CBS SportsLine wire reports
Sept. 26, 1998
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- No. 19 West Virginia was worried its injury-depleted secondary wouldn't be able to keep up with Tulsa's pass-happy offense.
The Mountaineers' solution Saturday was to let Tulsa stop itself with turnovers and let tailback Amos Zereoue run wild.
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West Virginia forced six Tulsa turnovers, five of them in the first half, and Zereoue rushed for 192 yards and three touchdowns to lead West Virginia to a 44-21 victory.
Marc Bulger passed for 253 yards and two touchdowns for West Virginia (2-1). John Fitzgerald passed for two scores and Charlie Higgins rushed for 143 yards for Tulsa (2-1), which lost its bid to go 3-0 for the first time since 1978.
The Golden Hurricane offense, which was averaging 306.5 yards passing, managed just 228 against the Mountaineers.
"TULSA IS A PESKY BUNCH OF GUYS. Their offense will give you headaches. We're awful happy to have won this game, that's for sure," said West Virginia coach Don Nehlen.
Zereoue's touchdowns in the third quarter on runs of 32 and 11 yards helped West Virginia break away from a 20-14 halftime lead.
West Virginia's defense picked off two errant Fitzgerald passes in the first half. The Mountaineers got a third interception in its own end zone when Tulsa kicker Bryan Archibald took a botched field goal snap and threw it up for grabs in the second quarter. The turnover led to one of Jay Taylor's two second-quarter field goals for West Virginia.
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West Virginia's Amos Zereoue rumbled for 192 yards and three
touchdowns against Tulsa on Saturday.
(AP)
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"Anytime you play a good team and cough up the ball, they'll make you pay. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times today," Fitzgerald said.
Zereoue's first touchdown, an 18-yard run in the first quarter, gave West Virginia a 7-0 lead that Tulsa answered with a 13-yard touchdown pass from Fitzgerald to Wes Caswell.
Taylor's field goals of 22 and 40 yards gave West Virginia a 13-7 second-quarter lead before Tulsa went up 14-13 on Fitzgerald's 8-yard pass to Damon Savage.
BULGER GAVE WEST VIRGINIA THE LEAD for good with a 1-yard pass to Shawn Foreman over Tulsa's Marshall Gordon in the corner of the end zone with seven seconds remaining in the half. West Virginia, which already had used its timeouts, drove 60 yards on nine plays in 1:14 for the go-ahead touchdown.
"We needed that score," said West Virginia linebacker Barrett Green. ``If not, they were going into the locker room with the lead."
Up 26-14 after Zereoue's second touchdown and a failed 2-point attempt, West Virginia went up 34-14 on a 14-yard pass from Bulger to David Saunders. Tulsa set up the score with another critical turnover when on fourth-and-1 from its 30, Golden Hurricane coach Dave Rader decided to go for the first down instead of punt. Fitzgerald fumbled the snap on a quarterback sneak and West Virginia recovered at the Tulsa 26.
"The turning point was a bad call by the head coach -- going for it on fourth down," Rader said. "I shouldn't have put our team in that kind of position."