Bitancurt’s last-second field goal wins it for WVU

By Bob Hertzel

MORGANTOWN — The calendar said it was the night after Thanksgiving, but it would have been far more fitting if had been Halloween Eve, for this was the night when West Virginia University exorcised all the goblins, chased away the witches and ghouls that had been haunting it for two years.

With one mighty swing of his right leg, place-kicker Tyler Bitancurt sent a 43-yard field goal sailing through the uprights with the clock showing 0:00 to give West Virginia a 19-16 victory over Backyard Brawl rival Pitt.

While the game had no implications in the Big East race, No. 9 Pitt still being able to claim the championship if it upsets No. 5 Cincinnati at home next Saturday, it had huge implications for the Mountaineers, who now have a strong shot at 10-victory season and a spot in the Gator Bowl, should Notre Dame lose to Stanford today.

Even more important, WVU finally had the signature victory it needed under Stewart, who had not really won a big game until this one … and he did it in heart-stopping fashion, needing running back Noel Devine to break an 88-yard touchdown run and each and every one of Bitancurt’s four field goals.

The irony of it all was that Stewart left himself open to severe second-guessing when he bypassed chances at two field goals that would have given him the lead early in the game, one which would have been nothing but an extra point.

When that play from the Pitt 2 failed, they began heating the tar and gathering the feathers outside Mountaineer Field.

Why would Stewart not kick that field goal, especially with a place-kicker who has missed only once all season?

“I wanted to win,” Stewart said. “I didn’t want to kick field goals against the No. 8 team in the country.”

The explanation sound quite hollow when you consider he wound up kicking four of them, which totals 12 points, as many as you get with two touchdowns.

To understand what took place here, perhaps it is best to look at this game in reverse and begin at the end, for at that point the score was tied at 16-16, Pitt just having scored on 50-yard pass play from Bill Stull to his stud receiver, Jonathan Baldwin, when the Mountaineers blew a Cover 2 coverage.

A key scramble by quarterback Jarrett Brown got the ball to edge of Bitancurt’s range.

The field goal team gathered on the sideline. Stewart didn’t so much as look at Bitancurt.

“I did not say a word to him,” he said. “I looked at everyone but him. I looked at the snapper. I snapped when I played. No one else would do it.”

The field goal team ran onto the field and lined up, but Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt called time out to ice Bitancurt. The problem is you can’t ice someone with ice water running through his veins.

Some of his teammates were offering him encouragement, and he said that was important. More important was what had gone on whenever there was kicking practice all season long.

“I’ve been in his ear since Day 1,” said senior linebacker Reed Williams, playing his final game at Mountaineer Field.

“Reed is one of the smartest guys on this team, so how could I argue with that?” Bitancurt said. “First time he did I was thinking, ‘What is he doing yelling at me?’ But it’s only made me tougher. I mean, sometimes he’d be saying such funny things that I would shoot the ball right because I was laughing while I was kicking.”

This time there was nothing to laugh at.

The ball was snapped and he kicked.

“I couldn’t watch,” said Brown, the quarterback.

“I fell to my knees,” said offensive lineman Selvish Capers.

It was the perfect position for a prayer to be answered, for the kick was true and Bitancurt was swamped at midfield.

“I thought I broke my sternum. I couldn’t breathe,” he said.

We must go back further, though, to understand how we reached this point in time.

In the third quarter Pitt had just kicked a field goal to tie the game at 6-6.

The call came down from the press box — not from the media, but from the coaches — for WVU to run a trap with Devine carrying. It was a play they had tried earlier and Devine had tried to bounce it outside and running back coach Chris Beatty had told him the next time not to bounce it.

“Woody Hayes, Frank Kush, Don Nehlen … they run the trap. No one runs it today. I’m probably the only one who calls it. You’re looking at a genius,” Stewart said, laughing at his own joke.

The joke was on Pitt, for Devine broke loose at the line of scrimmage.

“I closed my eyes, heard the crowd and I looked up and said, ‘He’s out!’” Stewart said.

“Noel got up on the safety, made a move and was gone. It was foot race, and you know what happens when Noel gets in a foot race,” Brown said.

What happens is someone else loses. In this case it was Pitt, who had bottled Devine up two and a half games to that point.

In fact, in those two and a half games Devine had gained only 69 yards against Pitt, but that figure jumped by 88 yards and 6 points as the Mountaineers had the lead.

Devine finished the game with 134 yards on 17 carries, offsetting the 155 yards on 26 carries Pitt’s freshman sensation Dion Lewis put on the board.

The Mountaineers finish off the regular season at Rutgers next Saturday.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.