Before Nehlen left Michigan as an assistant coach to take over at West Virginia in 1980, the Wolverines had lost seven straight bowl games under Schembechler, including four Rose Bowls.

Nehlen has maintained that tradition in his 21 seasons with the Mountaineers. West Virginia has lost eight straight going into Thursday's Music City Bowl against Mississippi.

"I brought the disease with me from Michigan," said Nehlen, who is retiring after the game.

West Virginia headed to Nashville, Tenn., on Monday. It has been so long since the Mountaineers' last post-season victory that it came in a defunct game, the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1984.

Although the NCAA doesn't keep records for bowl futility, West Virginia is tied with South Carolina for the longest such losing streak in Division I-A. The Gamecocks lost eight straight from 1946-98 before contributing to West Virginia's streak by beating the Mountaineers in the 1995 Car-quest Bowl.

Nehlen's teams haven't even led in a bowl since the 1994 Sugar, a span of four games. And in that game, Florida won 41-7.

West Virginia's players want to win this one for Nehlen, the dean of Big East coaches, who turns over the program to Rich Rodriguez.

"The new guys don't want to be the ones to keep the streak going," linebacker Kyle Kayden said. "The seniors, especially, don't want to go out a loser. It's big."

Welsh ends a loser, Donnan a winner

HONOLULU -- As the final minutes ticked off the clock in the Oahu Bowl late Sunday, George Welsh's 28-year career as a coach came that much closer to being history. His one thought as the final gun sounded: "I was glad it was over."

Who can blame him? Welsh didn't expect his team to "win one for the Gipper," as he put it, but he did expect Virginia to be at least competitive against Georgia. Instead, the Cavaliers offered little spunk or resistance during a 37-14 loss in Aloha Stadium.

And in his final post-game press conference, Welsh cut right to the heart of it: "We didn't play our game, and we got beat."

Virginia (6-6) had four turnovers and made several other blunders. It gave up a pair of touchdowns in 56 seconds late in the first quarter and never recovered.

For Virginia, it was another embarrassing post-season moment, though not as bad as last year's 63-21 loss to Illinois in the Micronpc.com Bowl. The Cavaliers have lost their past four bowl games, and this year's final record marks the first time since 1986 they didn't have a winning season.

"They made too many big plays," Welsh said of the Bulldogs. "They got too many easy ones. They converted a fourth and 6 one time. There were a lot of plays like that. You can see that's indicative of how we played this year (and) why we have only six wins."

As for Georgia, Jim Donnan might have been able to save his job if Georgia had played this well down the stretch.

In Donnan's final game, Terrence Edwards ran five times for 97 yards and caught eight passes for 79 yards, and Georgia scored two defensive touchdowns for its school-record fourth consecutive bowl win. Donnan was fired this month.

"We went out and played well for Coach D, for ourselves, to prove all the doubters wrong," said Edwards, who also scored a touchdown and was named MVP. "This game meant a lot to a lot of people. Winning four straight bowl games, four straight eight-win seasons (is) at least a building stone for next year."

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