ITG 74 - Largest Crowds in WVU Football History
ITG 74 - Largest Crowds in WVU Football History
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - In the gun episode 74, I'm Skylar Kelley.
00:09 You're with me today is the signal collar jet droning
00:13 and we've got game week.
00:14 This is, yes, we're only a few days away now
00:17 from West Virginia, heading to happy valley
00:19 to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions
00:21 and what is gonna be an absolutely insane atmosphere.
00:25 And that's exactly why we're talking
00:27 or what we're gonna talk about today
00:29 is some of the best atmospheres,
00:30 the biggest crowds that West Virginia has ever played
00:33 in front of in their history of the program.
00:36 So we're gonna talk a little bit about that.
00:38 We may even throw you a little bit of a nugget here
00:40 about the biggest games in West Virginia home history
00:45 but this is gonna be the top 10 games,
00:47 regardless of where it was played, home away neutral
00:50 and we'll count them down for you here in just a second.
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01:20 Better Line, where the game starts and jet.
01:24 So before we get into this countdown,
01:27 let's hit a couple of these interesting home games
01:31 and how West Virginia fared in that real quick
01:33 and the biggest crowds that they had at Mountaineer Field.
01:36 - Yeah, at first you were part of this, Skyler,
01:38 so I had to break some news here in real time.
01:41 My nine-year-old son, soon to be 10, turns 10.
01:45 Well, actually he is now 10.
01:47 I'm trying to catch up myself.
01:48 He's mastering his states and geography
01:53 and things of that nature,
01:54 so he's angling towards getting 100 on his test
01:57 so he can earn some video game time here at Auburn.
02:00 So he came down all fired up and showed me the score
02:03 between tapings there.
02:05 So congrats, Matt, you keep going, buddy.
02:07 I'm proud of you.
02:09 But when you look at Mountaineer Field history,
02:11 that's one thing.
02:12 We're obviously looking at all games.
02:15 Most of those largest crowds were not in Morgantown,
02:17 but the largest crowd in Morgantown history,
02:19 Mountaineer Field history, was, as we all know,
02:21 the '93 game against the number four ranked
02:24 Miami Hurricanes.
02:24 We knocked them off 17 to 14.
02:26 That was 70,222.
02:29 And there were a lot of SRO seats there.
02:31 I mean, there were a lot of folks just wedged in
02:33 and standing anywhere they could.
02:34 So if you look at some of the top games there,
02:37 the '89 game against Pitt will be number two
02:40 behind Miami at 68,938.
02:43 The Ohio State game, I remember how just the intensity
02:48 all off season and the hype leading up to that game
02:51 against number one Ohio State coming to Morgantown
02:53 to kick off the 1998 season.
02:56 And that turned out to be the third largest crowd
02:59 in the history of Mountaineer Field at 68,409.
03:02 But that gives you some sense of what we're gonna do
03:04 when we come back from the break,
03:06 is we're gonna look at the largest crowds.
03:09 Again, when you look at the top 15, 20,
03:11 that those weren't in Morgantown, they were elsewhere.
03:13 And we're gonna count them down for you 10 to one.
03:16 And if you haven't figured it out already,
03:18 there's a reason we're doing this, okay?
03:21 And that reason might have a little nittany
03:24 a little line in it coming up here this weekend.
03:26 So we're gonna have some fun with this.
03:28 - Yeah, definitely.
03:29 So before we get to that, a word from those
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04:34 - For more West Virginia Mountaineer football content,
04:39 be sure to follow us on Twitter @InTheGunPodcast.
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05:46 - Let's go, Mountaineer fans.
05:49 You're tuned in to "In the Gun" with Wes,
05:52 the runaway beer truck, and the signal caller.
05:54 - All right, Jeds, so let's go ahead and get right into it.
06:00 The top 10 biggest crowds West Virginia football
06:03 has ever played in front of.
06:05 Again, this is regardless of where the venue is,
06:08 home away neutral,
06:09 but we already ran through some of that,
06:11 but you'll understand here very quickly
06:13 that all these crowds are away from Mountaineer Field.
06:16 So number 10, kicking it off, where are we heading first, Jed?
06:20 - Number 10, all time, the 10th largest crowd
06:26 that West Virginia has ever played in front of
06:29 was November 25th, 2017.
06:32 It was at Oklahoma, the Prairie,
06:35 or excuse me, the Palace on the Prairie.
06:37 It was the, the crowd was 86,117.
06:41 I've been fortunate to, looking at this list,
06:44 work seven of these 10 games.
06:46 And what I remember about that game,
06:48 first of all- - Chuganoff game.
06:51 - What's that?
06:52 - That was the Chris Chuganoff game, right?
06:53 - It was the Chris Chuganoff game.
06:55 So, you know, the season with all this hope and promise
06:58 was kind of lost early in that Texas game
07:01 with Will's hand injury.
07:02 And I'll never forget standing on the sidelines
07:05 when Will walked back over and I saw that finger
07:08 and he was, he walked right past me.
07:10 And, you know, at the time,
07:11 Dave Kearns and the training staff was trying to deal with it
07:14 and pretty quickly you realized, oh boy.
07:17 And so anyway, you know, Chris Chuganoff came in
07:21 and had to start the next week.
07:22 And I remember that Dana and the offensive staff
07:24 tried to get creative and take some air out of it.
07:26 Kennedy McCoy running some wildcat stuff.
07:29 I mean, we did what we could,
07:31 but we were facing an incredibly talented Oklahoma team.
07:34 If you remember, that was also the game
07:36 in which Baker wasn't allowed to start
07:39 because of the incident at Kansas.
07:40 So instead they had to settle for Kyler Murray
07:43 starting the game.
07:44 And all he did was rip off a 70 yard run
07:46 on the first series right in front of our sidelines.
07:49 And I thought, wow, first we deal with this,
07:50 now we got Baker coming back in.
