the game connecting on 31 of 49 passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns, including a 10-yarder to Mario Urrutia in the first overtime.
West Virginia travels to South Florida (4-3, 2-1) next week for another game to decide first place in the Big East Conference.