Boldly going places I generally do not go, so bear with me here. I wrote earlier in the week about D.J. Woods, an Ohio high school receiver who committed to WVU Sunday. He is not to be confused with J.D. Woods, a Florida high school receiver who committed to WVU Sunday.

Anyhow, I asked D.J. why he chose WVU when he’d originally committed to Nebraska and was recently recruited by Missouri and other schools that prefer to pass the ball. He’s a receiver. Receivers like to catch passes. Those teams pass. Fair question. In fact, it was one he’d asked himself, which made for a revealing answer.

“When I got there, I wasn’t really thinking about West Virginia,” he said. “They were offering me and I was pleased they’d offered me, but I wasn’t really considering them. I said, ‘No offense, but I don’t think I want to come here because you don’t throw the ball.'”

Woods wasn’t sure how the coaches would react.

“They said, ‘That’s understandable, but just because you don’t see us throw it doesn’t me we can’t. Maybe we don’t have someone like you to throw it to,'” Woods said.

The coaches had Woods’ attention. He’d heard what he thought was every recruiting pitch imaginable until then.

“Coach Rodriguez told me that in the Pitt game they couldn’t throw the ball like they wanted to,” he said. “They had 1-on-1 coverage on the boundary side, but nobody on that side could beat their man. They said with my speed they felt comfortable I could make a big play. I told them if I came there, I’d make a difference. Now I’m there and I’m ready to make an impact.”

Well, I was told of a minor buzz generated by that comment as well as Rodriguez’s (alleged) response. I wonder what the big deal is, though.

You really cannot underestimate how much Pitt’s victory and WVU’s loss means. One recruit, Cam Sadler, picked the Panthers and not the Mountaineers and another, Shayne Hale, who is Sadler’s high school teammate, has stepped away from WVU. Outcomes matter, though I can’t imagine a player who has narrowed his choices to Pitt and WVU and uses that game to make up his mind feels very good about his decision-making process. One game does not make a trend. 

Yet if Pitt can use that win as a strength, why can’t it work the other way? Why can’t Rodriguez be allowed to use an obvious weakness as a tool in recruiting? What he said is true, not only of that game, but also of the season. WVU needs receivers who can make plays down the field to force the defense to devote less attention to the run. It was an honest approach, which is something you don’t hear too often in recruiting.