Published: December 07, 2008 02:50 am      

COLUMN: White gets assist in final home victory

MORGANTOWN — Early on, while the burgers were sizzling on the grill and the best way to tell whether your Coors Light was cold enough was to see if your lips, not the mountains, had turned blue, the snow came tumbling out of the West Virginia sky.

Roads were so slick that just getting to Mountaineer Field was more treacherous than negotiating through the South Florida defense. The green plastic grass was covered with a thin layer of snow, into which someone had carved out with a shovel a huge No. 5 at mid-field, a tribute to the greatest quarterback in West Virginia University’s history.

It was hardly a lasting tribute, for a half hour later a snow-removal machine reluctantly erased the number as it cleared the field, just as the South Florida defense spent the entire night trying to erase the flesh blood No. 5 in the white uniform on his final game on this field.

If the world were a perfect place, this would have been Patrick White’s night. He would have rushed for more than the 247 yards he recorded in his finest game against Syracuse. He would have matched those five touchdowns he threw against Villanova in this year’s opener.

And, just for kicks, he would have booted the game’s winning field goal even though he is not a field goal kicker.

That’s what the crowd of 48,019 was waiting for. It was a rather paltry turnout on such a momentous night, but there was the frigid weather, the snow, the traffic problems and as boring a WVU offense as has been seen in these parts in a long, long time, .

They had to settle for less, simply a 13-7 victory.

White had his moments, to be sure, the best of which came on the first drive as the Mountaineers took the football down to the South Florida 12. White took the snap and rolled out to his right, then suddenly pulled up and threw the ball back across the field, finding tight end Tyler Urban, who took it and struggled into the left corner of the end zone.

This was historic in more ways than just being White’s final touchdown pass at Mountaineer Field, for it created not only the 100th touchdown he was responsible for in his career, but made him the first man in Big East history to surpass 10,000 yards of total offense.

To understand just how much yardage that is, consider that it takes an Olympic runner a half an hour to run that far. It took White almost four full years to reach the plateau.

Rather than being a night for White to cherish — although it was a night that he will forever remember — it really belonged to safety Sidney Glover, who has quietly become the heart and soul of the defense in his first season, and to senior kicker/punter Pat McAfee.

We will begin with McAfee, seeing as this was his last dance and he made quite an adventure of it. He somehow managed to get off a 69-yard punt — you read that right — while being roughed in his own end zone. He then drew yet another roughing the punter penalty, earning another first down.

But try as they might, the Mountaineers’ impotent offense could turn neither into scores, so McAfee took it upon himself to kick two field goals, one from 42 yards, another from 45, to provide the margin of the 13-7 victory.

The stamp of victory, however, was provided by Glover, a sophomore who has moved in at safety and filled the void left by the departure of Ryan Mundy and Eric Wicks from last year.

Glover stole the spotlight, just as he stole the ball and the ball game away from South Florida, personally putting an end to a pair of scoring threats.

The first came in the initial quarter when the South Florida bulled its way down to the WVU 5. They handed the ball to Mike Ford, a running back whom they had been trying to strip of the ball on each of his previous carries.

This time Glover got his mitts on the football and ripped it from his grasp just before he went down to the ground. The play survived a review and WVU had the football.

Then, late in the first half, South Florida again drove down into the WVU red zone. The crowd now had gone so quiet that all you could hear were the teeth chattering. Quarterback Matt Grothe, who in the same game became the second man to surpass 10,000 yards of total yardage, faded to pass.

He spotted a receiver breaking open and tried to hit him, but Glover, trailing the play, accelerated and leaped high, making a two-handed interception that again left South Florida with an empty feeling.

The defense, heroic all season in the wake of an offensive shutdown, made the lead stand up, having one final stand as Grothe’s final fourth-down pass fell incomplete in the end zone on the game’s next-to-last play.

Following the game, the hearty fans who remained were treated not only to off-key chorus of “Country Roads”, but to a victory lap by their favorite, Patrick White, who rode around the stadium in a golf cart, carrying with him his 14 for 23 for 141 yards and a touchdown passing night and 14 carries for 40 yards rushing.

It was a fitting tribute, but they should have made room for the entire defense, or at least the heroic Glover.

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