Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which is back this week, gone next week and then back again the week after next. I’ve got vacation days I have to take next week, but I’ll be on the ground in Florida Dec. 28 and with the football team through the Orange Bowl. I’ll keep this place rolling throughout bowl week, promise.

One more date to keep in mind, since it is bowl season: Grades are due Dec. 19 and the team will know Dec. 21 who isn’t eligible. Hearing rumblings already, though the larger concern is for next year and the new rule that requires players to pass nine hours each fall. Seriously, four-game suspensions!

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, double-check your work.

pknocker40 said:

“There were 12,000+ there Saturday. Most have smart phones. That kills the WiFi and causes me and others trouble on press row…. I don’t know what to do, but I’m obviously discouraged.”

Huggs never puts up with this: [I]f you come try to steal my bandwidth, I’ll bust you in the mouth. You’re not going to take my bandwidth. That bandwidth’s been too good to me. To walk into my house and to try to take my bandwidth? That ain’t going to go very well.

Sam said:

It dawns on me that there have been several times during Huggins time here that players have very suddenly gotten it. Alexander, Butler, and Flowers all come immediately to mind. Is it conceivably possible that all three of our “veteran” guys got it simultaneously? Obviously, two games is only two games, but Truck, KJ, and Turk have looked very, very good in those games, and were able to collectively exploit the double teams KJ was seeing. It seems conceivable at least.

Yeah, good point on the double teams. Miami tried and Miami bothered KJ, but he figured it out and let Deniz and Truck make the most  of it. Turk, in particular, really asserted himself when it was clear he had an advantage. He made two good passes to Truck for baskets early in the second half when guard and forward worked together. Also, it’s quite possible Truck bottomed out against Kent State, realized this was going to have to be a different year and made all the right changes.

jtmountaineer said:

We’ll still see some backward steps along the way, I’m sure, but it was great to see these consecutive steps forward. Perhaps you can elaborate on this, Mike, and I understand Keaton Miles is supposed to be the best athlete among the new players, but how much longer will he continue to start without tangible or even noticeable improvement?

I love what I’m seeing from Kevin Noreen in terms of effort, but man, does he get called for a lot of bad fouls or what?

Very glad we’ve got some more tune up time before Baylor.

Not sure Miles is more athletic than Hinds. In fact, I don’t think he is, but among those wing prospects, Miles was probably thought to be the most capable of the three, but not by much over McCune. I don’t see Huggins changing the lineup. They’re 6-2 right now and playing pretty well given the inexperience of the team. Mess with that now and you press rewind with a few of those guys. I think it’s easier and smarter to wait on Miles to get better and keep all the other parts in place than to move Miles and another part, let those two changes take shape and hope Miles gets his act together. Noreen throws himself around an awful lot, and he has to to do some of the things he does, hence the most fouls-per-minute on the team.

rekterx said:

Oh … PracticeGate …. you had to remind us of PracticeGate!

Actually I’m glad that you did remind us. We’ve come a long way in just a year.

I, frankly, was having a hard time with the idea of allowing Stew that final year after the bowl prep shenanigans. Ollie should have told Stew to stay home and not coach the team in the bowl game.

Zone Blitzes! … Did you see those Zone Blitzes?

I wrote about it then — I didn’t think Stewart should have been retained — and I think about it now: Imagine  if Luck made the change right there. June never happens the way June happened and think about how differently you’d regard Oll Stew today.

Dr. Stern said:

Yeah…. Zone blitzes became my go-to excuse in 2011. I’ll forever be grateful to Stew for that.

Late for work? Zone blitzes
Caught speeding? Zone blitzes
Forget girlfriend’s birthday? Zone blitzes
Kicked out of Bent Willeys? Did the bouncer see those zone blitzes that I was seeing, in every drink? Thank you.

Fourteen more days! What? Fifteen you say? My bad … zone blitzes.

Better Lucky than Goode said:

Moreso, as that rule was explained to me by someone who most certainly would know, that 4-hour/20-hour rule only applies when classes are in session. Once the semester ends, coaches are, in theory, allowed to practice 24 hours a day if they so choose.

Correct. If the time between the end of the regular season and the bowl game has weeks when the students are in school, it’s the 4/20 rule. If there is no school, there’s no limit.