07:52 It was just, it was nuts.
07:54 But one of the things I think of with Chris Chuganoff,
07:58 people might remember that when he left,
08:01 he ended up at Ohio State
08:03 and they had this kind of strange situation
08:06 playing out a quarterback with some injuries
08:07 and some other things going on.
08:09 He had to play a decent amount,
08:11 or he did play a decent amount.
08:13 And he ended up with six touchdowns, no picks.
08:15 I mean, he was a pretty productive backup option
08:18 for Ohio State, but hats off to Chugs,
08:21 but didn't work out so well for us in Norman
08:24 or in the bowl game against Utah.
08:26 But that is the 10th largest crowd West Virginia
08:29 ever played in front of, blowout loss at Norman,
08:32 86,117 in 2017.
08:37 Yeah, number nine, we go to a little ways back,
08:40 way before my time.
08:41 I was negative 13 at this game.
08:43 I was October 22nd, 1983 in front of 86,309.
08:48 And that was at Penn State.
08:53 So that's the first of a few that we'll have on this list.
08:58 So go ahead and freshen us up on this game a little bit,
09:01 especially me, since I wasn't even around for it.
09:04 Yeah, you were negative 13, I was net 13.
09:06 Okay, so something tells me I wasn't on the sidelines
09:09 with a mic in my hand quite yet.
09:11 But yeah, we went up there and fought the good fight.
09:14 Obviously the big story in that one
09:16 was Jeff Hostetler returning to Penn State, right?
09:19 And Host played a good game, threw for 273,
09:23 but unfortunately we couldn't find a way to stop those guys.
09:25 And we were kind of overmatched
09:27 and we lost the game 41 to 23.
09:29 But Skylar, this gets into a trend
09:31 that you've seen in recent decades, and this speaks to it.
09:34 You had basically a sellout at Penn State
09:36 with 86,000 people in 1983.
09:39 And now these stadiums have expanded multiple times,
09:43 the SEC, the Big 10, to the point that that ranks
09:46 nowhere near the top largest crowds
09:48 in the history of these facilities now.
09:50 But that's what I remember about it is
09:52 Host going up there and fighting the good fight,
09:54 but it wasn't quite enough.
09:55 And that was the ninth largest crowd West Virginia
09:58 has ever played in front of,
09:59 the 86,000 and change at Penn State.
10:02 - Yeah, and I'll go ahead and take this number eight one,
10:04 'cause I'll remember it before I remember the next one
10:06 on the list.
10:07 And that's gonna be a theme here for a little bit
10:10 until we get towards the top of this thing.
10:11 But this one is 2009, Jordan Hare against Auburn, 87,451.
10:16 And if I remember, I feel like that was the monsoon game.
10:24 - It was.
10:25 - That was just, and you probably have more
10:29 of a recollection of it than I do,
10:31 'cause again, it was years ago,
10:32 but I do remember that game was sloppy, it was a slop fest.
10:36 Auburn ended up winning that game 41 to 30,
10:38 but how fun was that one for you?
10:41 - Well, a lot of things I remember about that one.
10:45 That was back in the days when we showed up
10:47 at the stadium the day before
10:48 and actually did a walkthrough.
10:50 And I remember just how impressed you are
10:54 by the trappings of Jordan Hare Stadium,
10:56 and all the glory that it is.
10:59 It's just a neat facility.
11:01 And not to disappoint, it was a sellout crowd.
11:04 And I mean, Auburn fans are right up there in the SEC.
11:07 That's one of the things I learned that night
11:09 and against these other SEC teams we faced,
11:11 I'd stack Auburn fans right there toward the top.
11:13 But I remember standing for 45 minutes
11:17 in one of the corridors with the Auburn band,
11:20 and during the monsoon, we were all seeking cover
11:22 and watching these spigots, these pipes,
11:27 it was almost like gutters,
11:28 just shooting water straight across
11:30 down at the end of the corridor.
11:31 And I was asking, I used to go to school in Alabama,
11:34 but I wasn't out on the plains, right?
11:35 I was in Birmingham, and I was asking some of these kids,
11:38 I'm like, "This is uncommon here, I assume, right?"
11:41 And they said, "My grandparents are telling me
11:43 they've never seen it."
11:43 So yeah, that's uncommon, right?
11:46 So the game gets started, and what I remember,
11:48 I told Stu in the locker room, I was like,
11:50 "You know what I remember about some of the bigger games
11:52 we had as a passing offense, like when I was in school,
11:55 they tend to come right after big rainstorms
11:58 because the footing's bad,
12:00 the wideouts know where they're going, the DBs don't."
12:02 And wouldn't you know it, we threw the football
12:04 pretty effectively.
12:05 Defensively, Jeff Castile solved Gus Malzahn's run game.
12:11 Back at a point, it's hard to think about this,
12:13 but nobody had solved Gus Malzahn's run game
12:16 up to that point, nobody.
12:18 And I remember watching tape with Jeff at the team hotel,
12:20 and he's like, "Jed, unless he reinvents himself
12:22 in the span of a week, I think I got his run game,
12:24 but the best I can do is force him to throw it.
12:27 I can't control everything,
12:29 but I can try and force him to throw it.
12:31 Now we're going to make some plays there too."
12:32 And if you remember how this unfolded,
12:34 they made some big plays in the past game,
12:35 they weren't that effective.
12:36 I think they averaged like two, four per rush.
12:38 So we slowed down their run game.
12:40 Noel had a big game for us, 128 yards, three scores.
12:44 And one of the other things I remember is,
12:46 toward the end of the game,
12:47 of course it was a one score game with a couple minutes to go
12:50 and it looked like we had a chance, it was 34-30,
12:52 to drive the length of the field and have one for the ages.
12:55 And next thing you know, they pick off a screen
12:56 and march in this big D line,
12:58 and it's 41 to 30 game, set match kind of it.
