HUNTINGTON, W. Va. – The three-for-one deal that Marshall president Dr. Dan Angel made his counterpart at West Virginia, David Hardesty, on the steps of the state capitol in Charleston didn’t get it done.
Maybe the $1,200 billboard of Heisman Trophy candidate Byron Leftwich that Marshall has put up in Morgantown, home of the Mountaineers, will yield results.
“I’m not interested in goading them,” Angel told The Post. “I’m interested in playing them.”
In 2000, Angel wanted so badly for the Thundering Herd and Mountaineers to meet on the gridiron that he drove to Morgantown and presented Hardesty with what seems like a very attractive offer. Marshall would play at West Virginia three times if the Mountaineers came to Huntington once. Marshall would give West Virginia a respectable $400,000 guarantee for the game in Huntington.
Angel said Hardesty was willing to consider it, but through the grapevine came that word that WVU was not interested.
“Our schedule really doesn’t support us playing at Marshall,” said Mike Parsons, deputy director of athletics at West Virginia. “We have be very selective about who we travel to for a non-conference game because we receive no appropriations from the state and we have to feel the game has a chance to be on television.”
Parsons said that Marshall reneged on an earlier deal that would have had the Thundering Herd come to Morgantown for three games but the Mountaineers would not come to Huntington. Marshall Stadium, which seats 40,000, is too small to accommodate West Virginia’s large fan base, said Parsons.
It sounds like accountant-speak. Bottom line is that West Virginia doesn’t want to play its cross-state Division I-A foe because, well, imagine the embarrassment it would cause if a team from the Mid-America Conference beat a Big East school.
Marshall coach Bob Pruett said he doesn’t buy West Virginia’s reasons. He said the MAC has an agreement with ESPN to televise a Marshall-West Virginia game. And Pruett wonders why West Virginia would play a road game at Cincinnati.
“I’ve been staying out of these Marshall-West Virginia battles,” said Leftwich. “But the only thing you can do is play . . . Let’s play.”
