Mountaineer Madness
With the No. 1 team in town, West Virginia goes bonkers
Posted: Friday September 04, 1998 04:22 PM
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West Virgina RB Amos Zereoue has his fans pumped up for this weekend when the Mountaineers host No. 1 Ohio State AP |
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
ATLANTA (CNN/SI) -- Bill Kirelawich has been around Morgantown, West Virginia for better than two decades. A couple of weekends ago, he went to an NFL preseason game between the Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers at Mountaineer Field.
He lasted a half.
It wasn't because of the game, really. It was because the people at the game wanted to talk about nothing but THE game.
And around Morgantown, there's only one THE game: That's Saturday, when No.1 Ohio State comes to town to take on the 11th-ranked Mountaineers.
"I got stuff like 'I'm from the Valley, and you don't know how much I get that Ohio State stuff crammed down my throat' and 'How we going to do against the Buckeyes,'" said Kirelawich, the Mountaineers' defensive line coach. "It was like nine million questions. I had to get out of there."
West Virginia head coach Don Nehlen has called the Ohio State-WVU game the biggest home game the school's ever had, and he's probably right. The Mountaineers have had some big ones -- against Miami and Penn State and Oklahoma and Syracuse.
But almost everyone agrees that this one tops them all.
Big? It's the only thing going on in the state that day, as far as most West Virginians are concerned.
"I'm not sure you can really describe it," said John "Doc" Holliday, who serves as assistant head coach and receivers coach and who has been around Morgantown as a player and coach for 24 years. "It's the only show in the whole state. The entire state lives and dies with the Mountaineers.
"I'm not sure there's been more excitement in all the years I've been here."
This one's stirred up so much excitement for several reasons. The Mountaineers are hosting the No. 1 team in the country, only the second time they've done that.
It's a game against a border state. Columbus, Ohio, is 210 miles northwest of Morgantown, and the two schools recruit many of the same players.
And, most importantly, the Mountaineers have had just so-so seasons since they went undefeated in 1991 (they also were undefeated in 1988) and are coming off a 7-5 year. So the West Virginia faithful are aching for a big win and a big season.
Ohio State coach John Cooper has whined about opening the season in such a hostile environment. In fact, the game was scheduled a year before Cooper came to Columbus.
Still, the Buckeyes are favored in only their eighth trip away from Ohio Stadium for an opener in 108 years of football.
"I think, if I had John Cooper's players, I'd be happy to go anywhere," Holliday said. "They're an experienced football team. They've been through rowdy crowds before."
The best the Mountaineers can hope for is a rusty Ohio State team -- and a West Virginia team that plays without any major mistakes.
"I'm not sure Ohio State is going to be playing West Virginia at its best, nor is West Virginia going to be playing its best. There's a certain amount of mistakes that will be made by both teams that, in the seventh or eighth games, they won't make," said Kirelawich. "But we're not making watches here. It's going to be a hard-nosed, physical football game. Simple and direct."
The game is being billed as "The Amos and Andy Show," after a pair of All-Americas, West Virginia tailback Amos Zereoue and Ohio State linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer. Obviously, it's a little more than that.
To the 63,500-plus fans in Mountaineer Field and all of West Virginia, it's much, much more.
"You know, we're a small state, provincial by nature," Kirelawich said. "Believe me, if they're not here, in person, they're hanging on every syllable on TV or listening to the radio down in the coal mines."
Around the nation
EAST: One of the more intriguing cross-conference matchups of the weekend will take place in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York, when No. 10 Tennessee of the Southeastern Conference plays No. 17 Syracuse of the Big East. This is only the second time these two teams have ever met, and the only other time was in the Gator Bowl 32 years ago. Two-time Big East Offensive Player of the Year Donovan McNabb will be behind center again for the Orangemen, while quarterback Tee Martin replaces Peyton Manning for the Volunteers. One thing's for sure: These teams will be prepared. Syracuse's Paul Pasqualoni has a .705 winning percentage in 13 college coaching seasons. Tennessee's Phil Fulmer, entering his eighth season (all at Tennessee), has an .848 mark ... The Big East doesn't play patsies -- at least, not as many as everyone else. Of the major I-A conferences, the Big East plays the toughest non-conference schedule. Some 28.1 percent of the Big East's non-conference foes were ranked in the preseason polls.
SOUTHEAST: Kentucky and Louisville signed a six-year extension on their football contract. The two Bluegrass brothers hadn't played for 70 years until the renewal of hostilities in 1994. Since then, they've split the four games. The game will be the opener for both teams -- including this weekend, when Kentucky's Heisman Trophy hopeful Tim Couch will fill the air at Louisville's Papa John's Cardinal Stadium -- through the year 2005. UK won last year 38-24 in coach Hal Mumme's debut ... The only game between SEC schools this weekend is Vanderbilt-Mississippi State. It's the first of three straight SEC games for the Commodores, who had the conference's best defense last season ... In the Atlantic Coast Conference, it's No. 3 Florida State and everyone else. It's something No. 12 North Carolina, one of the finest defensive teams in the nation for the past few years, hates to hear. But new head coach and still defensive coordinator Carl Torbush aims to change that. He'll get his start Saturday against Miami (Ohio).
MIDWEST: Ohio State-West Virginia is not the only thing going on this weekend in the Big Ten. No. 5 Michigan, the Associated Press national champion last season, bumps up against No. 22 Notre Dame. The Wolverines are missing Heisman winner Charles Woodson, but they have 15 starters returning. Next weekend, they host Syracuse in the debut of the expanded Michigan Stadium, which has become the largest in the nation at 107,000 ... No. 4 Nebraska, burned last week for 590 passing yards in a win over Louisiana Tech, put their 43-game home winning streak on the line against UAB on Saturday ... What's Marshall like without Randy Moss? We'll find out Saturday when the Thundering Herd plays at Akron. Marshall QB Chad Pennington last season threw 39 touchdown passes, the fifth highest total for a I-A player.
WEST: There may not be a game with bigger implications -- for both teams -- than Saturday's Pac-10 showdown between No. 18 Washington and No. 8 Arizona State at Sun Devil Stadium. ASU -- which doesn't face No. 7 UCLA this season, and therefore has a legitimate shot at a national championship -- has won 10 of its last 12 openers. The two losses were both to Washington ... The longest football rivalry in Utah continues Saturday when Utah plays Utah State in a WAC-Big West showdown. It's the 98th meeting of the two teams.
OTHERS: The only team in Conference USA ranked in the AP Top 25 is No. 21 Southern Miss. The Eagles' ranking may be short-lived. The two-time C-USA champs travel to University Park, Pennsylvania to take on No. 13 Penn State on Saturday. The Eagles have more than 70 returning players from the team that finished last season ranked at No. 19 ... Fireworks? You want fireworks? Central Florida quarterback Daunte Culpepper -- at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, one of the best quarterbacks in a smaller school you may never see -- will do his share in UCF's season opener Saturday against Louisiana Tech. That's the same team that put up 590 passing yards on Nebraska last week.
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