MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For the first time since 1992, Penn State comes to Morgantown for a big college football debut for the season. Joining us is Joe Ruth, former West Virginia star, a captain on the 92 team and a former Shenandoah coach. When you left Shenandoah and you came back to Shenandoah, How did you come back a changed man from this experience?
I was very fortunate. I was able to, uh, play for Don Neil and who was a Hall of Fame coach and, you know, just the, the lessons that he installed. No, not just myself, but the team, uh, really helped me and that's what really helped establish my program because a lot of the principles that he taught us that he believed with the keys to the game was what I instilled in my team and my players.
You were on that 88 team, maybe the best team in West Virginia history played for a national championship major. Harris was a quarterback, put a 50 burger on Penn State. You were young and then, but what do you remember from that squad?
Penn State game? I'll never forget, you know, Don Deon wasn't even get get his, uh, his, uh, pregame speech out because the stadium was rocking so much. I think he got two words out of his and we just kind of ran him over to get onto the field. So that was another electrical day. And hopefully we have similar, you know, tomorrow for West Virginia that was, you know, a game that, you know, kind of circled on the calendar and, you know, you, you prep for, you worked for it and it was just great, you know, and so again, it was sad that it had to go away.
But I, I'm just glad we had these last couple of years and it's just, you know, with the, with the landscape of football now, that's just the, you know, the, these rivalries are going away. So to get a chance like this, you know, we're gonna try to make the best of it tomorrow and state scored a late touchdown in the final seconds last season. Does that bother you?
Yeah, it does. You know, just again, I, I was always, when I tried to, when I coached just, you know, coaching the etiquette and stuff like that. Uh, the, the reason Franklin gave, I, I didn't really quite bit, but regardless at the end of the game, they made the plays, they were a better team. They won, so they certainly can't really be really sour grapes. I mean, I just, something I wouldn't have done, but nonetheless, they made the plays when they had to and they were the better team.
Mountaineers will have another chance to rectify things. A great Saturday noon kickoff, West Virginia and Penn State. First time since 92 in Mountaineer Field.