Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310030188
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jakc Bogaczyk
DATELINE: MORGANTOWN, W. VA LENGTH: Medium
"If anyone had told me before the game that we'd turn the ball over five times against this team and win, I'd have taken them to the funny farm," said the West Virginia football coach.
Instead, it was the Hokies who were ripe for analysis after a 14-13 WVU victory, a decision that left many Tech players emptying their emotions like the leaden skies over Mountaineer Field.
In a huge Big East Conference game so defensively ugly you'd have thought Georgetown was involved, Tech had one more touchdown than unbeaten, 25th-ranked WVU and five fewer turnovers.
West Virginia won, however, because Tech made the last mistake and the Mountaineers did what the Hokies could not - keep their offense on the field in the deciding minutes.
WVU kept the ball for more than 23 of the 30 minutes in the second half. A notion passed through the Mountaineers' locker room that Tech's offense hung its defense out to drown in the game's rainy finish.
Told that Nehlen and several WVU players felt Tech's offense panicked after halftime, Hokies receiver Antonio Freeman delivered a reaction that was even shorter than Tech's third-quarter drives.
"No comment," Freeman said.
His reticence spoke volumes. Other Hokies, in their second-guessing postgame comments, sounded like the frustrated excuse-makers of last season's 2-8-1 disaster, not a team that had prospered impressively - until Saturday - in a 3-1 start.
If the Hokies had been as aggressive offensively on the field as they were afterward, they'd have won. Nehlen's defense was outstanding, but he was thrilled that Tech left quarterback Maurice DeShazo in the pocket.
"Our defense, from the middle of the second quarter on, I thought was dominant," Nehlen said. "Virginia Tech scored on scrambles [by DeShazo]. We'd lose the contain on him, and then our defensive back would get stuck.
"He throws it downfield, or if he runs it, he can go 50 yards. If you let him out on the corner, you're in trouble, as we found out."
DeShazo was noticeably disgusted with Tech's inability to produce any significant offense in the second half. Meanwhile, the Hokies continued to try to run the ball - and gained only 32 yards on the ground in the second half, while DeShazo completed three of his four passes for 14, 46 (a touchdown) and 39 yards.
The Hokies' defense spent 46 plays on the field after halftime, 15 of those on WVU's 58-yard winning drive that included two fourth-down conversions.
Nehlen's decision to run the ball on those fourth-and-short situations wasn't a gamble, because the Hokies' defense had been asked for too much after the offense turned only one of WVU's turnovers into points.
"It was pretty ugly," Nehlen said. "But when you can play bad and beat a good team, maybe we are a good team. If you're going to have a good year, you're going to have games like this you have to win."
Tech went home kicking itself after Ryan Williams' 44-yard field-goal attempt sailed right with 1 minute, 10 seconds left. Williams didn't. He said it wasn't a particularly tough assignment, unless the swirling wind was measured.
Then, considering the Hokies' recent history, Williams hadn't been asked to win a game with his foot before, much less one with the potential to bring Tech's first national ranking this early in a season in 39 years, on the road, before a crowd of 56,623 that by the final minutes sounded like it was all 'Eers.
"That makes it tough," said Tech coach Frank Beamer. "Still, kickers get in those situations all the time."
With Boston College winning at Syracuse, the Mountaineer Field result was even bigger in a conference that Nehlen said, behind Miami "has squeezed together a lot."
"It was our ballgame," DeShazo said. "We let them get by us. We know that. You know that. They know that. We had them where we wanted them."
Maybe not. At halftime, Nehlen said the Mountaineers were thankful they trailed only 7-0. "One touchdown is not a problem," he said. "The key is not to panic. Maybe if we had gotten ahead by 10, maybe they [the Hokies] then would have had to do some things they don't like to do.
"I'll say this: We kept it exciting. We'll take it, even though we shot ourselves in the foot too many times."
He was just glad the Hokies didn't load their gun too many times.
by CNB