Holgorsen takes WVU to Orange Bowl

MORGANTOWN, W. VA. ? In one week, Mt. Pleasant native and West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen will take his team to the Orange Bowl, becoming one of only seven coaches in history to make a BCS game during his rookie season as a head coach.

Holgorsen led the No. 23 Moutaineers to a 9-3 record this year after taking over for former head coach Bill Stewart in June. He was the first-ever WVU coach to win a Big East title and a BCS berth in his first season at the University.

The Mountaineers will take on No. 15 Clemson in the Discover Orange Bowl on Wednesday, Jan. 4, at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. The teams have faced each other only once before, in the 1989 Gator Bowl game, which the Moutaineers lost by a final score of 27-7.

According to WVU?s official Orange Bowl Guide, Holgorsen becomes one of only seven coaches in BCS history to take a team to a bowl game in his first-ever season as head coach. He is one of two coaches who accomplished that feat this season.

Stanford?s David Shaw joins Holgorsen as a rookie coach making a BCS appearance. He is scheduled to lead his fourth-ranked team against No. 3 Oklahoma State in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2.

Both games will begin at 7:30 p.m (Central Time) and will be shown on ESPN.

Under Holgorsen, the Mountaineers went on a short winning streak at the end of the season, sweeping their final three games with wins over Cincinnati, Pitt and USF to claim the Big East title and Orange Bowl berth.

The team?s record-setting offense boasts quarterback Geno Smith, who is just 22 yards short of becoming the first 4,000-yard passer in WVU history, as well as a pair of wide receivers ? Stedman Bailey and Tavon Austin ? who became the first duo in school history to post 1,000 yards receiving in the same season.

Austin, a junior, set a school regular-season record with 2,294 yards, scored seven touchdowns and caught a school-best 89 passes on the season.

Bailey, a sophomore, had 67 catches, topping the Big East with 1,197 yards to go along with a team-high 11 touchdowns.

Smith is a junior who has been named first team all-Big East. He has thrown for more than 300 yards in a game seven times this season, and had a 14-game streak of games with at least one touchdown pass until it was snapped in a game against South Florida near the end of the season.

Holgorsen is a 1989 Mt. Pleasant Community High School graduate and 1993 graduate of Iowa Wesleyan College.

He was hired by WVU in December as offensive coordinator before being named head coach in June when Stewart resigned the position. He previously was the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State University during the 2010 season.