Mountaineers' rise started in Norman

By Berry Tramel

Published: December 28, 2007

PHOENIX — A quarter century later, Don Nehlen doesn't remember that much about his trip to Oklahoma's Owen Field. He remembers the trip home.

West Virginia spanked the Sooners 41-27 in a stunning 1982 season opener, and when Nehlen's Mountaineers flew back to Pittsburgh and motored down to Morgantown, they were met at the West Virginia line by state police. The sirened escort delivered the team buses to campus, where more than 10,000 fans awaited in the parking lot.

West Virginia has played for a national championship and would have played for another this year if not for Pitt's upset four weeks ago. But some would say Mountaineer football arrived with that return 25 years ago from a Norman conquest.

"Big victory for us,” said Nehlen, who coached West Virginia to 149 victories in 21 years before retiring after the 2000 season.

OU and West Virginia meet again Wednesday in the Fiesta Bowl. Both are perennial top-10 contenders. The Sooners have enjoyed such status for much of the last 60 years. But in 1982, West Virginia was a sleepy little program in the Allegheny Mountains, with a solid coaching history (Bobby Bowden, Jim Carlen) but no tradition to speak of.

West Virginia had lost to arch-rival Pitt six straight years. The Mountaineers hadn't beaten another annual foe, Penn State, since 1955.

But Nehlen was building the Mountaineers, who had beaten Florida in the 1981 Peach Bowl. And he had a new quarterback, Jeff Hostetler, a transfer from Penn State.

Hostetler came into the OU game virtually unknown. He left it a star. Hostetler played one of the great quarterback games in Owen Field history. He constantly bombarded the Sooner secondary with deep balls; six completions went for at least 30 yards, and the Mountaineers stunned the ninth-ranked Sooners.

"Jeff Hostetler threw the ball downtown a whole bunch of times,” said Jackie Shipp, then an OU linebacker and now the Sooners' defensive interior coach. "That game got him on the national map.”

Hostetler, of course, went on to lead the New York Giants to victory in Super Bowl 25. But his coming-out party was on a hot, windy day in Norman eight years earlier.

The Oklahoman's Tim Cowlishaw wrote, "The shotgun arm of Jeff Hostetler, an anonymous figure until 1:30 yesterday afternoon but never to be again, riddled an Oklahoma secondary for 321 yards...”

But Jim Weeks, my old sports editor at the Norman Transcript, focused more on what OU fans were saying that day: "Yes, (West) Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. It wears red and is called OU's pass defense.”

Two years earlier, Stanford's John Elway had scissored the Sooner defense in a 31-14 upset of OU. But even as a college sophomore, you could tell Elway was something extra special.

The Sooner defense got no such waiver after the West Virginia mugging. It's a knock that follows OU defenses even to this day.

"We were very disappointed our defense gave up that many points,” said Merv Johnson, then OU's assistant head coach and now its director of football operations.” That quarterback later showed us how good he was. He came in as little bit of a guy nobody knew much about.”

In the first quarter, OU corralled Hostetler early, and the wishbone was in high gear. The Sooners rushed for 168 yards in the first quarter and led 14-0.

"They probably had more good players than we did,” Nehlen said. "We were in the infancy of building this program.”

But in the second quarter, West Virginia blocked Michael Keeling's 34-yard field goal attempt, and the Mountaineers got a field goal of their own, with 6:05 left in the half. That ignited maybe the most amazing six minutes any opponent ever played at Owen Field.

Hostetler's 52-yard bomb to Rich Hollins set up a touchdown pass with 3:55 left, then Hostetler's 49-yarder to Willie Drewery set up another field goal, this one with 13 seconds left in the quarter.

Hostetler kept throwing deep, and West Virginia's receivers — whom Nehlen feared wouldn't be fast enough to get open — kept winning the battles.

"We broke out a new quarterback they didn't know about,” Nehlen said. "He turned out to be a pretty good player for us. I knew he was a talented guy; 6-(foot)-3, 220 pounds. Could run. Smart as the devil.”

Hostetler was so good, he made his coach — and eventual father-in-law — feel safe to gamble. Down 14-13 with 13 seconds left in the half, Nehlen ordered an onside kick. The Mountaineers recovered all the way down at the OU 33-yard line, then gambled again.

Hostetler, smoking hot like the quarterbacks do in this century but rarely did in the '80s, threw deep once more. Darrell Miller hauled in the 33-yard scoring pass, and West Virginia inexplicably led 20-14 at halftime.

The second half was more of the same. Hostetler threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Curlin Beck, then threw 42 yards to Wayne Brown, setting up Hostetler's fourth TD toss, breaking a 27-27 tie.

Finally, burned so often deep, the run opened, and Beck dashed 43 yards for the clinching touchdown in the final three minutes.

West Virginia football soared. The Mountaineers went 9-2 and made the Gator Bowl. In 1984, they beat Penn State for the first time in almost 30 years. In 1988, they went 11-0 and played Notre Dame in a Fiesta Bowl national championship game. They have played in three Sugar Bowls and finished in the top 10 four times. They have a magnificent stadium and a superb fan base.

Just-departed coach Rich Rodriguez built upon the fortunes of Nehlen, who built upon a little-known quarterback who came to Oklahoma 25 years ago and changed the course of Mountaineer football.

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