West Virginia Finishes Nine-Win Season Far Ahead Of Preseason Expectations
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MORGANTOWN-- A season that started with West Virginia football coach Neal Brown in a lather over being selected to finish 14th and last in the Big 12 ended Wednesday night with him covered in mayonnaise and in possession of the Duke's Mayo Bowl trophy through a convincing 30-10 victory over North Carolina.
The victory was the Mountaineers' ninth in a season where many felt they would have trouble surpassing three. It was enough to save his job and regain the respect that the program had the last time they played North Carolina in the same stadium.
That was a game in which Pat White finished his WVU career with one of the great bowl performances anywhere, completing 26 of 32 passes for 332 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 55 yards while becoming the first quarterback in NCAA history to win four bowl games - the Sugar, Gator, Fiesta and Meineke Car Care Bowls.
To WVU fans this game wasn't pretty but it was beautiful, worth whatever it was they went through to get through the traffic in Summerville as Mountaineer Nation made its way south to one of its favorite bowl sites.
Not everyone got there, including a West Virginia All-American, one of the greatest ever at the school, Mike Logan, whose social media account reported as the game was about to begin:
“Back where it all started from this morning. Pittsburgh International Airport. Tried to go see my WVU football teams in Charlotte but hit some delays. It’s all good. I made it home in time to catch it on the tube.”
It would have been better in the stands, where Mountaineer fans took over the Bank of America Stadium, rocking and rolling like the old days when he was playing and when Pat White was playing and when John Thornton, not his son Jalen, was playing.
"Big win," Neal Brown admitted as he was leaving the field for his dreaded dousing of 30 gallons of mayo. "This is fun. Mountaineer Nation showed up. Loud, and how about this, 'Country Roads' on the road."
And as he spoke, the West Virginia fans celebrated as if they, like quarterback Garrett Greene, had been named the MVP. They'd done their thing, outnumbering North Carolina fans by a large margin as if it were a home game.
Greene opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown strike to Traylon Ray, the freshman receiver. First play, right out of bed, 7-0.
Greene would finish the night with 12 of 24 passing for 228 yards and the touchdown and 6 carries for 64 yards, which was 7.1 yards per carry.
OK, not Pat White numbers but there was only one Pat White and we've watched Greene grow into a one-of-a-kind quarterback. Too short, they said; erratic in his throwing.
Didn't matter, he put it all together and played as if it were he, not the Mountaineer mascot, who had the musket in his hand.
He saved his best run for when it was needed the most, a 48-yard dash to go with a key third-down burst where he went head-to-head with a Carolina linebacker and delivered a blow that knocked him backward, leaving him embarrassed by the moment as he was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
As for Greene, they should have given him a flag for "necessary roughness."
Then there was Bishop, like Mike Logan, a consensus All-American. If Greene could open the game with a big play for a touchdown, Bishop had his moment.
With Preston Fox out injured, Neal Brown put Bishop back to return punts and all he did was gather in the first punt to come his way on the run, start up the left sideline, make a nifty cut to the right side of the field and jog into the end zone 78 yards later.
"Just getting the ball in my hands, I'm explosive and I can run fast," Bishop said after the game before making a revelation.
"I told the guys I was going to score a TD," he said. "I had that in my bag all year."
Someone else had a big surprise in his bag and that was Neal Brown, who late in the game with a 27-10 lead, was faced with a fourth down and sent out the field goal unit.
Now fake kicks are part of WVU's bowl history, having clinched the 2006 Sugar Bowl over Georgia with a Phil Brady fake punt that today is part of the school's football lore.
Well, holder Leighton Bechdel's 17-yard run for a first down wasn't quite of such importance, but it's a highlight he's going to tell his children and grandchildren about.
The play was every bit of what Neal Brown said bowl games are supposed to be, "a reward and fun but with a purpose" … and that purpose was to see Brown sit there and have that 30 gallons of mayo poured upon him.
"It's something we've been looking forward to all week," Garrett Greene admitted.
Brown sucked it up and let it happen, saying before leaving the field for the cameraman, "I'm going to take it like a champ."
And that's what he was … the Duke's Mayo Bowl champ.