White fired three touchdown passes to lead the Mountaineers to a stunning 31-14 victory over the Horned Frogs. Following the victory, players, coaches and fans huddled together in celebration on the Houston Astrodome turf, not realizing that it would mark the beginning of 16 years of frustration for West Virginia football.

Starting with a 1987 Sun Bowl loss to Oklahoma State, the Mountaineers dropped eight straight bowl games before defeating Mississippi in the 2000 Music City Bowl.

Some of the games – Notre Dame, Clemson and Florida – West Virginia had little chance of winning (some say if quarterback Major Harris wasn’t hurt against Notre Dame WVU might have pulled that one out, which is highly debatable). Other games, like South Carolina, Georgia Tech and Missouri, West Virginia shouldn’t have let slip away.

Now on the eve of yet another bowl game West Virginia fans retrieve Kevin White’s Bluebonnet Bowl performance from their memory banks and hope that it will once again be duplicated.

In many ways the Casa Grande, Ariz., has grown into a cult hero among West Virginians. He didn’t possess the talent and flair of Jeff Hostetler or Oliver Luck, which is why he sat the bench for three years.

But he did have a certain resiliency that Mountaineers could identify with. No matter how many times he was knocked down, he always found a way to pick himself back up and keep swinging. That’s how West Virginians remember him, and that’s why he’s so admired.

White was a "D-list" recruit who only made his way to Morgantown because of the persistence of his high school coach John Kasner.

Kashner, from the coalfields of Pennsylvania, took a reel of White’s best games with him on a trip back East for the holidays. He found time to visit some of the coaches he knew, including West Virginia assistant coach Bill Kirelawich.

"Somehow Coach Kasner conned West Virginia into putting me on their recruiting list," White recalled. "I was probably fourth or fifth on their list."

One by one, the quarterbacks Coach Don Nehlen was recruiting crossed West Virginia off their lists. By signing day only White was left.

"They were left holding the bag with nobody," he said. "So they hopped on the phone and rushed me out there on a flight. Beggars couldn’t be choosers so I happily became a West Virginia Mountaineer!"

The accidental quarterback was soon relegated to the bottom of the depth chart. Luck was still around, and waiting in the wings was Penn State transfer Jeff Hostetler.

It was to be the scout team and the clipboard for White. He did get an opportunity to play two games in 1982 when Hostetler was sidelined with an injury, passing for 576 yards and three touchdowns.

But he played very little in 1983 and wasn’t the leading candidate for the starting quarterback job when the team broke fall camp in August of his senior season.

"As a matter of protocol they let me run with the first team because I was the oldest one around and kind of paid my dues," White offered. "Then Coach Nehlen called a meeting with the quarterbacks and informed us that Tony Reda would be the starter."

Reda didn’t set the world on fire in the ’84 opener against Ohio University and Nehlen still wasn’t sure who his quarterback was when the Louisville Cardinals came to town for the second game of the year.

In the meantime, White was feeling a little rebellious. His senior season was rapidly dwindling away and his attention was waning in team meetings.

He casually glanced at the Louisville scouting report when something he read made him sit up and take notice. The Cardinals starting quarterback was Andy Woodring, a 6-foot-7, 195-pound bean-poll from Glendale, Ariz.

This turned out to be the same Andy Woodring whose team bombed Casa Grande High School, 63-6 in one of the most embarrassing moments of White’s life.

College recruiters everywhere were after the all-everything Woodring, and White knew it was his big chance to make an impression in front of a large, captive audience. Instead, he fired four interceptions in a humiliating loss.

Sitting in the WVU meeting room five years later, White saw redemption.

Before the game with Louisville, the backup quarterback slipped into the training room during the pregame speech and called his father, David.

"Dad," Kevin began. "You won’t believe who the starting quarterback for Louisville is. It’s Andy Woodring! I’m going to find a way to get into this game!"

As fate would have it, Reda got off to a slow start and was pulled in the second quarter in favor of White. Kevin’s very first pass was a 39-yard completion to Willie Drewery. Later he fired a touchdown pass to Wayne Brown to help WVU to a 30-6 win over the Cardinals.

White had locked up the starting job and gained revenge, all in one September Saturday afternoon.

"I'm thinking God is intervening here, this is just too good," he laughed.

In the ensuing weeks, White led West Virginia to huge victories over Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College and Penn State. The win over No. 4-ranked Boston College came in dramatic fashion, with West Virginia overcoming a 20-6 BC halftime lead.

A week later against Penn State, White directed the Mountaineers to their first victory over the Nittany Lions in 28 years. The packed student section rushed onto the field before the end of the game, forcing Penn State Coach Joe Paterno to call it off with 35 seconds left on the clock.