Mack said:

You mention in the story that Holgorsen is coaching in a bowl game for the 12th consecutive year. What is his bowl record over those 12 years?

His teams are 7-4 and started 0-2.

pgheer said:

I’d love to know the extra revenue generated by selling a portion of the student seating for the Pitt and Louisville games. I bet it was at least $250,000 figuring 5000 seats x $55. Anyway to get that figure? could play big into reducing student seating in the future.

… I think you figured it out on your own there. Good job by you!

Sam said:

I understand the idea that beer sales was a money-maker in it of itself, but considering the new coaching staff and new salaries, how did the program do financially overall? It seems like deck is being stacked if we only consider beer sales and not other expenditures.

Let’s say all the net revenue for beer sales was worth $750,000. That’s not half of the $1.59 million owed to Dave Johnson, Jeff Mullen_, Chris Beatty and Dave McMichael. The books aren’t going to look good for WVU. Holgorsen is due a lot of money in contract incentives and Mr. Luck gets a fraction of what goes to Holgorsen, too. And WVU is about to take a bath in bowl tickets.

SheikYbuti said:

I don’t think you’re going to be able to get a truly accurate picture until several years down the line. We have some start-up costs (league and coaching buyouts, new staff and AD, capital improvements) that we trust will pay dividends down the line, but not necessarily immediately. Some of that may take the form of enhancing the WVU brand with respect to trademark licensing, increased enrollment, and national prominence/relevance. Placing an accurate value on that sort of thing may be problematic. Also keep in mind that our full share of profits from the Big 12 TV contract will not kick in right away. This new way of doing business presents some palpable risks, but they appear to be worth taking; I’d rather crash and burn being proactive than fade away being reactive. That appears to be Luck’s philosophy, and Holgorsen’s as well. From what I can tell, Pastilong and Stewart were in the opposite camp, and that as much as anything is why they’re no longer around.

Do something, even if it’s wrong.

This is a pretty good way to encapsulate what’s happening in athletics. You like to swim? Make a splash. I’m not sure it’s the right way. It might be, but five years from now we might find it was a disaster. Still, I think when you look around and see the most daring and creative plans are often the most successful ones, then you can accept the risk knowing what the rewards might be. Plus, it’s refreshing here because it hasn’t been like that here.

glibglub said:

The end of passouts are a crucial variable that must be factored in to this success. I mean stadium gate passouts, not alcohol related ones.

I wish the people who come from the outside to write the stories about the beer sale policies — and good for them for doing it because I believe it deserves attention — would get into that a little more. It’s an inseparable element to the story. You’d have a real problem if the stadium pass-outs were allowed and WVU sold beer inside.

SheikYbuti said:

If Ollie could also eliminate hangovers, perhaps the team would stop getting off to such inauspicious starts: “Captains, please report to midfield for the traditional coin flip, handshakes, exchange of aspirin, and pouring of the Bloody Marys.”

Are you suggesting Big East referees should be subjected to alcohol before the game?

Patchy said:

The ear-splitting, repetitive AV clips have bludgeoned the crowd into passive, mute submission. It wouldn’t matter if they were drinking moonshine, beer, or chamomile tea. The atmosphere has vanished from MF thanks to the silly, redundant ‘big league’ noise blasting from the PA during the entire game. The vaunted home advantage has been squandered thanks to monkey-see-monkey-do types in stadium operations.

I’m not sure how this fit into the conversation, but I sense this made Patchy feel better.

Jeff in Akron said:

Artist, Pitt had a nice recruiting class in the making, I have to hope the Graham move allows Holgorsen and WVU to snatch some of those players. Currently, the Mountaineers are tied for 18th by Scout and a couple of Pitt recruits could improve on that ranking.

I promise you WVU and every other school that has been affiliated with a Pitt commit is going to look at Pitt’s class and see who might be ripe for the flipping. And I promise you some players will make themselves the low-hanging fruit.

Jeff in Akron said:

Maybe Mike could clarify, but I believe that WVU can sign over the 25 limit because they are under the 85 scholarship limit (78 I think). It seems to me I read that somewhere, I cannot access that file in my brain at the moment.

