File photo provided by BlueGoldNews.com WVU quarterback Rasheed Marshall looks for a spot at Wisconsin in 2002.
MORGANTOWN — They say timing is everything in sports.
For two of the seven players who attended the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held at the premature hour of 9 a.m. Saturday at the Caperton Athletic Center before the game against Kansas, quarterback Rasheed Marshall and running back Adrienne Murrell, they got to enjoy the fruits of their athletic achievements, but more so playing for some of the greatest teams in school history than launching them.
No one would say they were too early for greatness.
In fact, it’s fair to say that team greatness came too late for them.
While Murrell was inducted into the Hall of Fame in both 1991 and 1992, Don Nehlen was preparing for 1993, a year that saw the team go 11-0 in the regular season before suffering a humiliating 41-7 loss to Florida in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day.
Murrell came to Morgantown from a prestigious Hawaii high school after Nehlen heard about him from an alumni, and in two seasons he became a tireless ball-carrying machine, rushing 201 times for 904 yards as a junior and 1,145 yards as a senior, averaging 5.2 yards per rush.
Facing a tough schedule both years, the best the Mountaineers could get from his performance was a 6-5 record and a 5-4 record with two ties.
Marshall arrived just in time to show the Big East that Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense, built around the skills of an athletic run/pass quarterback, could be devastating, and the Mountaineers posted 9-4, 8-5 and 8-4 seasons in 2002, 2003 and 2004 before Marshall graduated to the NFL.
By that time, Rich Rod had perfected the offense and the personnel was at its finest, Pat White was the quarterback Marshall had been, Steve Slaton was on board, and the team went 11-1, 11-2, and went on to win a bowl game and earn a national ranking.
Murrell left West Virginia after his junior season and was selected 120th overall by the New York Jets in the fifth round of the 1993 NFL Draft. He outperformed his draft position, recording three seasons of over 1,000 rushing yards: two with the Jets in 1996 and 1997 and one with Arizona, where he led the team’s rushing attack to 5,199 rushing yards and 23 NFL touchdowns.
“(The draft) was a bittersweet process for me. Based on what was communicated to me and my ranking, I thought I was going to be a Day 1 or 2 pick. I did pretty well at the Combine and the Senior Bowl.” Murrell said on a Classactsports.com podcast a few years ago.
“Everything pointed to me being a first or second round draft pick. That didn’t happen, but it was still a lifelong dream to get the opportunity to go to the NFL. I took the opportunity I got here and I want to see if I can make the most of it.”
As mentioned above, Murrell’s Mountaineers faced a tough schedule during those two years, playing Miami at the school’s peak as well as Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Maryland and Penn State.
In the 1992 season, Murrell rushed 29 times for 141 yards and two touchdowns in a 44-6 victory over Pittsburgh, rushed 26 times for 157 yards in a 16-7 win over the Hokies, and most memorable of all, rushed 21 times for 127 yards and two touchdowns in a 34-33 comeback win over Maryland, where he caught two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, one of which was a 20-yard touchdown pass with 1 minute, 24 seconds left in the game to seal the win.
In the Orange Bowl, Heisman Trophy winner Gino Torretta threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns as the Hurricanes won, 35-23, but he only had 76 yards on 19 carries against a ferocious No. 1 Miami defense.
As with his time at West Virginia, his efforts did not translate into success on the scoreboard, as the 1996 Jets went 1-15, losing their first eight games before beating Arizona State and then their next seven games.
However, the win over Arizona led the Cardinals to decide to trade for him after the 1997 season, and he went on to have his final 1,000-yard season for the Cardinals. The Arizona game was his best performance as an NFL player, gaining 199 yards and missing the 200-yard mark by 36 inches.
Marshall, of course, enrolled at West Virginia University out of Pittsburgh’s Brasher High School, which had sent another talented quarterback to West Virginia in Major Harris, who went on to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. It seemed a given that Marshall would follow Harris here, but Marshall admits that he never seriously considered going to other schools, despite some visits.
“This week has been a lot of thinking and reflection.” Marshall told MetroNews. “And here I am, and it’s all happening on a Saturday. Every summer, as I sit and listen to the class presentations, I can’t help but wonder, ‘When is my day going to come, will it ever come at all?'”
It happened about two months ago: Marshall, now the football program’s director of player relations, came to work one morning and was asked to sit down with coaches Neil Brown and Len Baker in the coaches’ offices.
He had no idea what they wanted and when he went in they looked worried so he wondered what he had done. “They saw right through me.”
But they were just playing a prank on him by informing him of his Hall of Fame induction, and he embraced it as a career highlight.
Marshall spent three seasons at West Virginia, rushing for 2,040 yards and 24 touchdowns and completing 433 of 795 passes for 5,558 yards and 45 touchdowns.
Former Don Nehlen tight end Anthony Becht was also selected, but was unable to attend due to his work as a commentator for New York Jets games. He will be honored at a separate ceremony before the Iowa State game on Oct. 12.
Also elected to the 2024 membership are men’s basketball player Chris Brooks, women’s basketball player Liz LePera, men’s cross country and track and field athlete Bob Donker, baseball player Mark Landers and swimmer Bette Haschula.