13:00 Jarrett Brown got dinged up.
13:03 And what stands out to me is,
13:05 the training staff, Jarrett comes off the field,
13:07 and it was very obvious that Geno had to go in.
13:10 True freshman, Geno Smith,
13:12 this wiry, skinny, true freshman from Miramar.
13:15 And I'm standing next to Geno on the sidelines
13:18 as he's warming up, getting loose.
13:19 Now, he hadn't been in before, he's about to go in now,
13:23 and he had the orphan Annie eyes.
13:25 I mean, he had the 50 cent piece eyes.
13:27 I mean, they were giant eyes.
13:28 And that's probably the last time I ever, ever,
13:31 saw Geno Smith with the orphan Annie eyes, I mean, ever.
13:35 But I just remember thinking,
13:36 "Wow, I can't imagine what this must be like."
13:37 I mean, again, we're talking how many people were here,
13:40 87,451, and here you are, this 18-year-old kid being asked,
13:45 "Hey, get out there and take care of this."
13:46 So those are the things I remember about that game.
13:49 And I guess that would bring that thing in at number eight,
13:53 the eighth largest crowd West Virginia
13:55 has ever played in front of.
13:57 - Yeah, number seven, again, this one's probably one
13:59 you know a little bit more,
14:00 so I'll let you introduce it and talk about it.
14:02 This was against the higher state way back in the day,
14:05 not way back in the day, '87.
14:08 It was the year before, you know, the great year
14:10 before the fiesta bowl, but anyways, go ahead.
14:14 - It was the beginning of the Major Harris era, okay?
14:19 He had registered the previous year.
14:21 He played against a Max Kuhl the previous week,
14:23 but this was part of that strange home and home
14:27 with Ohio State '87 and '98.
14:29 It's kind of scheduling how it worked sometimes back then,
14:31 but you went on the road to face Ohio State in Columbus.
14:36 And again, if you go to Columbus these days
14:38 and it's a sellout, it's a heck of a lot more than 88,000,
14:40 but back then it was a lot of people.
14:42 It still is a lot of people.
14:44 But what I remember is it was sloppy, it was wet.
14:47 They jumped out to a very early lead, Ohio State did.
14:52 We were trying to, as I said,
14:53 kind of break in a young quarterback and Major.
14:55 Mike Timco was kind of playing as well
14:57 as the more battle-tested veteran.
15:00 And we just couldn't stand out of harm's way.
15:02 I mean, we kept putting the football in harm's way,
15:05 turning it over.
15:06 Ohio State built this big lead
15:08 and we just couldn't sustain anything.
15:10 And I think most of the scoring in that game was,
15:12 the lion's share was over probably by not long
15:14 after the end of the first quarter,
15:15 a couple of minutes into the second quarter,
15:16 the beat is 24 to three.
15:18 But one of the things, Coach Wallace,
15:20 who we did the broadcast with,
15:21 Coach Wallace was on the staff at that game.
15:24 And a couple of years ago, Tony and I were talking about it
15:26 and we mentioned it to him and this conversation started.
15:29 I said, "I'm gonna look up that box score
15:31 and check it out."
15:31 And as soon as we came across six interceptions,
15:34 four by Mike Timco and two by Major,
15:37 Coach Wallace was like,
15:38 "Yeah, why don't we just change the conversation here?"
15:40 (laughing)
15:41 But hey, it's not like Coach Wallace didn't rebound,
15:45 'cause he certainly did and so did Major
15:46 and so did the Mountaineers.
15:48 And brighter things were to come for those Mountaineers
15:50 down the stretch, even in '87,
15:51 leading up to what happened in '88.
15:53 But yeah, 88,000 people at the SHU.
15:56 You know, that was a big deal back in the day.
15:59 It's a big deal now.
16:00 But that will be the seventh largest crowd.
16:03 When you're looking at that,
16:04 that was back in the Tom Tupa days.
16:05 Remember Tom Tupa?
16:07 Not only the quarterback, but the ponderer for Ohio State.
16:09 So yeah, seventh largest, right?
16:12 So that'd be number seven.
16:13 - Yeah, number six.
16:15 I do remember this one
16:16 and I'm trying to remember what grade I was in.
16:19 I wanna say I was in eighth grade
16:22 and I just got back from whatever the dance is
16:25 that you're in eighth grade, the middle school.
16:28 It's not the homecoming or whatever,
16:30 but anyways, this big dance we had in middle school
16:34 and we went and hung out at my friend's house.
16:36 This was, I'll go and get to the game
16:38 so you know what I'm talking about here.
16:39 September 25th, 2010, 92,575 against LSU.
16:44 And I had been looking forward to this game all week long
16:47 'cause I was like, man, to have the opportunity
16:50 to go down into Death Valley
16:52 and it felt kind of like a winnable game
16:55 and it ended up playing out to be that way.
16:57 It just, 20 to 14 was the final score.
17:00 They couldn't get over the hump.
17:01 They really just couldn't ever get anything
17:03 offensively going.
17:04 Obviously that was the Patrick Peterson game,
17:07 but that was a tough game for me to take on the chin
17:11 when I was a kid.
17:12 - Yeah, and Saturday night in Baton Rouge,
17:17 it's one of the storied things
17:19 that if you're a college football fan,
17:20 I mean, it was definitely on my bucket list.
17:22 I'm glad I got to check it off.
17:23 I'm glad I got to work that game.
17:25 But what I remember about it is, first of all,
17:28 that's another all inspiring facility.
17:31 I mean, it's just a really cool venue.
17:33 If you ever have a chance, I recommend it.
17:35 I put Mountaineer on that field to outsiders.
17:36 I tell them all the time,
17:38 but it's one of the Meccas of college football,
17:40 college sports at large.
17:42 But what I remember about that game is
17:43 we were disjointed offensively.
