Charlottesville, Va. – Bobby Bowden isn’t the only college football coach who knows the anguish of wide right.
Wyoming’s Joe Glenn watched helplessly Saturday as Aric Goodman sliced an extra-point attempt just outside the right upright, allowing Virginia to escape with a 13-12 overtime victory over the Cowboys.
“It’s too bad it had to come down to that,” Glenn said.
Virginia coach Al Groh had already experienced the flip side of wide-right emotions.
“I was lucky enough to be part of a team to win the Super Bowl on a kick on the last play of the game that went wide right. This one felt almost as good,” said Groh, who was an assistant with the New York Giants in their 20-19 victory over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV.
Although this game lacked the national prominence of that game or the four Bowden’s Florida State team has lost to Miami on botched kicks this decade, it was a big one for Wyoming – a chance for a team from the Mountain West Conference to knock off an Atlantic Coast Conference team on the road.
“I think the kids feel proud of the way they played,” Glenn said. “You know, we’re a long way from home. Under the circumstances, I thought we gave it the old college try and came up one point short. What a difference one point makes.”
The Cavaliers (1-1) went ahead on the first play of OT when backup quarterback Kevin McCabe hit Kevin Ogletree for a 25-yard touchdown. Chris Gould added what would prove to be the decisive extra point.
Wyoming (1-1) pulled within one after Jacob Doss threw a 3-yard TD pass to Chris Sundberg on fourth-and-1, but Goodman’s point-after attempt missed. Goodman, a former Cherry Creek High School star, dropped to his knees and bowed his head down to the ground as the Cavaliers celebrated.
McCabe, who replaced struggling starter Christian Olsen on Virginia’s first possession of the fourth quarter, finished 8-of-13 for 85 yards. Ogletree had 10 catches for 95 yards.
Groh would not say whether McCabe will move ahead of Olsen on the depth chart, repeating what he said a week ago when asked the same question: “We are not going down that road.” Olsen was 12-of-21 for 89 yards and threw one interception.
“We didn’t get enough drives going there,” Groh said. “We made sure to tell Chris that we weren’t down on him, we just thought at that particular time to try to see if something different might work.”
With Olsen misfiring and starting tailback Jason Snelling sidelined with a sprained ankle, the Cavaliers gained only 206 yards – five fewer than they had in the season-opening loss to Pittsburgh.
Wyoming had 313 yards, but 60 of those came on two fake punts in the first quarter.
John Wendling took the direct snap and ran 29 yards on the first fake punt, and the same play clicked for 31 yards on fourth-and-12 from the Cowboys’ 15 on their next possession.
“Coach gave me a look, and if we get this look we go with it,” Wendling said of the second fake. “It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but it worked and we went with it.”
Wendling’s first run kept alive a 13-play, 73-yard drive that ended with Goodman’s 23-yard field goal with 8:53 left in the first period. A 17-yard pass from Doss to Wynel Seldon on third-and-7 and a 20-yard run by Devin Moore were other big plays in the drive.
