Then, later that spring, seven key members of the Southern Conference - Clemson, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, Duke, NC State and Wake Forest - announced at the league meetings held at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, that they were leaving immediately.
You almost had to die to get out of the game.” “The NCAA changed the rules and 10 of those kids couldn’t play. “We go into our second year in 1953 and we’ve got 21 of 22 starters back,” Wyant once recalled. Some of those impacted, such as safety Bob Snider, linebacker Don Wilson and defensive back Bill Jarrett, excelled specifically on defense and were relegated to the bench in 1953 because the players in front of them were considered much better offensive players. Lewis had taken great advantage of the two-platoon system by developing two fully intact units of offensive and defensive players. The first occurred in January of that year when the NCAA abolished the free substitution rule allowing the use of two-platoon football, first introduced by Michigan. With nearly everyone returning, even greater things were expected of Lewis’ fourth team in 1953.Ī couple of events away from the playing field greatly impacted West Virginia’s season. This group of players helped West Virginia win seven football games in 1952 and crack the Associated Press top 20 rankings for the first time in school history. In fact, one year a Tennessee team consisting of nearly a dozen West Virginians faced Rice in the Orange Bowl. Year after year, West Virginians watched their homegrown boys lead rival programs to great success, whether it was Oak Hill High’s George Cafego at Tennessee, Elkins High’s Marshall “Biggie” Goldberg at Pitt or Weir High’s Bob Gain at Kentucky. When Mississippi State line coach Art Lewis was the surprise choice to lead the program in 1950, following Dudley DeGroot’s two tumultuous seasons at the helm, he made one promise to West Virginians – he was going to do everything in his power to keep the state’s best high school football players home. It was the first major bowl appearance for the Mountaineers after 60 years of gridiron play, some of those lean and depressing. – This season marks the 70th anniversary of West Virginia University’s 1953 football team that won eight regular season games and was invited to play Georgia Tech in the 1954 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
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