17:47 We couldn't really find our rhythm at that point
17:49 in that season.
17:50 We went down there and I remember walking out
17:52 with the captains and Noel was one of the captains
17:57 and Noel Devine.
17:58 And when we came out of the corridor,
18:00 out of our locker room,
18:01 it was down in one corner of Tiger Stadium.
18:04 And the officials held us by the pylon.
18:07 They held the captains up with a pylon
18:08 and said, "Wait right here."
18:09 And as we were waiting, I looked and five feet away
18:12 in the giant cage is Mike the Tiger, the LSU mascot.
18:16 All right, now don't ask me to assign the Roman numerals
18:19 of which Mike the Tiger.
18:21 104, 17, I have no idea.
18:23 IV, VII, I don't know.
18:26 But it was one of the Mike the Tigers.
18:27 And what I remember is Noel apparently
18:31 had such pent up energy
18:33 that it was too much to ask him to stand still.
18:36 So he couldn't restrain himself.
18:37 So he starts leaning into the cage and shaking his head
18:40 to try and animate Mike the Tiger.
18:42 And he's growling at it, snarling and shaking his head.
18:45 Noel's just shaking.
18:46 And I'm thinking, how did I arrive at this point in life?
18:49 (laughing)
18:50 I was a five star running back in Tiger State.
18:53 And I'm also thinking, I don't think Noel
18:56 knows quite how sedated Mike the Tiger is.
18:59 That's what I always think
19:00 when people were on Bevo in Austin.
19:02 I'm like, do you have any idea
19:03 what they've shot that thing full of before this game
19:06 to keep him calm?
19:07 But that's what I remember.
19:09 And I remember it was one of those things that,
19:11 as you touched on Skylar, the final score was 20 to 14.
19:15 And that was the game
19:16 that on the punt return Patrick Peterson,
19:18 I remember where I was standing.
19:19 I was in that same end zone, but opposite pylon
19:21 when Patrick Peterson busted it,
19:23 found the rail up the sideline, got behind the wall,
19:27 gets in the end zone and strikes the Heisman pose.
19:30 But it just felt like, man,
19:31 even though we're only down by a possession,
19:33 (indistinct)
19:35 Yeah, it felt insurmountable
19:37 just 'cause we couldn't get moving offensively.
19:40 And it was frustrating, but we held our own.
19:44 We just couldn't make the final play.
19:45 But yeah, I mean, that's number six.
19:49 And that was definitely one
19:51 that I remember for a long time
19:53 and worth checking out if you get a chance.
19:54 But now we're about to embark on the top five,
19:57 the five largest crowds West Virginia to this date
20:01 has ever played in front of.
20:03 - Yeah, and actually four of these five are in my lifetime
20:06 and more recently actually.
20:08 So number five, let's go ahead and start here
20:11 with, what was it, 2014, November 8th at Texas, 95-714.
20:16 And I asked you before the recording, I was like,
20:20 this was the game right after game day,
20:22 TCU, that whole conundrum.
20:24 - Yeah. - And it is.
20:26 It was the, I guess it's one of those games
20:29 where you just, you let a game beat you twice.
20:32 And I felt like that's kind of what it was.
20:34 They were sluggish all day.
20:36 And that one, I actually had a baseball game.
20:38 I was in college at that point,
20:39 college baseball game that day.
20:41 So wasn't able to watch it, thankfully,
20:43 but I ended up re-watching it and none to my liking.
20:47 But that was a game I really felt the TCU game,
20:52 the way that thing ended,
20:54 it just, it was something you couldn't get out of your head.
20:57 I don't know, I mean, you were around the team
20:59 at that point, you probably have a better understanding
21:01 of it, but that's kind of my general feeling as a time,
21:05 not really into it, that it just felt like a game
21:08 to beat them twice.
21:10 - Yeah, and of course, when you think back to the TCU game,
21:13 two ranked teams, college game day,
21:15 ESPN college game day in Morgantown, big game environment,
21:19 what happened to Clint on the non-call
21:21 when he got denogganized by the TCU defenders?
21:24 So, you had a lot of people say that that was the end
21:28 of Clint Trickett as we knew him, right?
21:29 Well, we saw, as you touched on Skyler,
21:32 we definitely had a hangover, an emotional hangover
21:35 heading to DKR that next week.
21:37 And when we showed up, again, even when the flats crowd
21:42 a bunch of T-sippers, it's still, in this case,
21:46 you're looking at 95,700 T-sippers, right?
21:48 That's a lot of T-sippers.
21:50 It's a vast place that's very high when,
21:54 you really marvel at it sometimes when you're standing
21:57 on the sideline at DKR looking at that facility.
21:59 But what I remember about that game is that was back
22:03 in the days of the Tyrone Swoops 18 Wheeler Package,
22:07 that big physical quarterback that they had,
22:09 and they used that to great effect against us.
22:11 Now, they jumped out to this big early lead,
22:13 and at the half, it was a lot to a little.
22:15 Again, we were slow out of the gates,
22:18 so we had a lot to overcome coming out of the half,
22:20 and we knew that.
22:22 And now, to Clint's credit,
22:25 Clint did engineer a lot of production,
22:27 but it was, by and large, between the 20s.
22:30 I mean, if you look back, one of the strange stats
22:32 that came out of that game was Kevin White
22:34 with a school record 16 catches.
22:36 I mean, he had 16 catches, and Clint had some decent numbers
22:40 but no touchdowns.
22:41 It was between the 20s.
22:43 So every time we got into the red zone,
22:45 something went awry, and we just couldn't finish the job.
22:48 And in the large measure, I do think that that TCU hangover
22:52 contributed to that, but that's what I think of
22:54 when I think of that game was,
22:56 I don't remember the crowd making a massive difference
22:59 in the outcome, but that's kind of the nature of Texas.