It was an embarrassment to the older WVU fans that had waited patiently for this moment to happen. Despite the poor display of sportsmanship by West Virginia students, old timers appreciated the gritty effort of senior Kevin White, and how several better quarterbacks before him couldn’t defeat the mighty Nittany Lions.

West Virginia had risen to No. 9 in the national ratings, but storm clouds were settling into Mountaineer Field.

West Virginia’s brutal schedule had taken its toll. The Mountaineers had virtually no players left on defense to finish its regular season schedule against Virginia, Rutgers and Temple.

The Cavaliers gave West Virginia and old-fashioned whipping, rolling up more than 400 total yards in a 27-7 win. A week later, the walls began to cave in after a disappointing, 23-19 upset loss at Rutgers.

At Temple, the whole season fell apart. White wasn’t playing well and was yanked after the second series in favor of freshman John Talley.

"Looking back it wasn’t really fair to John," White recalled. "He wasn’t prepared to play in that game."

White was reinserted in time to fire a 43-yard TD pass to Willie Drewery with 2:03 left in the game to give WVU a narrow 17-16 lead.

But it wouldn’t hold.

The Owls drove the length of the field and attempted a field goal. The first one sailed wide of the uprights, but West Virginia was flagged for offsides. The ball was moved five yards closer and this time, Jim Cooper nailed the 36-yard FG to give the Owls a 19-17 victory.

To this day, it is still a bitter pill for White to swallow.

"Damned if Andrew Jones hadn't of jumped offsides." White remarked. "I was about as low as you can get after losing to Temple."

The team’s spirits were elevated when they were invited to the Bluebonnet Bowl to play TCU, which was playing in its first bowl game in 25 years.

It wasn’t the Orange Bowl, where fans had envisioned their Mountaineers after the Penn State win, but it proved to be a better alternative than shoveling snow in December.

West Virginia wasn’t given much of a chance against TCU. In fact, Houston newspapers were printing letters from irate football fans berating the Bluebonnet Bowl for picking such a poor team as West Virginia.

However, White and his teammates saw it a different way.

"We had played a very tough schedule, and to some degree, we actually looked down upon TCU and the Southwest Conference," he admitted.

Soon West Virginia’s large list of walking wounded got healthy. The defense that shut down Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie was back. And Nehlen promised a wide-open offense for Jim Wacker’s Horned Frog defense.

West Virginia opened the game with a one-back set and on the first play of the game, White hit Drewery for a 33-yard completion. The signalcaller came back with another strike to Drewery to place the ball at the TCU 19. The drive ended when White found tailback John Gay in the end zone for a 2-yard touchdown.

Meanwhile, TCU star running back Kenneth Davis was knocked out of the game in the first quarter with a knee injury. That completely took the wind out of TCU’s sails.

Texas Christian stayed in man coverage the entire game and White riddled its secondary for a then-bowl-record 280 yards and touchdowns of 2, 62 and 5 yards.

"They got really confused on motion," White recalled. "I never saw guys wide open like that."

The quarterback was named the game’s MVP. It was a fabulous way for him to finish his WVU career. At the time, though, it was a bittersweet end.

"I’ll have some bitter memories the rest of my life," White told Pittsburgh Press reporter Steve Halvonik after the game. The quarterback hadn’t forgotten the stinging criticism he received from fans, coaches and sportswriters during the season.

"My whole career has been a series of peaks and valleys, ups and downs," he added.

Today with the benefit of hindsight and maturity, White has a softer view of his West Virginia career.

"I'm now the Harry Truman of West Virginia University football!" he joked of his growing popularity.

Now a prosecuting attorney in his hometown of Casa Grande, Ariz., White and his wife -- former WVU gymnast Cathy Price -- have two children.

He still remains active in football, helping old coach Kasner with the Casa Grande High team. Law is his profession but football is his life.

"Football is still in his blood," admitted his wife.

"If I had to do it over again, I would have probably gone that route (coaching)," he stated.

White still gets calls from West Virginia sportswriters, asking the same questions about the 1984 Bluebonnet Bowl game. He answers them all diplomatically, putting his Arizona State law degree to good use.

White keeps up with West Virginia football and even attended a few practices when the Mountaineers played Missouri in the Insight.com Bowl in 1998.

In the almost 20 years since his 1984 Bluebonnet Bowl performance, White has had the benefit of years of improvement.

"I’m getting better every year," White said.

He’s also got a Bluebonnet Bowl MVP trophy sitting in his office. That’s not too bad for a skinny "D-list" recruit from Casa Grande, Ariz.

Not too bad, indeed.

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