West Virginia toppled No. 4 Baylor 41-27 on Saturday afternoon in the biggest win since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 in 2012. The good news, of course, was that the home team won. The bad news? A noon kickoff meant the game ended around 4 p.m. local time, leaving plenty of time for the blue and gold faithful to, uh, celebrate the win.
Enthusiasm - if you want to call it that - built throughout the evening, eventually metastasizing into overturned vehicles and neighborhood street fires.
“We had fires in residential neighborhoods. We had where they tried to flip vehicles over in other places,” Morgantown police chief Ed Preston told WVMetroNews.com.
Like a true cancer, when one area would come under control of the police, the riots would spread to another area of town.
“As they were broken up or dispersed, other gatherings would occur in other parts of the city. Sometimes two, three, four gatherings were occurring at a time at various locations throughout the city,” Preston said.
And now what should have been a priceless day full of free publicity turned into an another ugly episode for a school that has become known for them.
Watch West Virginia president Gordon Gee’s mood transition from exuberance to disappointment to anger over the course of the day through his Twitter timeline.Wow! So proud of our football team today. They showed so much heart and made Mountaineers all over the world smile.
— E. Gordon Gee (@gordongee) October 18, 2014Disappointed in some of our student body today. While a small minority, the actions of a few hurt the reputation of our entire University.
— E. Gordon Gee (@gordongee) October 19, 2014I appreciate the outrage of so many of our students and ask our student leaders partner with me to create change.
— E. Gordon Gee (@gordongee) October 19, 2014I want all students to know this behavior is unacceptable. We can and will work together to prevent this situation from happening again.
— E. Gordon Gee (@gordongee) October 19, 2014“This is not acceptable Mountaineer behavior,” Gee told the paper. “It is not ‘partying’ to set fires, tear down fences or throw bottles at police. It is criminal and will be dealt with as such. I have zero tolerance for students who wish to act in such a way that it demeans the achievements of our institution and its faculty, staff, students, alumni and our Morgantown community.”