23:04 They can be very energized or somewhat sedated themselves,
23:08 even if it's pushing 100,000 people there.
23:10 I've seen it both ways,
23:11 whereas other places, Oklahoma or others,
23:13 it's always energized, right?
23:15 But that's what I think of when I think of the fifth-largest
23:18 crowd in the history to ever watch
23:20 a West Virginia football game.
23:21 Those are my memories of it.
23:22 - Go ahead and take number four here.
23:24 This is, again, before my time.
23:26 - Yeah, a long time ago,
23:27 another one of those Penn State games.
23:29 Now you see it climbing.
23:31 The last time we were at Penn State,
23:32 it wasn't quite this many,
23:33 but now it was our last trip to Penn State, 1991.
23:37 So now with the expansions of the stadium,
23:39 of Beaver Stadium, you're up to 96,445 people.
23:44 The fourth-largest crowd to ever watch
23:46 came out in your football game anywhere.
23:48 Now it's a game that I wish I could forget as a fan.
23:51 I was a college-age kid myself.
23:56 That was a very good Penn State team.
23:58 Tony Sacca, Sam Gash, O.J. McDuffie,
24:00 they finished number three in the final poll.
24:02 They went and blew the doors off Tennessee
24:05 in the Fiesta Bowl.
24:06 Very good Penn State team.
24:09 And the biggest thing was,
24:11 they just dominated the line of scrimmage
24:13 from start to finish.
24:14 They outrushed us 349 yards to 21.
24:17 So blowout loss at Penn State.
24:19 That's the last time we were at Penn State.
24:22 And if you've seen a recurring theme,
24:23 but that theme's about to change,
24:25 so far, every one of these games in the top 10
24:27 has been a loss.
24:29 But good news.
24:31 That's about to change.
24:32 - Yes.
24:33 Number three, and the top three,
24:36 ah, I won't ruin it.
24:38 Number three, Texas.
24:39 2016, November 12th, 98-67-3.
24:43 And I remember this one for two reasons.
24:45 One, Skylar Howard leading this team once again
24:50 to a victory that they probably,
24:52 I don't know if they shouldn't have won,
24:55 but it just felt like a game they could have lost.
24:57 And then, of course, the Khyzer white hit on Shane Duchelle,
25:02 where he just absolutely gave him a punch
25:05 and knocked the ball out.
25:07 That's the two things that I remember about that.
25:09 And after this game, West Virginia moved to eight and one.
25:12 Again, this was that 10-win season that they had.
25:15 And we talked about it in a recent episode
25:17 where they only played one ranked team that season.
25:21 And they took full advantage of that.
25:23 They were taking care of wins left and right,
25:26 and pretty much beating who they should have.
25:30 But, yeah, that's what I remember from that.
25:32 - Yeah, you talked about the hit.
25:34 I mean, Khyzer came off the edge.
25:35 One of the packages Gibby had where the spur comes up
25:38 and they chop things up.
25:39 And I'm telling you, what was odd about that,
25:41 it wasn't a blindside hit.
25:42 It was a vision side hit.
25:44 And Shane Duchelle, who came in
25:46 as a really highly regarded quarterback recruit,
25:51 ended up transferring to SMU.
25:53 But Shane Duchelle was looking to his left
25:56 as a right-handed quarterback.
25:58 And off the edge from the spur spot came Khyzer
26:00 and just lit him up.
26:02 I mean, I almost felt like I felt it from our side.
26:05 It was one of those shots.
26:07 And the other thing that I remember is,
26:09 this game was literally down to the wire and then some.
26:13 In other words, the outcome was 24 to 20.
26:15 West Virginia led.
26:17 And even on the final play,
26:18 there was some dispute as to whether or not
26:20 it was going to be the final play.
26:22 The officiating crew was reviewing it.
26:24 And this is, in my career,
26:25 the only time this has ever happened.
26:26 Of course, as soon as the game ends, what is my job?
26:30 I immediately, as the game ends, right after the handshake,
26:32 have to have a microphone in the face of the head coach.
26:34 So I had to have Dana ready to go.
26:37 So we didn't know if the game was over or not.
26:38 Are we playing another player or are we not?
26:40 So me and Dana and Gibby, half the team, half their team,
26:44 were all out in the middle of the field.
26:47 And we don't know if the game's over.
26:49 And so the call came back in and the game was over.
26:52 Here came the handshake and here came the celebration.
26:54 But that was a strange finish to a relatively intense game.
26:59 But again, you're talking 98,000 and change,
27:04 pushing 99,000.
27:05 I don't remember the crowd being a massive factor
27:08 in that one.
27:09 And I wouldn't say that elsewhere,
27:11 the places that I've been with these size facilities.
27:13 But sometimes Texas is, sometimes Texas isn't.
27:16 It just, it depends what kind of mood
27:18 you catch the T-sippers in.
27:20 - Yeah.
27:21 - And that particular day,
27:22 we held on for a very hard fought, very physical,
27:26 old school 24 to 20 win in front of the third largest crowd
27:31 to ever watch a West Virginia football game
27:32 at DKR in Austin.
27:35 - Yeah, number two, you want to guess where that one is?
27:37 (laughing)
27:38 - DKR?
27:39 - Yeah.
27:40 - 100,703.
27:42 And that was November 3rd, 2018,
27:45 AKA the Will "Greer" Gary Jennings game.
27:48 And this one is going to be one
27:50 that will live down forever in the history books
27:53 of West Virginia football.
27:54 And obviously it could have been
27:56 even a more storybook type of a game
27:59 had West Virginia held on and beat Oklahoma State.
28:03 We can talk about that David Sills no pass interference call
28:06 in the end zone another time.
28:07 But that would have been incredible
28:10 if they would have been able to get
28:11 to a big 12 championship game that year.
