‘We Found This in the Trash Can’: Chuck Pagano Shares Wild WVU-Miami Story

The West Virginia Mountaineers haven't had a ton of success against the Miami Hurricanes on the gridiron, losing 17 of the 20 all-time matchups. The majority of those matchups, however, came when the "U" was playing their best football and had a dynasty going.

Back in 1986, the Hurricanes came to Morgantown with a sparkling 5-0 record, and WVU had just suffered three consecutive losses to Maryland, Pitt, and Virginia Tech. Miami was clearly the better team, but they received a little help from West Virginia, as if they needed it.

Former NFL head coach Chuck Pagano was a grad assistant on Miami's staff that year and told the story about what he and the Hurricanes came across when they got to Mountaineer Field during Thursday's episode of The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN.

"We were paranoid about our playbooks..

We went up to West Virginia when I was with Miami and we found their playbook in a trash can..

We put a new plan in because of that and we won 58-14" ~ @ChuckPaganoNFL #PMSLive https://t.co/FR5MkOdwWe pic.twitter.com/OlIN2nmE0G
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 15, 2026

“We go up there, and somebody brings in a practice plan, a practice script, Pagano said. "All the plays through all of the periods. And ‘Hey, just on the down low, you guys come here.’ Guys are getting around. ‘Hey, we found this in the trash can.’ You know, you go on Friday to do their walk-through at the stadium…so we found a trash can, and I’ll be damned if we don’t start looking through there. Terminology back then was so simple and easy to remember. I-right, I-left. 22, evens are to the right, 23 odds are to the left. So we scrapped our plan defensively and put a new little plan in, and you saw the outcome.”

Well, the Hurricanes went on to win that game against the Mountaineers 58-14. Sure, Miami may have had a little better idea of what WVU's game plan was, but I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference had they not found it. That '86 team in particular was loaded with a bunch of NFL talent such as quarterback Vinny Testaverde and wide receiver Michael Irvin.

This story was shared after McAfee and the crew discussed a similar situation that just happened with a Texas Tech fan finding Colorado's play script at the team's hotel. Colorado head coach Deion Sanders admitted that it had no impact on the outcome of the game, especially since they scored on their first drive of that game.

Regardless of how the '86 game against Miami turned out or how the Texas Tech/Colorado game went, allowing plays or a game plan to be left behind is straight-up carelessness.

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