Mountaineers End Year With Mayo Trophy
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MORGANTOWN -- Way back in the 1930s, when mystery novels were big and when they would be turned into cinema on black and white film, the term "the butler did it" gained popularity for it usually was a surprise ending.
West Virginia's 30-10 victory over North Carolina in the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte on Wednesday night had sort of a "butler did it twist" for, as Neal Brown would not after cleaning himself up for his 30-gallon mayonnaise bath, this did not follow the usual script.
In surprising the football world by winning eight games coming into the bowl game after having been picked to finish 14th and last in Big 12's pre-season poll, WVU established itself on its ball-control offense built around a strong running game.
"I believe we should be in the Top 25," Brown said after the game. "I think we should be in the pre-season Top 25 next year with the people we have coming back."
That would include quarterback Garrett Greene, who would be the Most Valuable Player in this game, certainly was the ignition switch for the offense with a big, athletic, accomplished offensive line that made the style possible.
He completed 12 of 24 passes for 228 yards and a 75-yard touchdown and ran 9 times for 64 yards to lead the team in the department.
But it wasn't the offense that did it in this game, at least not like it had through a strong run through the second half of the season.
Instead, it was the butler. In this case, the defense was the butler.
True, North Carolina was out 12 starters who were injured, in the portal or opted out of the game, including their quarterback Drake Maye, who is expected to be a top 5 pick in the NFL draft. So, like so much this year, victories carry asterisks with them.
But North Carolina scored only one touchdown. It was shut out in the second half.
"Defensively we played extremely physical, which is hard to do in a bowl game," Neal Brown said. "We had seven sacks, 11 TFLs [tackles for loss], four QB hurries and two interceptions."
This came with a really fast, athletic quarterback in there taking Maye's place.
Lee Kpogba had 12 tackles as he just ran around and through blockers. He sometimes gets to the hole before the ball carrier.
It was like he never missed a tackle despite the month-long layoff.
"I've played this game a long time," the senior said. "It comes naturally now."
And the defensive line made like the quarterback was a Christmas turkey as they got to him … "I'll take a leg, you take a breast, you take the other leg." They picked him clean.
Consensus All-American Beanie Bishop, a cornerback who made maybe the key play in the game as a punt returner -- breaking loose for a 78-yard touchdown return, was front and center for the defense.
A sixth-year senior who simply wanted to be noticed by the NFL when he got to WVU from Minnesota as a transfer, he could have opted out of this game to prepare for the NFL but didn't.
"This means a lot," he said. "It shows how tough the state of West Virginia is. That (opting out) wasn't even in my thought process. I saw Zach Frazer and his grit in his last game. That's how West Virginia is and we represent the state."
Frazier, an All-American center, was injured in his final game in the regular season trying to help a teammate get extra yardage downfield. Despite a season-ending leg injury, he crawled off the field so WVU didn't have a runoff on the clock late in the game.
The night opened with a fling and a flair, Greene's first play being a 75-yard touchdown throw to freshman wide receiver Trylon Ray, catching North Carolina completely off guard.
"The last week and a half or two weeks we had two starting players, one for the right hashmark one for the left," Greene said.
But the offense wasn't smooth. The running game was slowed, and uncharacteristic penalties set the Mountaineers back time and time again. That made Bishop's touchdown punt return so important, and as the game wore on with North Carolina controlling the ball but failing to dent the Mountaineer defense, WVU's brashness grew.
It reached the point that they even pulled off a fake field goal with Leighton Bechdel, the holder, running for 17 yards.
WVU ended the season 9-4 and turned this into one of the surprise stories of the college football season.