Ohio State Will Open Against West Virginia in 1987

Ohio State and West Virginia will open the 1987 college football season by playing each other in a Sept. 12 game at Ohio Stadium.

Tom Shupe, West Virginia’s associate athletic director, confirmed that he had approved the matchup.

“The 1987 date was one that I had to get free, since I had already scheduled that date,” Shupe said. “The team I had scheduled must get the confirmation from me in the mail, but it has been read to them over the phone and I see nothing standing in the way of the game.”

Ohio State had been scheduled to play host to Texas A&M; in the 1987 opener. However, John David Crow, associate athletic director at the Texas institution, said, “When I came here three years ago, we had a lot of penciled-in stuff on our schedule, years in advance of the games. . . . but when I looked around, I couldn’t find any contracts.

“So I wrote to all of those people and it turned out the only school we had a contract with was Washington . . . In the end, we didn’t see where playing Ohio State was any great advantage for us.”