Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which would like to introduce you again to Dana Holgorsen. We haven’t heard too much directly from the head coach in the first 10 spring practices, but he spoke after the 11th. Among many topics things, he gave quite possibly the best explanation for why Vernon Davis is auditioning at receiver after meddling at cornerback.

Watch it, uh, forward to backward or backward to forward and you’ll get a bunch of tips and updates. Oh, and stop calling Hertz in the middle of the presser!

Hey, how about that depth chart? He didn’t want to give one out because it’s really just names on paper. But the Gold-Blue Game program needed a depth chart, so it has a depth chart.

It’s pretty pointless. It not only might be inaccurate April 20, but it absolutely won’t be accurate in August. Seriously, WVU thinks something like 20 of the summer arrivals will rearrange things. We’ll hold onto this and revisit it a few months from now. I guess for the time being it’s useful to see who is where, ie Hodari Christian at Spur, Brandon Napoleon in the mix, Jordan Thompson in reserve, so on and so forth.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, good grief.

Homer said:

BREAKING: Coach tells reporter exactly what he wants to hear, reporter believes it. Film at 11.

Aw, man. I thought I hedged pretty clearly and attributed everything to Patterson and even added a disclaimer that you had to be willing to believe everything he said. Am I going down this road again?

Rugger said:

We’ll be better on defense and the Big 12 offenses won’t be as good due to QB attrition. However, our offense could be terrible or it could be good. I foresee Dana and Shannon having an above average offense.

I don’t have a man crush on Patterson as Mike does but I think he’s cute.

7-5 w regular season w a bowl win over UConn somewhere in the Arctic.

I don’t have a crush on Keith Patterson! I’m a sucker for that kind of conversation, though. If someone wants to take the time to enlighten me or is willing to clear up my curiosities, then I’m probably going to come across as grateful. Coaches don’t often do that. Jeff Casteel wouldn’t even acknowledge who was on the field in his Swat package, as if I couldn’t watch film and learn on my own. But, boy, was he good. Remember Jeff Mullen_? He had me at numeric advantage, but he had problems coaching the offense and I don’t think I ignored those. 

Jeff in Akron said:

Okay, so this defense is a 3-4, and Patterson is a little more open about how he intends to confuse quarterbacks, I get that. Still, it sounds a lot like another coach that had a reputation for confusing quarterbacks, and opposing offensive coordinators. I believe I heard in one of the video interviews that this year’s defense would, at times, look like the old 3-3-5, might this be what that was referencing? Maybe we could call it the “Stack Part Deux”, or not.

It won’t be a base 3-3-5, but the linebackers and defensive backs can move around to make it a 3-3-5 for certain situations or packages or opponents. Between the 3-4, the 4-3 over/under and the 3-3-5, it is a multiple odd front. You can’t keep throwing fastballs.

AnxiousEER97 said:

I thought last year’s defense was designed to create mistakes. The title of this article does not give me hope.

I see you working.

Kevin said:

I think we can take some optimism from the fact that there was noticeable improvement after DeForest went up to the coaching box (Patterson ran the show) and the fact that the guys have picked up a year of experience.

Even still, the defense has such a long way to go to even be considered serviceable and I don’t see how we could expect to see a ton of improvement in terms of coverage and ability to get to the QB when we haven’t had any significant player upgrades….

This comment mirrors a few others that say, in essence, it’s the same players and those players weren’t good last year, so what good are changes going to do? I get that and I’m glad we’ve all jumped to the side of the fence that admits WVU didn’t have much talent there last year — because we debated that. Experience accelerates talent, though, and that can be a significant upgrade. I also happen to think Hodari Christian has a chance because he’s here now and D’Vante Henry, Dontrill Hyman, maybe Al-Rasheed Benton and Brandon Golson, if he makes it, can be upgrades. Add Darrien Howard, too, however big he is. Patterson told a few of us he was 300-plus pounds. “If there’s 2 2 in his weight, it’s 302,” he said. Someone purportedly close to Howard told me that’s not true. Either way, Howard is a player.

Don Quixote said:

Staten’s inability to hit A three in the Old Gold & Blue is problematic. I would hope he can develop some sort of 3 pt game over the summer. I heard we have a real nice practice facility.

Sure, sure. I’m more impressed by the fact my boredom-breaking office putt-putt windmill invited a new contributor to the blog. I might have to keep the vlog rolling over the summer. I have advertisers lining up now.

