Sep 19, 2023 By Bob Hertzel for The Herald-Standard 5 min read

MORGANTOWN — Sometimes I wonder if we — all of us, really, media, fans, even coaches — have this all wrong.

Sunday morning was one of those sometimes.

I’d sucked up half the caffeine in Morgantown to stay up past my bedtime on Saturday to watch the Backyard Brawl, a game West Virginia won over Pitt, 17-6, in the madhouse that was a packed Mountaineer Field.

Now I wanted to check some things out so I went YouTubing, if that can be used as a verb, to check on some highlights in the game, finding a 12-minute tape that presented itself as a legitimate highlight showing from the TV broadcast.

Turned out that this was a highlight compilation that included all the highlights except the ones that really mattered.

It was built around the literal name of the sport being played — foot & ball. There were kickoffs and field goals, punts and returns of each. Considering that they really didn’t affect the final score, it was more like a soccer highlight reel than anything capturing the essence of WVU’s victory.

Having taken care of the foot part of football, they also emphasized the ball aspect of it, passes and runs mostly, even though neither side really put up any numbers of note. Mixed in with the few decent passes of the night, including WVU emergency quarterback Nicco Marchiol’s short but well executed touchdown toss to tight end Kole Taylor, were the best of the running efforts.

Considering, though, that each side gained only 221 total yards each — a freaky stat to consider — the ball part of football was definitely exaggerated beyond recognition.

The real heroes — WVU’s front six or seven — were mostly ignored even though they absolutely dictated the way the game came out.

Now the highlight reel did capture the secondary’s three interceptions by Aubrey Burks, Beanie Bishop and Nathaniel Ruffin which impacted heavily upon the fact that Pitt had no touchdowns and a passing game that looked like a Saturday Night Live parody rather than anything a coach and quarterback ever would dare put on display in a nationally televised game.

But this game was about Mike Lockhart, a Georgia Tech transfer filling the void that supposedly would be unfillable with Dante Stills’ advancement to the NFL. He had only two tackles, yes, but each was spectacular enough that sideline reporter Jed Drenning named him his most valuable player in the game.

It ignored a spectacular chase down tackle by Sean Martin. It showed none of the destruction linebacker Trey Lathan heaped upon the Pitt quarterback Phil Jurkovec nor the play of Hammond Russell IV, who at times played like all four of them were out there for WVU.

Jared Bartlett lived up to his position as Bandit. Linebacker Lee Kpogba, as he has been since he got to WVU, was a tackling machine, Spear Hershey McLaurin was robbed of a key forced fumble and recovery by a replay that was clearly misread. Former Kentucky defensive lineman Tomiwa Durojaye brought SEC speed to the slaughter while another defensive lineman, Fatorma Mulbah, a Penn State transfer, did his part of slapping Pitt ball carriers around.

The real heroes were the defenders.

“I told our defense before this game that alignment, assignment and effort would win this game,” Burks said. “Everybody took it personal and we got the job done.”

“A low-scoring game means the team has to depend on us,” Bishop added. “Being out there for the critical moments and being about to put the game away, we want to showcase our ability that we can deliver in close games.”

The defensive line, considered of unknown quality, now looks like it can go 10 deep in its rotation.

It well may be that this game was won on Pitt’s first, and best, possession as the Panthers drove the length of the field into the red zone and then to the goal line before WVU’s defenders said enough is enough and stuffed their running game.

Considering they had brought the ball down the field on 11 consecutive running plays, the gauntlet was laid on third and 3 when Pitt opted to run Rodney Hammond up the middle that he had shredded on the way down the field.

This time he was smothered by Hamond Russell and Lathan without gaining an inch, keeping Pitt from even considering going on fourth down. While they got a field goal, the tone was set.

“If you want to go back and really think about some big drives of the game, that’s as big as any of them,” coach Neal Brown said.

Take the first drive of the second half for Pitt, which took the kickoff, found itself looking at a third and 1 at midfield when Lockhart just overpowered the offensive line, burst into the backfield and threw Pitt for a 2-yard loss.

Then, with 8:19 left in the game at the WVU 27 and in need of a score, Pitt went on fourth and 1 with Jurkovec again trying to push his 240-pound, 6-5 body to a first down only to be nailed by Tyril Brady and Marcus Floyd for no gain.

And, when WVU made its only glaring mistakes as Marchiol and CJ Donaldson messed up a handoff and fumbled the ball away, the defense got it right back with an interception that led to Donaldson’s touchdown.

“I thought the two drives defensively were huge with stopping them in the red zone and they kick a field goal and right after Nicco’s fumble, we get a pick,” Brown said. “It was a huge momentum swing because we scored the next play. We came back.”