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West Virginia University placekicker Tyler Bitancurt, pictured during the Mountaineers’ 19-16 win over No. 8 Pitt in 2009. Bitancurt kicked four field goals in the upset win.
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia has pulled off a number of stunning upsets of Top 10 teams in the 43 years that are now considered modern Mountaineer football, beginning with the time Don Nehlen arrived as head coach.
Now they face another Top 10 challenge as a three-touchdown underdog to Penn State at State College on Saturday night, so we thought we’d remind you of the greatest of upsets over that time and how others saw WVU and their accomplishments via newspaper stories from around the country.
1982 … No. 14 WVU, 41,
No. 9 Oklahoma 27
This is the game that announced the arrival of Nehlen on the national scene as he stunned the Sooners, who had demolished the Mountaineers four years earlier, helping lead to the hiring of Nehlen, as Jeff Hostetler made his WVU debut.
NORMAN, Okla. — It was his first game in a West Virginia football jersey and Jeff Hostetler had a case of the jitters. After all, he was facing No. 9 Oklahoma.
“Everyone was nervous starting out,” Hofstetler said after the Mountaineers upset the Sooners, 41-27, Saturday. “We dropped passes, overthrew, missed assignments. Then we calmed down and started to play.”
And play he did.
Hostetler, a junior who transferred two seasons ago from Penn State, threw four touchdowns and for 329 yards as West Virginia pulled off one of the biggest surprises of the young 1984 season.
1984 — No. 20 West Virginia 21, No. 4 Boston College 20
MORGANTOWN (AP) — Matt Taffoni’s fourth-down tackle stopped a potential scoring drive and West Virginia held No. 4 Boston College nearly 200 yards below its rushing average enroute to a 21-20 victory.
Boston College had fourth and 1 on the WVU 35 with 1:21 left when Taffoni submarined through the line to stop Omari Walker for no gain.
NOTE: WVU held Boston College to just 19 net rushing as it scored the most exciting of its four victories over the Heisman Trophy legend Flutie during his career.
1993 — No. 9 West Virginia 17, No. 4 Miami 14
With a record crowd of 70,222 cramming every nook and cranny of Mountaineer Field, the Mountaineers became a giant killer.
MORGANTOWN (AP)– West Virginia is the new Beast of the Big East.
Robert Walker scored on a 19-yard run with 6:08 left as the ninth-ranked Mountaineers beat No. 4 Miami, 17-14, and clinched a tie for the Big East Championship.
It was Miami’s first conference loss since the Big East began in 1991 and its first loss to a league member since 1984 when Boston College beat the Hurricanes on Doug Flutie’s last-second touchdown pass that came to be known as “The Hail Mary.”
2003 — West Virginia 18, No. 3 Virginia Tech 7
Bristol (Va.) Herald-Courier
MORGANTOWN — Virginia Tech entered Wednesday night’s Big East Conference game with West Virginia as the nation’s third-ranked team.
Rank was the only word one could use to describe the Hokies’ performance.
It was probably the worst performance since a 38-7 loss at Pitt two years ago.
The hopes of a Sugar Bowl trip got iced as the Mountaineers pounded their border rivals 28-7 in front of a delirious crowd at Mountaineer Field.
The Hokies committed four turnovers leading to 14 WVU points and acted nothing like the league’s least penalized team. They committed an absurd four personal fouls in an eight-minute span in the third quarter and picked up a season high 113 yards on 13 flags.
This led to a story by Morgantown Associated Press writer Vicki Smith’s follow up story in midweek:
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University will discipline at least 40 students who took part in post-game mayhem after the Mountaineers upset then No. 3 Virginia Tech, school officials said Wednesday.
After the Oct. 22 victory students poured onto Mountaineer Field and tried to tear down the goalposts but were turned back by police, who used pepper spray and force to clear the field.
Within minutes fires large and small were set in the streets. More than 100 were reported but authorities said most were doused within minutes. There were no major injuries or property destruction occurred.
Officials said the 40 students included 14 freshmen, 6 sophomores, 9 juniors, 7 seniors and 4 graduate students.
2007 — (Actually, Jan. 2, 2008) — No. 11 WVU 48, No. 3 Oklahoma 28 (Fiesta Bowl)
Miami Herald
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Rich who?
The West Virginia Mountaineers didn’t need Coach Rich Rodriguez.
They had Pat White, an elusive quarterback, who led them to a surprising 48-28 romp over No. 3 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl Wednesday.
White ran for 150 yards and passed for 176 and two touchdowns for the 11th-ranked Mountaineers who rushed for 339 yards, the most allowed by Oklahoma in a bowl game.
Since arriving in the desert last week, the Mountaineers (11-2) had bonded behind interim coach Bill Stewart, who took over when Rodriguez bolted for Michigan in mid-December and they vowed to rebound from the 13-9 loss to Pitt that knocked them out of the Bowl Championship Series title game.
The Mountaineers were right on both, turning in an emotional effort and overcoming the loss of star tailback Steve Slaton to a first-quarter leg injury. Noel Devine replaced Slaton and ran for 108 yards and two touchdowns. a 17-yarder and a 65-yarder that clinched the game in the fourth quarter.
2009 — Unranked WVU 19, No. 8 Pitt 16
Los Angeles Times wire service
MORGANTOWN — Noel Devine rushed for 134 yards and Tyler Bitancurt kicked four field goals, including a 43-yarder as time expired, to lift West Virginia to a 19-16 win over No. 8 Pitt.
West Virginia (8-3, 5-2) halted Pitt’s five-game winning streak. The Panthers can still earn the Big East’s Championship Series spot with a win next week with a win against No 5 Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh was held out of the end zone on five drives inside the WVU 30 until Bill Stull found Jonathan Baldwin for a 50-yard touchdown toss with 2:54 left to tie the score.
That gave quarterback Jarrett Brown time to move West Virginia 42 yards into position for the winning field goal.
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