Tyler Bitancurt has had some head scratchers in his time at
West Virginia. There have been instances in which his ability to serve as the
team's field goal kicker is called into question.
And then there are moments of glory.
On Thursday, Bitancurt connected on his second game-winning
field goal in three years with the Mountaineers. For the second time, his
teammates flocked him as he ran aimlessly, full of pure joy for what he had
just accomplished on the field.
In a 2009 win over Pittsburgh, he said afterward that he may
have broken his sternum as his brothers piled on top of him. Luckily, his
sternum remained intact after delivering WVU its second-straight share of the
Big East title in Tampa.
"Thankfully some of the guys who were on that field with me at
Pitt were on the field here and they knew better," says Bitancurt. "Cody
Nutter, he was throwing people off, he said, ‘Get off him, get off.' But yeah,
that was fun."
When they did get off, Bitancurt jumped to his feet,
screaming, "Let's go!" He composed himself as he looked toward the WVU fans
losing their minds in the stands and pointed to his head – a sign that he had
not lost his own.
Earlier in the game, with zeroes on the scoreboard,
Bitancurt missed a 38-yard attempt that hit off the upright and fell back
toward him into end zone.
He could have lost his head and all confidence right there,
but the team surrounding him wouldn't let it happen.
"After that first miss, as soon as I got to the sideline, my
whole team and my coaches were backing me up and said, ‘Clear that out of your
head, you're going to have another chance, don't worry about it,' and that
definitely helped," says Bitancurt.
As it turned out, there were three more opportunities for
Bitancurt, and he connected on each one with a long of 42 yards. When it came
time to step onto the field for what would either win the game or send it to
overtime, his teammates kept their confidence in him.
"He did it before," says cornerback Pat Miller, who was a
freshman for Bitancurt's first game-winner. "When Stedman Bailey made the catch
and we spiked the ball with three seconds left, we knew he was going to make
the field goal. We didn't have no doubt. No overtime doubt. We knew we was
going to win right then and there."
So, what did Dana Holgorsen have to say to Bitancurt before
the big kick? Were there any words of extreme wisdom shared from head coach to
kicker?
"No, I ignore those guys," Holgorsen said after the game.
"The more you talk to them, the more you screw them up, so I ignored them. I stayed
completely away from them."
For a player who is asked to do one thing and one thing
only, Bitancurt knows what his routine is and may consider anything that
deviates from that routine to be a distraction. With that in mind, Holgorsen's
move to leave him alone was welcomed.
"He did the right thing. Stay away," says Bitancurt. "I like
it when they just let me do my thing because there's obviously a lot of
pressure on the kick already, I don't need a lot of people chirping in my ear."
The message he kept giving himself in his head through a
defensive penalty and a USF timeout was to put it through. Forget about Skip
Holtz calling a timeout, forget about the fact that you've lined up to kick
this damned thing twice and still haven't had a chance to go through with it.
Just knock it in when it counts.
And so he did, a 28-yarder to deliver the game and a share
of the Big East championship.
"It just felt so good. Such a relief," says Bitancurt.
"There's many times in that game that we could have just quit and packed up and
gone home, but we didn't. We just kept going, we knew what was on the line and
we definitely needed to come out with a win. It was just a relief."
It was another moment of glory for Bitancurt, and another
reason to celebrate for the Mountaineers.
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