College Football Notes : Game Is For More Than Bragging Rights

From Morgantown, W.Va., to Pittsburgh, they call it “The Back Yard Brawl.� But Saturday’s game between the ninth-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers and the 10th-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers has an interesting subplot.

Each team’s starting quarterback grew up in the other school’s back yard. Heisman Trophy candidate Major Harris of West Virginia lived in the shadows of Pitt Stadium, and Alex Van Pelt spent most of his childhood in Mountaineers country before moving to San Antonio, Texas, while in high school.

Saturday night’s game, scheduled for Mountaineer Field, is perhaps the most nationally significant meeting these regional rivals have had in a while. And the unbeaten starts of both teams are somewhat surprising, considering the preseason expectations.

“The biggest difference between this year and last year is that we expect to win every game now,� said Harris, who lost his entire offensive line from last year’s Sunkist Fiesta Bowl team that was beaten by Notre Dame for the national championship. “We have the confidence that we can come back, no matter how much we’re down.�

West Virginia (4-0) has shown that twice this season on the road, erasing a 10-0 halftime deficit at Maryland Sept. 9 to win, 14-10, and coming back with 14 fourth-quarter points Saturday to win at Louisville, 30-21.

Van Pelt led the Panthers to a heart-stopping, 30-23 win Saturday at home over Syracuse. Van Pelt, a redshirt freshman who was thrust into the starting lineup when Darnell Dickerson was declared ineligible academically, completed 25 of 32 passes for 306 yards against the Orangemen.

“The thing this victory does is that it not only opens other people’s eyes, but it gets us to believe in ourselves,� said Van Pelt, who has completed 51 of 67 passes for 659 yards and four touchdowns.

Van Pelt has brought the Panthers back to the national spotlight for the first time since 1984, the last time Pitt was in the top 10. The Panthers are 3-0 for the first time since 1982, Dan Marino’s senior year.

Since 1984, the program has a 27-26-3 record. Its last postseason appearance was at the 1984 Bluebonnet Bowl, which went belly-up right after the game and never paid off.

A month ago, Wes Swinford was a walk-on freshman linebacker at Kansas whose only experience was playing eight-man football in his hometown of Morrison, Okla.

Then, Swinford became a starter for the Jayhawks.

Saturday, Swinford’s jersey -- No. 48 -- will be retired during halftime ceremonies of the Kansas-Oklahoma game. “Gee, I only wore it three weeks and they’re going to retire it?� said Swinford. “I must be doing something right.�

Actually, the only thing Swinford did right in this situation was pick the number worn by Gale Sayers, a former Kansas All-American. Swinford will switch to 58, starting against the Sooners.

“Really, it’s a privilege,� said Swinford. “It will probably mean a lot more to me later in life because I was the last one to wear it.�

Speaking of the Sooners (2-1), new head coach Gary Gibbs took a shot at predecessor Barry Switzer when asked about the personality and team unity this year.

“We don’t have many egos,� said Gibbs, who might go with redshirt freshman quarterback Tink Collins against the Jayhawks.

Jerry Berndt can’t seem to get away from coaching a pitiful team of Owls. In his last two years at Rice, the Owls lost 18 straight games. Now at Temple, Berndt’s new Owls have lost four straight.

Which means a coach, not a school (Kansas State, with 16 in a row), has the nation’s longest losing streak. “I have felt better,� said Berndt, who during his first coaching stay in Philadelphia won four Ivy League titles in five years at Penn.

Things have gone downhill since the second offensive series of Temple’s season opener, a 31-24 defeat at Western Michigan. That’s when starting quarterback Matt Baker went out for the season with a badly separated shoulder.

“I still feel we’re a better team than we’ve shown,� said Berndt, whose team has been outscored, 139-30, and is a 41-point underdog against the Houston Cougars in the Astrodome.

The 14th-ranked Cougars, using a run-and-shoot offense under Jack Pardee, set school, conference and national records in a 36-7 win last week over Arizona State.

Behind junior quarterback Andre Ware, the Cougars gained 744 yards of total offense, including 632 passing. Houston quarterbacks set a National Collegiate Athletic Association record with 79 pass attempts and fell three short of the mark with 47 completions.

Consider, too, that the Cougars were penalized 23 times for 236 yards, both just short of NCAA records. “It was pretty unbelievable,� said Pardee. “Ware executed the offense like we drew it up on the blackboard.�

Said Ware, who broke his Southwest Conference records for completions (41) and yards passing (503), “I played like crap.� He threw four interceptions and missed several open receivers.

At least one member of the Arizona State team didn’t seem impressed. Asked to describe Houston, safety Nathan LaDuke said, “Classless. There were a lot of cheap shots and talking.�

Houston linebacker Reggie Burnett, who knocked out Arizona State quarterback Kurt Lasher, defended his team’s style of play. “We’re just a real aggressive team defensively, and sometimes we get close calls that could go either way. We’re not a renegade team that tries to hurt people with late hits.�

Quote of the week: “You think, ‘How can anyone throw six interceptions?’ Think about it. Six. That’s a big stat. I’ve seen guys on TV throw five, six interceptions and I’ve thought, ‘That guy is terrible.’ Now I’ve done it myself.� -- Missouri quarterback Kent Kiefer after his team lost, 38-7, last week to Miami.