Jeff in Akron said:

Its probably just me, but I am looking forward to seeing Holgorsen’s version of a two tight end power running set. If you think about it, there is still two wide receivers on the field to go along with those two tight ends and single running back, or the potential to put five guys into patterns. How fair is it to opposing d-backs to toss a bubble screen to Clay at 6’3″, 250lbs, and have Johnson at 6’6″,250lbs, become his lead blocker. Or, just pitch it to the lone back and Clay/Johnson lead block. Or,…

I’ve got a hunch the formations may look the same when they line up as last year, the plays run out of those same sets will be a different matter completely. You just don’t build an offensive line that averages 6’5″, 315lbs, and not use them to their fullest.

That’s fun and probably not too crazy. Dana used Clay as a tight end last season. Two tight ends, as near as I can tell, is a little unusual, but there’s a way to use both without breaking principles. Clay and Johnson are wild cards next season, especially Clay. I’m very interested to see how they’re used. Apparently Johnson has learned to use his legs of late to block better, and that would be a big deal for the offense. Clay almost has to be the blocking back, unless Eli Wellman is a wunderkind, so if Johnson can earn and keep a spot as an inside receiver who can block, the running game benefits.

JP said:

There people that get paid to make these decisions they are crowd sourcing for budgetary solutions? Interesting concept.

It’s basically journalists using Facebook. And, really, neither is a terrible idea. I’d love to know the outcome here.

Mack said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokthY5zuPU

Yes!

jtmountaineer said:

Mack, I thought of that clip as well. And Jimmy C’s absolutely right, as much as some people don’t want to hear such an argument. If WVU is anything like the state university where I teach, and I suspect it’s on par, the easiest way to save millions, which will never be done, would be a precise excision of the dozens upon dozens of associate vice whatnots of such and such, all of whom make in the six figures for nothing more consequential than brainstorming, gladhanding, and puffing out their cheeks with the occasional sigh.

“…which will never be done…” Sigh. I’m all for people making money, as long as there’s a reason. There are people across the university who have no reason making what they make. I’m going to hear about that one, I bet, but I can’t sit here and type to you and act like it doesn’t exist.

The 25314 said:

Buy non-stick waffle irons in the dining halls. How many cubic meters of waffle batter is wasted per year because no one remembers to use the PAM?

Far too many.

Mackstrodamus said:

Calhoun’s two-step plan:

1. Get some facts.
2. Come talk to me.

How much would that save? More than a dime, right? By the way, that was a fun little conversation we had on that topic. 

Josh24601 said:

It just hit me, you’re recording these spring vlogs in your Oll Presser Uniform. Bravo.

Grazie. I roll out of the rack and tie one on every day.

Rugger said:

The ideas of raising money and vlogging prompted a thought.

WVU Telethon hosted by Mike. “You’ll Never Fall Alone”.

Is this a dare? I raised $500 for Remember the Miners. Imagine what Tier 4 could do.

Wayne said:

And as the curtain rises, you see Mike and hear the refrain: “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high….”

So help me, I’ll do this.

hershy112 said:

“I’m probably in the minority, but I think Miles has potential. I don’t think it’s on offense, though. He’s a complimentary piece who can do good things on defense, in rebounding and with hustle and at times scrap together some baskets. Think Wellington Smith, but not playing center.”

If you are in the minority, I’m right there with you. I was telling a friend the same thing earlier this week.

I was talking to another friend about the departure of Hinds and he said that Hinds was our best PG last year, and my response was “Eh, I don’t know about that.” I think Staten was our best PG last season, not Hinds, and Hinds was one of my favorite players. Am I off base here or is he the crazy one?

I think you and I and the rest of the minority are precluded from this conversation … BUT … the plan last year was to move Hinds off the ball, and he only played a little PG in the middle area of the season when Browne was beat up a little bit and when Hinds’s shot was gone and Huggins more or less had to find a purpose for someone as talented as Jabarie. Staten doesn’t have the offense to be a SG. But am I crazy to say some of Staten’s flashes were brighter than anyone else’s not named Terry or Eron? It seemed to me there were times he could drive or hit his elbow-extended jumper in succession. As for the 3, John Flowers was good at many things when he came to campus, but he was a terrible shooter — 3s, free throws, 18 footers, you name it. He changed all of that before his final season. Staten has time.

JP said:

I also agree about Miles. The way he flies around on defense, he’s fun to watch. Apparently he needs help staying in position though because he never spent too long on the floor this year.

