Dan Kendra

Dan Kendra

Timing played a big part in Dan Kendra getting his big break at West Virginia University in 1974. The Mountaineers had already gone through three starting quarterbacks in a season that was rapidly slipping into oblivion.

And all that was left was Kendra, a true freshman from Allentown, Pa.

“He wasn’t even close to being ready,” admitted Coach Bobby Bowden 30 years later.

West Virginia was coming off a miserable loss to Boston College that dropped its record to 2-6. When Kirk Lewis went down against Syracuse, Bowden had no other choice but to put Kendra into the game. Kendra’s first college pass resulted in 33-yard touchdown to Marshall Mills. That led to some more playing time the very next week against Temple.

“We played Temple back when Temple was a pretty good football team,” Kendra, now an assistant coach at Bethlehem Catholic High School, recalled. “We were getting pretty well handled and Coach Bowden stuck me in and I had a good second half (completed 11 of 15 passes for 208 yards). From then on it was pretty much my job to lose. In any sport it’s about being at the right place at the right time and that was the situation for me.”

Kendra led West Virginia to a come-from-behind 22-21 win over Virginia Tech to end the ‘74 season on a positive note. But there was no guarantee Kendra was going to be the starter in 1975. He battled sophomore Danny Williams throughout the spring and it wasn’t until midway through the ‘75 season that Kendra finally separated himself.

Frank Cignetti, offensive coordinator at the time, specifically remembered his intention to run the football behind a big offensive line and not put too much pressure on his quarterbacks.

“We had maturity and experience along the offensive line and we had very good running backs. I probably had a little more patient approach to it to protect the quarterback,” he said.

“Dad eased him along plus Danny Williams split time pretty much fifty-fifty,” said Tommy Bowden, a junior wide receiver on that 1975 team. “The running skills, the play action pass and a tad of option was more conducive to what Danny (Williams) did. It took the pressure off of Kendra a little bit because he was more of a thrower.”

Kendra says running the football and playing good, sound defense was a trademark of that era.

“The successful teams then were run-establish teams,” he said. “Veer was kind of the offensive everyone was using. We ran inside-outside veer. Pitt used it with Tony Dorsett.”

West Virginia’s quarterbacks didn’t try 20 passes in a game until the sixth game of the ’75 campaign against Tulane, a 16-14 loss. West Virginia was in the midst of a miserable two-game spell when it committed a combined 11 turnovers against Penn State and Tulane. It took four more games before Bowden let Kendra air it out against Syracuse in the regular season finale.

The Mountaineers got behind early and trailed 17-0 after the first quarter. Kendra attempted 46 passes for the afternoon, completing 29, and nearly brought West Virginia back. He completed a 10-yard touchdown pass to Tommy Bowden in the third quarter and had the Mountaineers within a point late in the game when Ron Lee scored from the three. But on the two-point conversion try to win the game, the line judge ruled Lee came up just short of the goal line.

“I can remember standing there and thinking Ron was in,” said Kendra. “I was carrying out a fake to the other side so I couldn’t see it but I asked people that weren’t even West Virginia people and they said he was in. That was a good season that could have been a great season.”

Kendra remembers Coach Bowden assembling the team in the locker room after the game and asking them if they wanted to go to the Peach Bowl to play North Carolina State.

“He said, ‘Guys we’re in it but we’re not in it 100 percent. I’m not going if you boys don’t want to go.’ It was his unique way of doing things,” said Kendra.

Kendra remembers practices at Clemson leading up to the Peach Bowl being particularly tough.

“It was like another pre-season camp,” he said. “We had good senior leadership on that team who kept everyone’s heads screwed on right. I think everyone went down there with a sense of purpose.”

Particularly Kendra, who wound up the afternoon completing 12 of 28 passes for 202 yards and throwing both of West Virginia’s touchdowns. Kendra’s pass to running back Artie Owens right before the end of the half turned the tide of the game. The Wolfpack were sitting on a 10-0 lead.

The play called for Owens to run a wheel route and the split end Scott MacDonald to run a post. It was up to Kendra to correctly read the coverage and make the proper throw.

“It’s one of those shots,” said Cignetti. “The quarterback has to make the good decision.”

“We ran a couple of plays that were similar to that where we had hit Scott MacDonald coming back from the same formation,” said Kendra. “We caught him a couple of times over the middle and they got real conscious of that. With Artie sneaking out of the backfield, it was the perfect play call at the perfect time.”

Kendra finished that season completing 98 of 189 passes for 1,315 yards and six touchdowns. His best year came as a senior in 1977 when he completed 53.5 percent of his passes for 1,674 yards and 13 touchdowns. He threw for more than 4,000 yards and 31 touchdown passes for his career.

“Danny Kendra as a young quarterback really developed well in 1975,” said Cignetti. “The fact that we had those running backs and we had that offensive line we could run the football and take the pressure off of him.”

Kendra, who spent his final two seasons playing for Cignetti, admits he was mildly surprised that Bowden has gone on to become one of the game’s all-time great coaches.

“At that point in his career he was a good coach who turned into a great coach,” he said. “The one thing about Coach Bowden is you live and die for the guy. Everybody would say the same thing. He had a unique way about him.”