WVU @ RUTGERS 10/27/07

It had been raining constantly for the last 3 days prior to the game. Game day morning, it is still raining. We decided to head down to the game anyway, however we didn't arrive till halfway through the 1st quarter. On the way down the rain continually pelted the car and would not let up. Usually a very pleasant ride turned into a frustrating ride, straining to see and water splashing up from the other vehicles added on to the situation. After an hour ride that turned into a two hour ride we arrived at Rutgers Stadium.

When arriving at the stadium we quickly got our things together and headed in. We had excellent seats section 107 row 1 and right on the end. We where sitting behind WVU's bench but more towards the end of the bench. When we sat down the game was already 14-0 by this point and that was the tone of the day.

(White having fun at end of game.)
As the rain continued through the first half the game was getting intense. Rutgers had driven into WVU redzone a few times but a couple of dropped touchdown passes, turned into an Ito field goal. West Virginia answered right back to make the score 17-3 right before the half. Coming out to begin the second half Rutgers held WVU in check for some of the 3rd quarter. Then QB Pat White engineered a couple of beautiful drives. Starting off with a pass to the flat to Owen Schmidt he leaped a RU defender and jaunted down field picking up a quick 20 yards. After a couple of penalties and a long 3rd down they converted by throwing a short pass to Slaton and he quickly turned it into a 51 yard completion. It set up a easy Slaton score off left end. Now pushing the gap to 24-3, by then the RU faithful had started leaving in a mass exodus. Rutgers managed to get inside WVU's redzone twice but turned the ball over on a couple of Mike Teel interceptions. After stopping them the first time in the redzone early in the 4th quarter WVU drove the ball 66 yards into the endzone, mostly behind the legs of Pat White gaining 50 yards on one attempt leading to a Slaton 6 yard score. That would result in a final score of 31-3.

(Slaton being gang tackled.)
The game came across as one team being dominated physically. RU didn't have an answer for White either as he piled up 300 total yards (144 passing, 156 rushing) as a team they gained 254 yards on the ground. Rutgers Ray Rice had another great outing though 142 yards on 30 carries but was not able to reach the endzone, mostly because they where trying to score quickly through the air. Rutgers suffered their 3rd loss of the season and now are 5-3 and 2-2 in the Big East. West Virginia is now 7-1 and 2-1 in conference play.

(A trio of WVU players.)
As a result of going to the game, we have a few pictures from the game. You can find a few more on the link given here.

http://bleedblueandwhite2.blogspot.com