28:13 You probably would have had Will Greer
28:16 seriously in the Heisman race
28:20 had they finished the season a little bit better
28:21 because of that play,
28:23 what could have happened to Oklahoma State and so on.
28:25 But man, that game, again,
28:28 it felt like they were so much back and forth,
28:31 but when Texas got that stop,
28:34 they got the score to go ahead,
28:36 you're just like, you know what I mean?
28:38 Just, you didn't know if they were going to be able
28:41 to answer there at the end.
28:42 And I love the cojones on Dana Holgerson at the end
28:47 to go for two.
28:48 And you were down on the sideline.
28:50 The rumor is he was going for two the whole way.
28:53 Is that what you heard?
28:54 Absolutely.
28:55 Absolutely.
28:56 I'll give you the CliffsNotes version
28:59 of the things I remember.
29:00 I could write a book about the things I remember
29:02 about that football game
29:04 and the memories that will forever be etched in my mind.
29:07 But there was a point earlier in the game
29:10 where there was an injury to a Texas offensive lineman.
29:15 And of course, when there's injuries,
29:16 the opposing team, you know,
29:18 it's much more difficult for me to get an injury update
29:22 'cause I don't have the inside track
29:23 like I do with our staff and our training staff.
29:26 So what I have to do is I have to go
29:27 to the national reporter.
29:28 And I'm trying to think of who the national reporter
29:30 for ESPN was in that game.
29:31 I can't remember.
29:33 It was one of the regulars that we work with.
29:35 But anyway, I went over to check with her
29:38 because she was checking with the staff
29:41 to see what the status of that was.
29:42 And as I worked my way over,
29:43 in other words, normally I'm over toward our sidelines.
29:45 Now the layout of DKR, our sidelines is opposite.
29:49 Bevo's in the back corner on the opposite side of the field
29:53 from where we enter the field.
29:53 We enter the field, we go in front of the Texas band,
29:55 then we go opposite over to our sidelines.
29:58 Their sideline is the same sideline
30:00 that down at the end is Bevo's cage.
30:02 So I'm normally not around during the game.
30:03 I'm not around Bevo's cage.
30:05 But I was going over to make my way
30:06 and migrate to the lower end of their sideline.
30:10 So I was right in front of Bevo's cage.
30:11 And as I made my way in front of Bevo's cage,
30:14 I'm trying to spot the sideline reporter.
30:16 And I heard the crowd go nuts.
30:18 And I looked up and here comes David
30:20 streaking right towards me on that 65 yard touchdown.
30:23 So I'm sitting there fumbly.
30:24 I'm trying to get my camera out.
30:26 And I did get a shot of him with the horns down
30:28 right in front of me.
30:29 So I'm right in front of Bevo.
30:30 And David's right in front of me with the horns down.
30:33 And there's Texas fans eight feet behind both of us.
30:37 And I was just like, this is delicious, all right?
30:40 But then the way that thing unfolded,
30:43 with the scoring strike to Gary,
30:46 you can't throw more, you talk about a drop in a bucket.
30:48 You can't throw more accurate football
30:50 under any circumstances, especially those.
30:52 And then what ends up happening was with the two point play,
30:56 I was down in that pile on where Will ended up running into.
30:59 Okay, he ran right in front of me.
31:01 I've got this kind of interesting video from my phone
31:04 with Will running right in front of me.
31:06 It's an angle that you're not used to
31:07 when you look at it, right?
31:09 But yeah, we definitely were going for it.
31:12 Of course, we had to go for it multiple times
31:14 because they kept taking timeouts.
31:16 Now, that was a certain concept that we went empty
31:21 and there were various answers
31:23 to what we could do offensively based on what they showed.
31:26 There was a quick screen element.
31:27 There was a draw element.
31:28 There was a single coverage element,
31:30 one-on-one with an option route back to David.
31:32 So you had different options
31:34 depending on the alignment of the defense.
31:36 And early on, it looked like the option was going to be
31:40 the option route by David, which we had that too.
31:42 But ultimately, what ended up happening was
31:45 Will just being the gamer that he is
31:48 in the play that he made,
31:49 he recognized just enough daylight to say,
31:52 "You might get me, but you're not going to get me
31:53 before I breach that goal line.
31:55 I can stretch this thing across there."
31:57 And so he ends up running right in front of us, okay?
32:00 And our athletic director was right behind me.
32:03 He runs right in front of us.
32:04 And as he did so, he scored.
32:07 And Big Daddy Sean Mariner,
32:09 who is one of our video guys on the sidelines,
32:13 Mariner likes to talk about the reason that you see
32:16 Will slam that football so viciously.
32:20 If you remember, when he scored, he threw the football.
32:22 He spiked it, right?
32:23 What he was doing, he was throwing it into the speaker
32:27 that Texas had been booming all day
32:29 when we were on offense, making our lives difficult.
32:32 So that was kind of his way is to say,
32:34 "Take that," kind of deal.
32:37 And I remember, as a matter of fact,
32:39 it might even be on my video that I was still taking
32:41 'cause I didn't turn the camera off.
32:42 Dana ended up in all this chaos.
32:46 I'm way outside the coach's box.
32:48 I mean, I'm down on my goal line, okay?
32:49 I don't have to stay in the coach's box.
32:51 I'm not a coach.
32:52 I'm a sideline idiot trying to do another job.
32:54 Well, Dana and a lot of the staff ended up
32:56 as the plays unfolding way down the field.
32:58 And he was, I don't remember, maybe 15.
33:00 And so I flew up to Dana
33:02 and I remember saying to Dana right away,
33:04 "That's the same pylon that he got hurt at
33:08 "in Morgantown last year."
33:09 That's the first thing I said to Dana.
33:11 First thing I said to Dana.
33:13 And he was just so beside himself.
33:15 I don't know if he heard me, but yeah, I tell you,
33:18 as number two largest crowds in history go,
33:21 they got a show.
