Published: November 08, 2009 04:45 am      

HERTZEL COLUMN: Miller provides WVU defense with late lift

MORGANTOWN — There comes a time in a football season when a player emerges from the pack and shows himself to be something special, rising above the expectations the coaches, his teammates, the fans and even he had for himself.

It is not a moment that he can predict, nor one that is based on anything but fate, for it grows out of circumstance.

For whatever reason, fate points its boney finger in one man’s direction, puts him on the spot, then leans back against the wall and watches to see how he reacts.

So it was as Louisville took over the football with 2 minutes and 24 seconds left to play on a sundrenched Mountaineer Saturday, West Virginia clinging not to the game, but to its entire season, by a 17-9 score.

The Cardinals had the football at their own 41, picked up a first down at the WVU 42 and had its wounded opponent staggering on the ropes. Already running back Noel Devine was out of the game offensively with an ankle sprain and defensively nose guard Chris Neild and defensive tackle Scooter Berry were out.

It was, as they say, crunch time.

“When it’s crunch time, it’s go time,” Julian Miller would say later, cleanly showered and basking in the spotlight of victory. “This is what we’re here for. This is what you lick your chops for.”

A first-year starter, he has been mostly “that other guy” on the defensive line, one where Berry and Neild are the experienced stars. But Miller, long and angular, gives them something they haven’t had and desperately need, a pass rusher off the corner.

Now, with the seconds ticking off the clock, with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh waiting in the wings, it was time to turn it all loose.

Louisville had run and run, surpassing 200 yards on the ground, giving the ball over and over to Darius Ashley, who carried 33 times after having carried only 31 times in his entire career. Now, though, it was time to ditch the running game and put it on 5-foot, 10-inch quarterback Will Stein’s shoulders.

On first down, he faded to pass and Miller was on him like a German shepherd on Alpo.

He had nowhere to go and was sacked for a 4-yard loss.

Second and 14, time to pass again. This time Miller was there almost before Stein got to his spot in the pocket. Stein twisted. Stein turned, but this Miller had him like a grizzly hanging onto a wiggling salmon.

It was dinner time again.

Two plays. Two sacks. Minus 14 yards.

Stein tried to pass again and once more Miller was there, just short of a third straight sack as Stein threw incomplete.

“If I wasn’t so winded, I’d of gotten him again,” Miller said.

Fate had picked him out. He was the man who had to take the defense on his back and he did it, finishing the game with three sacks and a reputation of being the man who can get the job done in the future.

“A matter of will,” was what Miller called his performance, which brought the sophomore up to 8.5 sacks for the season as he closes in on territory previously reserved for such WVU sack masters as Canute Curtis, Renaldo Turnbull and Gary Stills.

Miller had noticed all game that the guard and tackle on his side had been setting up to run block, not pass block, and as the game got down into its closing minutes he was ready to take advantage of it, flashing past them with speed they had not seen and with a fury that he could only feel.

In truth, the performance by the West Virginia defense wasn’t probably as strong as it would appear, for Louisville has lost all of the offensive flair it had under Coach Bobby Petrino back when this looked as if it would be one of the great rivalries in college football.

The Cardinals have become unimaginative in their approach, one-dimensional in their philosophy.

They lack playmakers and therefore have been unable to make plays … and they outgained WVU, which tells you just how miserable a day the offense had.

The fact is, that West Virginia was once as good as its offense but it now is as good as its defense.

They lost to South Florida a week ago not because the offense struggled, which it did, but because the defense failed. The USF loss came about because B.J. Daniels, the quarterback, baffled them.

Now Cincinnati is next and make no doubt that if WVU is going to beat them, it will have to be because the defense finds a way to control Brian Kelly’s offense.

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