They can bring guys in for the spring semester and count them toward last year’s class. If seven guys enroll in January, they’re on the tab for the 2011 class.

JL said:

JiA – At least six of WVU’s current commits plan on enrolling early. They’re also still chasing a couple other guys that intend upon enrolling early.

Early enrollees can count towards last year’s recruiting class, so long as the prior year class contains less than 25 people (and no there are more than 85 total on scholarship). I believe WVU’s 2011 class ended up with 17 or 18 kids in it, so they can accept up to 7 or 8 early enrollees this year, in addition to up to 25 more that will enroll in summer/fall.

Correct. By the way, early enrollment is real tricky. I wouldn’t call these guarantees.

Jeff in Akron said:

JL, at the start of fall camp Holgorsen mentioned in his press conferences, more than once, that he did not have a full compliment of 85 scholarship players. Plus, I believe Mike even had an artilce about that very topic. For the record I am sure a team cannot go over that 85 limit.

Again, I am not sure, I thought I read of an exception to the 25 player class if a school has not signed it’s full compliment of 25 in previous years, or is under the 85 scholarship limit.

Mike, will you clarify for us?

You’re correct. Beginning with these January additions, who count toward last year’s class, you can only get to 85. Then you subtract the seniors to make way for the group who will sign in February.

Karl said:

This speaks volumes about the condition of that faded program. Not even a move to the ACC could make this job as attractive as one of the least attractive jobs in the Pac-12. And they don’t want to play us anymore — the one team in the country that actually cares to?

It’s been largely irrelevant for 30 years and any mention in the past 12 months has been because of notoriety.

jtmountaineer said:

ESPN reports that Graham notified all his players of his resignation and pending move via text message. You stay classy, coach.

ESPN reported that after a bunch of others, but the fact remains. I had a coach — and not the one you think — tell me when Graham was hired at Pitt that he was a first-class phony who couldn’t possibly keep the act up.

oklahoma mountaineer said:

Tuscon paper published an interview with the Product who stated he expects to have his staff completed by the end of the week. Shouldn’t have to wait too long…..

Everyone I’ve talked to says Casteel is supposed to be at practice today … but I’ll allow the possibility he’s a better man than Todd Graham and, IF he were leaving, he’d tell his players face-to-face.

The Artist Formerly Known as EER96 said:

Send JackBo a sweater? How could the one from Kent State be topped?

Oh, I can answer that question — and this is a good segue. I love Christmas clothing. I have a variety of just atrocious Christmas sweaters, sweatshirts, T-shirts and vests. I wear them with neither shame nor conscience. I’ll share pictures of them with you if you share pictures of yours. Deal?

glibglub said:

>Send JackBo a sweater? How could the one from Kent State be topped?

One word: angora.

One word: Please.

pknocker40 said:

I don’t know glib, I think an exotic, chic locale such as Miami calls for the boldest of fashion statements. Sporting a multi-colored, triangle-d angora would seem to quelch the thirst of even the most demanding South Beach Fashionistas. Our editorial peacock must be allowed to spread his wings!!!

It’s true, angora gives him wings.

Inspectah JackBo said:

Talk me into a chat? Perhaps I’ll oblige, but until then I’ll crystallize some rhymes so y’all can sniff ‘em… Now remember, when these teams last played in 1989……

Clemson Ruled Everything Around [the] Mounties

It’s been 22 long hard years and still strugglin’
Angora got me buggin’, but I’m alive with my style
They peep at the shape of my pleats
And stay awake to the ways of argyle cause it ain’t cheap

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Though I don’t know why I chose these bright threads
I guess they’re the clothes I wear to impress
But they don’t look impressed, and I ask “Maybe some Uggs?”
Ready to give up so I seek Ol’ Coach Huggs
Who explained dressing sharp could help you maintain
And learn to overcome the heartaches and pain
He’s got spot-up kids, corrupt refs, and jump stops
and stray shots, all in a league that stays hot

Leave it up to me while I be living proof
To kick the truth, to the young bloggin’ youth
But Hertzel’s running wild, dropping quotes, drinking beer
And ain’t trying to hear what I’m kicking in his ear
Neglected for now, but yo, it’s got to be accepted
That what? THAT MY SWEATERS ARE HECTIC

Enjoy the weekend. CREAM!