33:21 Now, it might not have been the show they wanted,
33:24 but boy, was it the show we wanted.
33:25 And then I remember Dana crowd surfing
33:28 in the locker room after the game.
33:31 I mean, there's just so many different things
33:33 about that game that were just magical,
33:36 just absolutely magical.
33:38 And now that was one that I do remember the crowd.
33:42 You're starting to get up towards,
33:43 I do remember the crowd having an impact.
33:46 There were moments in that game that turned Texas' way.
33:49 And you go back and study
33:51 and do a post-mortem on games like that.
33:53 There's so many things that could have
33:55 so ever slightly gone the other way.
33:57 And I've done that multiple times in that game.
33:59 And it's scary to think of how easily
34:02 that could have swung another way
34:03 in the third quarter, the second quarter.
34:05 But so many tremendous memories from that game,
34:09 sitting at number two, second largest crowd
34:12 to ever watch a West Virginia football game.
34:15 - Yeah, again, like I said,
34:17 when Texas went down and got that go ahead touchdown,
34:19 I was like, I don't know.
34:21 It just didn't feel like, you're just kind of like,
34:23 oh man, here it goes again, you know what I mean?
34:25 - 100,000 Skyler, 703.
34:28 And that day it felt like it.
34:31 - And the incredible part about that was,
34:33 and you mentioned it on that two point conversion,
34:35 I think they actually completed one to David Silva.
34:37 - We did, we sure did.
34:39 - They said they called the time out,
34:40 so they had to redo it again.
34:41 So Tom Herman had that big thing after the game
34:44 about how he reached over the goal line.
34:45 Well, he didn't stop it twice.
34:48 So don't know what to tell you.
34:49 But anyways, and now drum roll.
34:53 The number one spot is.
34:58 2012, West Virginia at, once again,
35:03 at an emerging Texas.
35:05 First Big 12 road game as a Big 12 member.
35:10 The first conference game was against Baylor, the week four.
35:13 We took the road, went to DKR.
35:16 Now we were ranked number six in the country.
35:18 They were ranked number 11.
35:19 So there was a whole lot of buzz about this.
35:21 They were ready to hand Gino the Heisman
35:24 with the September that he had had.
35:26 And you're looking at, this is October 6th, 2012.
35:29 So we arrive four and O, hotter than Texas, chilly,
35:33 as Rick Neuheisel might say.
35:35 And we were, offensively, we were playing lights out.
35:38 And the concerns were on the defensive side of the ball.
35:41 They already started to kind of show through.
35:43 And that obviously, in major ways in that Baylor game,
35:46 they showed through again here,
35:48 because no lead felt safe.
35:50 But what ends up happening, there's a number of things.
35:54 I remember about this one as well.
35:55 This absolutely felt like that size crowd.
36:00 It was 101,851, largest crowd Western
36:03 has ever played in front of.
36:05 This felt that way.
36:07 It got so noisy, so crazy, so disruptive.
36:11 And the truth of the matter is,
36:13 there was a point with a critical fourth down sequence
36:17 late in the game.
36:18 And I remember it was in front of our sidelines,
36:21 going right to left.
36:22 It was, I think it was a fourth and four.
36:24 And the crowd was going berserk.
36:28 And I remember thinking, if Geno is unaffected by this,
36:32 then he is, by definition, unflappable.
36:36 And he took a snap, shuffled back in the gap,
36:39 fired a quick head trout to a step on the boundary,
36:42 first down with the sticks.
36:44 But I remember late in the third quarter,
36:48 early in the fourth quarter,
36:50 what I remember about that is,
36:51 the Godzilla-tron at the stadium flashed up on the screen,
36:56 the attendance of 101,851.
37:02 And not only was it the largest in West Virginia history,
37:05 which we know, it was the largest crowd
37:07 in Texas Longhorn football history at the time.
37:10 Now, it's since been broken.
37:12 The largest was last year, Alabama, Texas.
37:14 But that was the largest game in Texas history.
37:17 So I thought, wow, that really says something.
37:19 Now, a lot of the things contributed to that.
37:21 Both teams being ranked,
37:22 the novelty of a new conference opponent,
37:25 fresh to the league, first season.
37:27 But that was the Texas crowd that they should brag about,
37:30 because they contributed throughout multiple sequences
37:35 in that game, to the ups and the downs
37:37 and the peaks and the valleys.
37:38 They were noisy and noisy at all the right times,
37:40 and it was just full and packed with energy.
37:42 There was no T-sipping that night.
37:44 - No.
37:45 - I mean, they were into it and dialed in.
37:47 And of course, we talk about hangovers.
37:51 We all know what happened the next week,
37:52 but that didn't mean we weren't enjoying that night.
37:54 I still remember, you know, I have a picture of Geno
37:57 in the dark corridor outside our locker room.
38:00 I mean, he couldn't get away.
38:01 There were a bunch of, I think they were Texas fans.
38:03 They wanted his autograph, and he's signing game programs.
38:06 I mean, people forget just to what extent
38:09 he was ahead of the pack at that point
38:11 in all of college football. - Oh, yeah.
38:13 - From a production standpoint.
38:15 They were ready to anoint him the Heisman winner
38:17 because of his body of work in September.
38:20 And it was that impressive.
38:21 I mean, I think after that game,
38:23 he ended up with like, through five games,
38:25 he had like 24 touchdowns and no picks.
38:28 It's just insanity.
38:30 - I don't know if it was, it may have been before that game,
38:34 but I think at some point,
38:35 he had more touchdowns than incompletions.
38:37 - Than incompletions, yeah.
38:38 Through a couple games, yeah.
38:40 - That's unheard of.
38:42 - Yeah.
38:43 - Out of all the Heisman wonders there's been,
38:44 that's, it's like, you never even hear that stat, so.
38:47 - Yeah, I mean, yeah.
