MORGANTOWN — For West Virginia players who played in last year’s game between Iowa State and the Mountaineers at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa, they won’t need much motivation heading into today’s 4 p.m. kickoff against the Cyclones in Morgantown.
“One thing’s for sure, if you’re not ready to play this game after what happened last year, you’re not going to be ready to play any game,” defensive end Reese Donahue said. “It’s a little bit of a personal agenda, not just because of the fact we lost, but because of how things were handled in the postgame. For me, this game means a whole lot, and I know for everybody that was there last year, it means a lot, as well.”
We’ll get to that in a bit, but here’s what happened that led into it: When the clock struck 0:00 last season, not only did the game come to an end with a 30-14 win for Iowa State, so ended any hope West Virginia had of reaching the College Football Playoff.
The Mountaineers had high expectations in 2018 with a senior dominant offense that could put up points in bunches, along with a quarterback who was smack-dab in the middle of the Heisman Trophy conversation in Will Grier.
WVU jumped out to a 5-0 record and was beating teams by an average of 22 points, reaching as high as No. 6 in the AP poll and sitting pretty in the CFP debates as one of the favorites to go unbeaten and represent the Big 12.
All of that came crashing down in Week 7 when the Mountaineers had to travel to Iowa State.
Ames is widely known as being a place where giants get knocked off — the Cyclones have made a habit out of beating highly ranked teams, especially at night. When the Big 12 announced the game would start at 7 p.m., WVU fans started to get that uneasy feeling.
All seemed well for the Mountaineers just after kickoff — after a Dravon Askew-Henry interception, Grier found his favorite red zone target, David Sills, for an 18-yard touchdown to jump out to a 7-0 lead.
It was all downhill from there.
True freshman quarterback Brock Purdy, who was making hist first-career start, was exceptional as the Cyclones scored 20-straight points and never looked back. David Montgomery had a career-high 189 rushing yards, but it was the Iowa State defense that was story of the game.
Grier finished with just 100 yards, easily his lowest output in his career at West Virginia. The Mountaineers’ only other touchdown was on a blocked field goal return by Derrick Pitts.
But it was what happened after the game that sticks with current Mountaineers — with the upset, fans poured over the walls and onto the field as soon as the game was over. Thousands of people stormed the field before WVU had a chance to get its players off.
Then-West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen voiced his displeasure after the game.
“It was very unprofessional. Our job is to keep student-athletes in a safe place and when you’ve got thousands of people coming at you, it’s not good,” he said. “There’s league rules and league bans against that for a reason. Our job is to keep players safe. We didn’t have time to get them off the field. That was not good. It was dicey there for a while. Luckily, we got out of there without getting anybody hurt.”
Donahue, a senior who started last season at Iowa State, remembers how hard it was to get off the field a year ago.
“Fans were running behind me screaming, guys were bumping into you and pushing you,” Donahue said. “Some people decided to say some ugly things to you. Some people come up and shake your hand and say ‘great game.’ It just depends on the people.”
Donahue was finally able to get off a field when he was pulled by someone else with the Mountaineers toward the locker room. Finally, the whole team was able to make it off the field without incident, but Donahue said the entire situation was “tough.”
Iowa State coach Matt Campbell didn’t share the same sentiment as Holgorsen for how his school handled the postgame celebration.
“Myself and a couple of our staff members, instead of celebrating, went over to make sure the West Virginia kids got off the field safely,” Campbell said. “Obviously, a moment of excitement for our fan base, but I thought our administration, and I know our coaching staff, made sure we did the No. 1 priority and the No. 1 priority is making sure those kids got off the field safely.”
Since it is against league rules to storm the field, Iowa State was fined $25,000.
Campbell is still at Iowa State, while Holgorsen is gone. But there are current Mountaineers who know what was lost last season in Ames. Though neither team has what last year’s WVU team had at stake a year ago, revenge is a dish bets served cold.
“They’re always courteous to us. It’s not a personal hate for their team,” Donahue said. “It’s just motivation for me, because I can’t stand how things turned out last year.”
