Tuesday, October 07, 2003

By Paul Meyer, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Some people thought West Virginia, which almost pulled off a huge upset at Miami last Thursday night, might have caught the four-touchdown favorite Hurricanes looking ahead to their game against Florida State.

	West Virginia tailback Kay-Jay Harris runs away from Miami's D.J. Williams on an 83-yard touchdown reception last Thursday. (Steve Mitchell, Associated Press) Click photo for larger image.

The question now is, will the Mountaineers, favored by almost three touchdowns against Rutgers in Morgantown Saturday, get caught looking back to their morale-boosting near-miss in the Orange Bowl?

That thought must have occurred to coach Rich Rodriguez.

"Beginning [today], we want to make sure all of our attention is focused strictly on Rutgers," Rodriguez said yesterday. "We don't want any of our players to talk about the Miami game. We don't want any of our coaches to talk about the Miami game.

"Rutgers is a much-improved team. Our players know that. And our coaches know that."

Still, it was acceptable for Rodriguez to look back at the Miami game yesterday -- for the final time.

"It was disappointing," he said. "We had an opportunity to do something very few teams have done -- beat Miami in the Orange Bowl. We were just a few seconds away from doing that.

"We played to the end. But so did they."

The last-minute details are quite familiar by now.

The Mountaineers, still stinging from a 34-7 meltdown at Maryland Sept. 20 that dropped them to 1-3, got a break at Miami when safety Adam Jones recovered a fumble with 3 1/2 minutes remaining.

West Virginia, trailing, 19-13 at the time, turned that into Quincy Wilson's spectacular "run-over-them, jump-over-them" 33-yard touchdown reception on a screen pass from Rasheed Marshall with two minutes left.

But Miami, which received an incredible game-saving catch from tight end Kellen Winslow on a fourth-and-13 play, drove 66 yards and won the game, 22-20, on freshman Jon Peattie's 23-yard field goal with 11 seconds remaining.

Thus, Miami escaped with its 37-game regular-season winning streak intact.

"It hurts because our young men gave a great effort and a lot of people were down on us and down on our young men, questioning a lot of things we were doing," Rodriguez said. "But our guys never quit believing in themselves and believing in what we're doing.

"You could tell during the trip and during the [pregame] warmup, our guys were extremely focused. They wanted to prove themselves on national television -- and to some extent they did that."

And yet West Virginia lost. And Miami won.

As Hurricanes offensive tackle Eric Winston said. "We played badly, but we won. It's a lot better than playing well and losing."

Rodriguez believe his young team regained some confidence at Miami.

"But you get most of your confidence back when you win."

Toward that end, perhaps the Mountaineers toted a few building blocks back to Morgantown from Miami.

Their young, rebuilt offensive line -- which includes two redshirt freshmen and a redshirt sophomore -- went helmet-to-helmet with Miami's defensive line.

"We didn't dominate, but certainly we held our own," Rodriguez said. "The intensity level and the 'letting it loose' was much better."

Jones, making his first start of the season in place of injured safety Jahmile Addae, had 12 tackles, including nine solo efforts, recovered that fumble late in the game and made an interception just before halftime that kept the score tied, 10-10.

"I thought he competed very well," Rodriguez said. "He made some plays on them. From a competitive standpoint and who he was matched up against [mostly Winslow], he played about as well as we could expect."

Tailback Kay-Jay Harris, who appears ready to take on an expanded role in the offense, had an 83-yard reception that set up Wilson's 2-yard touchdown run in the first quarter and rushed five times for 28 yards.

"He's getting more comfortable in our one-back set and our two-back set," Rodriguez said of Harris, a junior college transfer who played three seasons in the Texas Rangers organization. "He's got the ability, and he's learning. He's an older guy, and we thought his learning curve would be steeper [than that of younger players].

"He's been outstanding on special teams. Hopefully, he'll give us another playmaker in our offensive backfield."

Paul Meyer can be reached at 412-263-1144.

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