38:48 So that, and the funny thing is,
38:50 he had a modest 260 that night.
38:53 - Yeah. - But he made the plays
38:54 when he had to make them.
38:54 He had four touchdown passes.
38:56 I mean, Steadman showed up big, Tavon showed up big.
38:58 The run game showed up big.
39:00 I mean, that's the thing.
39:01 I also remember going down and they had a linebacker
39:04 that was dinged up.
39:05 And one of the conversations I was having,
39:07 I remember Dana watching tape on the plane
39:09 and we talked to him in the hotel and he said,
39:11 "Hey, you know, I think we can lean on them."
39:14 We had a 200-yard rusher that night.
39:16 That's the thing about that game
39:18 that most people don't remember is Andrew Bowie
39:19 doing what he did while they were dinged up at linebacker.
39:22 And we thought we could kind of have our way with them
39:24 and lean on them and take advantage of that.
39:26 And boy, did we.
39:26 So everything went according to plan that night.
39:29 And it was an awesome win.
39:32 - That was also the Carl Joseph killed a man
39:34 in Texas night too, which was something.
39:36 - Yeah.
39:38 - Man, I felt that for Marquise Goodwin.
39:41 (laughs)
39:42 And that would have probably been a targeting maybe
39:46 in today's game, but-
39:47 - Of course, what's not, you know?
39:49 - Yeah.
39:49 So there's your top 10 most attended games
39:52 or most watched games in West Virginia football history.
39:55 And of course, the whole reason behind all this
39:58 is because they're probably, well, not even probably,
40:02 it's almost a certainty at this point,
40:05 Saturday's game against Penn State, the opener,
40:09 will without a doubt be the most watched game
40:12 in West Virginia football history.
40:14 - Highest attendance, yeah.
40:14 When you look at some of the things unfolding at Penn State,
40:16 first of all, some of this is pretty regular at Penn State.
40:20 According to The Athletic,
40:21 Penn State sold nearly 92,000 season tickets in 2022.
40:26 That was last year.
40:29 92,000 last year, that included more than 20,000.
40:33 That's on par with what you can expect.
40:35 In other words, when you have that as your starting point,
40:38 that's how you get to 105,000.
40:40 Now, when you look at the individual numbers of last season,
40:44 here is why we feel confident in saying,
40:46 again, West Virginia, for perspective,
40:48 largest crowd to ever watch a West Virginia game anywhere,
40:52 101,851 at Texas 2012, 101,851.
40:57 Here are the attendances
41:00 at Penn State's home games last year.
41:03 105,000, 108,000, 108,000, 109,000, 105,000, 106,000, 107,000.
41:08 So their smallest crowd last year was 105,000.
41:13 And there's more buzz this year than there was last year.
41:15 So I feel quite confident in saying,
41:18 absolutely, this will be the largest crowd
41:21 to ever watch a Mountaineer football game.
41:25 I can tell you to say,
41:26 as somebody who likes to live and hope,
41:28 what better night?
41:31 I mean, we've never had a chance to piss off more people
41:34 in person in one setting.
41:36 That's one way of looking at it,
41:38 ever before than we will on Saturday night at Beaver Stadium.
41:42 - And we went through the numbers the other day
41:45 about the AP Top 25 and their history.
41:47 This would be the best win in the history of the program.
41:52 Correct?
41:53 - Yes, without question.
41:55 In other words, the highest ranked teams
41:56 we've ever beaten on the road was number nine
41:58 and that's happened twice.
42:00 Again, road, true road game, not bowl games.
42:03 Those are neutral site games, including Georgia,
42:05 which was an hour and a half away from Atlanta and Athens.
42:07 Georgia was number eight, that's neutral site.
42:10 The highest ranked true road game we've ever had a win in,
42:13 1982 at Oklahoma, number nine,
42:14 1954 at Penn State, number nine.
42:17 Penn State in the AP is number seven.
42:20 This would be the highest.
42:21 And one little cool nugget here,
42:23 there is actually a member of the Mountaineers
42:25 who I know won't blink at this.
42:27 And that's Beanie Bishop.
42:30 - Yeah.
42:30 - Who last year at Beaver Stadium
42:31 played in front of 108,000 people at Minnesota
42:34 and played well.
42:36 I mean, when you go back and watch Beanie in that game
42:38 and look at the tape, Beanie played good football.
42:40 He held his own, more than held his own.
42:42 So that's one guy that's already been there, done that,
42:45 and played in front of that crowd that we can expect.
42:47 What's that?
42:48 - Batorma Moldova, too.
42:49 - Yeah, comes from Penn State, absolutely, yeah.
42:52 It's just he had him behind his back
42:54 instead of in his face now, yeah.
42:56 - So yeah, that's interesting.
42:58 Even though when you look at those AP top 25 numbers,
43:00 it's not, history's not with WVU,
43:02 but with this list, recency,
43:06 there's a little bit of a trend going on here.
43:08 So maybe- - Yes.
43:09 - Maybe- - Victories
43:11 in each of the three largest crowds
43:13 to ever watch WVU play a game,
43:16 will be one all three of them.
43:17 - So what you're telling me, Jed, is they're gonna win.
43:20 Maybe.
43:21 - This is a Lloyd Christmas moment.
43:23 (Jed laughing)
43:24 Tell me there's a chance, yeah.
43:25 - Exactly.
43:26 - You're telling me there's a chance.
43:27 (Jed laughing)
43:29 - So that's gonna do it.
43:30 And again, I'm Skylar Callahan,
43:32 filling in for Wesley Euler, the GOAT,
43:34 and Owen Schmidt for Jed Drunning.
43:37 The one thing we ask of you is to be in here
43:39 and tell an ear about your W,
43:41 favorite WVU football podcast, "In the Gun,"
43:43 and we'll be back with more episodes here later this week.
43:47 (door opening)
43:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]