Two years ago, the West Virginia football team finished second in the Big East with a 6-1 record. Last year, it fell short of the top spot again, posting another 6-1 mark, and lost a tie-breaker to Miami that would have put it in the Bowl Championship Series.

This year, the No. 6 Mountaineers are salivating, close to winning what they have narrowly lost in back-to-back fall seasons – the Big East.

Under center for the third straight fall is Rasheed Marshall, barking out signals and running a high-octane offense (see: Kay-Jay Harris, Chris Henry) that has led WVU out of the gates and quickly off to a 4-0 start.

Following a 45-10 beating of James Madison, a win that head coach Rich Rodriguez called ‘unemotional and unenthusiastic,’ it is time for perhaps his team’s biggest test. Saturday at noon, WVU will visit Virginia Tech, its largest roadblock to an undefeated season.

‘Our guys will be ready and excited,’ Rodriguez said. ‘It will be a great challenge for us. Our challenge is tremendous, and we are going down to Blacksburg, which is one of the toughest places in the country to play.’

The goal has shifted for the Mountaineers. A depleted Big East will allow for a schedule without as many grueling challenges within the conference as in years past. In order to run the table and have the chance to play for the national title, however, WVU has to get through a trip to Blacksburg, Va., this weekend, and the Mountaineers have to do it behind Marshall.

Without a strong performance from Marshall, the senior captain, that task would be even more daunting. Marshall has more than 5,000 total career yards in the Mountaineers’ spread offense. Last year, the senior broke Michael Vick’s single-season Big East rushing record for quarterbacks. He has beaten the Hokies twice in his two games against them.

As a sophomore, Marshall quarterbacked a young team into Blacksburg and beat the third-ranked Hokies. Last year, West Virginia disposed of its interstate rival Virginia Tech, ranked 13th at the time, 28 -7. West Virginia will attempt to beat Tech for the third consecutive time, a feat it has not accomplished since 1985.

Marshall – ninth in the nation with a 169.1 passer rating – has been there before.

‘He has been very important to this program,’ Rodriguez said. ‘He has already graduated and is exactly what younger players can look up to.’

With a favorable schedule that has WVU traveling to UConn, Rutgers and Pittsburgh for the remainder of the season, WVU faces its toughest road trip this weekend. And don’t be fooled by Virginia Tech’s 2-2 record. Tech has allowed just 14.5 points per contest and a paltry 3.3 yards per carry.

Rodriguez said that it will be important for WVU to stay poised Saturday. He has no doubts about Marshall being ready for one of the biggest games of his career.

‘In some of our biggest games he has played his best football,’ Rodriguez said.

If you were watching college football last Saturday, you might have caught that 41-38 game between Pittsburgh and Furman. Pittsburgh, which trailed by 17 points at two different junctions, needed a 37-yard field goal from Josh Cummings in overtime to beat Furman. The score made fans do a double-take. While many may have been surprised, Pittsburgh head coach Walt Harris was not.

‘We knew they were a very good team coming in,’ Harris said.

So Furman – located in Greenville, S.C. – happens to be the second-ranked team in Division I-AA and has a quarterback – Ingle Martin – whose name might ring a bell. Martin was a versatile member of the Florida Gators for his first two collegiate seasons before transferring last fall.

Martin was a quarterback – 54-for-87 passing with 570 yards in his UF career – and also played wide receiver and punter.

Regardless of who Furman has, the question still seems obvious: Why were the Panthers matched up with the Paladins (a paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion) in non-conference action?

‘The Big East situation causes us to schedule a Division I-AA team,’ Harris said. ‘With those teams leaving, we needed an opponent. We wouldn’t have scheduled them otherwise. It’s a no-win situation, for sure.’

With his four touchdowns, 288 passing yards and a 73.5 completion percentage, Connecticut’s Dan Orlovsky earned Big East Offensive Player of the Week. For UConn, it marked the first time a Huskies player has ever received a weekly football award in the conference. … How bad have the Temple Owls gotten? Last Saturday, playing in the Glass Bowl against Toledo, the Owls led, 10-0. Still, they managed to lose, 45-17, to their Mid-American Conference counterparts. How bad were they? Five personal fouls in the second half and 97 yards of penalties. The Owls averaged less than four yards per play on offense and dropped to 1-3 on the season.

Published on September 28, 2004 at 12:00 pm