By MIKE CASAZZA
Charleston Gazette-Mail
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia didn’t get a bowl game reunion so many of its fans wanted, but there will be a familiar foe across the field on Dec. 28.
Faced with the possibility of reigniting the Backyard Brawl earlier than normal, seeing Virginia Tech in back-to-back games or combating Heisman Trophy candidate Lamar Jackson and Louisville, the 14th-ranked Mountaineers (10-2, 7-2 Big 12) will instead face Miami (8-4, 5-3 ACC) in the Russell Athletic Bowl.
“I know there’s a lot of history with West Virginia and Miami just going back to the Big East days, but that’s way before my time,” Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen said. “I’m going to have to get educated on the former matchups and all that.”
The 5:30 p.m. game will be played at Camping World Stadium, in Orlando, Florida, and be televised by ESPN.
WVU was the third team picked out of the Big 12. No. 7 Oklahoma, which finished seventh in the final College Football Playoff ranking, will play in the Sugar Bowl as the conference champion. No. 13 Oklahoma State was claimed by the Alamo Bowl.
Those are the only two teams to beat WVU this season, and the Mountaineers, who had never been better than the fifth pick in the Big 12’s bowl order, finished No. 16 in the CFP.
“For the life me, I can’t figure out how we’re ranked 16th,” Holgorsen said. “I haven’t commented on this, but I will now. It’s amazing. We’ve got two losses to two top-10 teams. There are other schools that have two and three losses that are ahead of us that don’t have losses to two top-10 schools.
“I don’t get how that is. Doesn’t make any sense to me. This team has fought hard. Maybe we win too ugly. At the end of the day, I thought it was about winning football games, and we’ve won 10.”
Holgorsen said he didn’t want to mention that during the season. Now that the regular season is over and WVU has just the ninth 10-win season in 125 years of football, Holgorsen believes his team should have been given more consideration for one of the New Year’s Six games because “a team that has the wins we have usually goes to those games.”
In the CFP ranking, the Mountaineers trail five teams with fewer wins and seven teams with more losses. Yet they’re 0-1 against ranked teams. The Sooners were No. 8 when they beat then-No. 10 WVU, 56-28. Oklahoma State was unranked when it won 38-21 against then-No. 10 WVU, but the Cowboys were ranked as high as No. 10 later in the season.
The 10 teams WVU beat this season have a combined record of 57-64. Only BYU (8-4) and Kansas State (8-4) and the Football Championship Subdivision’s Youngstown State (10-3) have a winning record.
The Mountaineers held nine of 12 opponents to 21 points or less but also scored 26 or fewer points six times.
“Somehow the committee doesn’t like us, because somehow we win ugly,” said Holgorsen, who is 46-30 as WVU’s coach. “That’s my opinion. I’ll probably get in trouble for it. Somebody won’t like it. I don’t care. I don’t understand how you can have two-loss teams that have bad losses and how you can have three-loss teams that have bad losses (ahead of WVU) yet we have two losses, both to top-10 teams. I don’t get it.”
The Russell Athletic had the third pick from the ACC. Clemson, which won the conference championship game, went to the CFP and the Fiesta Bowl. The Orange then picked first and selected No. 10 Florida State and the Citrus then took No. 15 Louisville. The Russell Athletic was able to choose from anyone else, including a few of WVU’s former Big East rivals like No. 22 Pitt and No. 18 Virginia Tech.
The Panthers are headed to the Pinstripe Bowl. The Hokies, who lost to Clemson in the ACC title game in Orlando and who open the 2017 season against the Mountaineers, will play in the Belk Bowl.
The Mountaineers nevertheless have an old Big East nemesis in the Hurricanes. This will be the 20th matchup, and Miami leads the series, dormant since 2003, 16-3.
“We’ll be down there in droves, I can assure you of that,” Holgorsen said. “If this hasn’t rekindled it, it will pretty quickly. I know it’s going to be fantastic for the bowl game and what it’s all about to have a matchup like this where everyone can be excited about it. This one won’t let anybody down.”
Miami, in its first season with former Georgia coach Mark Richt, started 4-0 and was ranked No. 10 before losing four straight games and now winning the past four games. The Hurricanes are one of the nation’s most-penalized teams and rank No. 13 in scoring defense and No. 35 in scoring offense.
“The Russell Athletic Bowl will be an outstanding opportunity for our team,” Richt said. “Orlando is a fantastic city, has a great stadium and will provide a tremendous challenge to compete against a quality opponent like West Virginia.”
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