I sincerely hope Murray can get his act together and have a good senior season. If he’s going to stay, he better put in the work this summer and not be Turk 2.0.

Hey! We’re all drinking the Nestea! Miles has some ability, but he tends to do some of the things he’s specifically told not to do. You’d think those would be easy errors to correct.

Foul Shot said:

Hinds cannot shoot from the outside and his game is trying to drive and throw up crazy shots.
I am not convinced he is a contributor elsewhere. The opposite opinion seems to be popular here.
This blog is tops because the nastiness is kept to a minimum. Other blogs have a lot of that and just plain idiocy. Not much of that here which keeps me coming back. Hope you win the award.

Idiot.

But seriously, Hinds is divisive. I’ve had the same conversation a bunch of times in the past week or so. I guess anyone’s success depends on the system, but a person’s success depends a lot on how he facilitates it — and I’ll use Well Smith as an example again. I just think Jabarie needs to be in a place where he’s not dwarfed and where he’s able to start anew and find some confidence again.

Dave said:

JB’s teams drove me up a wall with their schitzo nature, but I respect that he is/was upstanding and moved on his own accord, paying his dues … not like some other JA who left and we found out he was shopping himself like a … and then fought his obligation.

Karma is probably why JB is successful at Michigan and someone else blew up a 100 year program.

Dave!

Mr. M said:

I still have mixed feelings about Beilein … and this matchup tonight. Without question he moved our program up … after RESCUING it. But there’s still that feeling of abandonment. He left us! It’s still difficult for me to come to grips with the duality of those positives and negative.

And, for some unfathomable reason I still feel a kinship to the Big East. I’d sort of like for that conference to go out a winner. It’s not that I’m a Louisville fan — quite the contrary (the rivalry still lingers); I just have some pride left over from ownership … from membership, rather, in what will probably go down in history as the greatest college basketball conference ever.

I have no problem with that view of Beilein. I don’t see how anyone could. I don’t like it when people let their hurt feelings blind them from what was achieved during and after his five seasons here. Oh, and I watched far more of the Big East tourney than I did the Big 12 tourney. And I’m still not happy that I won’t be covering the league that has Butler v. Marquette two and maybe three times a year.

Patchy said:

So fortunate to watch every home game he coached and many away games including the Big East run. Combine it with the football results of the same era and it was heady stuff. The current hangover is torture. But at least it’s twice as expensive, eh?

Eh!

rekterx said:

Mike … it’s OK. I’m a Beilein fan too. Nor do I hate Rick Pitino. I just like Beilein and I want his team to win.

Then I want his team to stick together for another year. It’s been a while since we’ve had a truly great college team stick together for 2-3 seasons. I think the game needs it and I hope that John Beilein is the one to give it.

That would be the greatest recruiting job ever. I know everybody says they have four pros … but I don’t see that right now. Burke is small and got beat up in the Final Four, Hardaway is a little rough around the edges, Robinson III isn’t ready and McGary can blossom with a year or two more. The money is there, right now, for Burke, Hardaway and probably even McGary, but, man, they could be tons better in a year.

IrishBillATL said:

I’m just tired of WV media always talking about and keeping tabs on coaches who used to coach in this state, at any level, including Marsha. No personal disrespect to Casazza or anyone else who likes Beilein – frankly I like the guy too but can we please move on?

I get it, but I still know and interact with the Beileins. It’d be a little different for me to just move on. 

Rick said:

Beilein flirted with Indiana and NC State then signed a 5 yr contract extension. Left after 1 yr and didn’t pay his full buyout. Class act? But hey he isn’t from WV, didn’t call this his “dream job” and didn’t go to school here. So he’s a great guy who left the right way.

Fair, but that’s the business. It can be an ugly and undesirable quality, but it’s almost in the rule book now. And he was infatuated with rebuilding programs. That’s his gift, his wont. Is coming and going the “right way?” No, not at all. I always thought “right way” was related to his exit by handling it quietly and outside of the newspapers. As for the buyout, those are starting figures. A contract can’t apply a punitive damage that’s aimed at keeping a person in a job. So you put in a liquidated damage, which means you essentially measure damage done. WVU spent little time and money before hiring Bob Huggins and that hiring kept the fan base excited and interest in the program high, which means damage wasn’t done to scheduling, television opportunities, season tickets or any other valuable measure. Beilein’s lawyer successfully argued that point and the two sides agreed to the eventual figure. Conversely, the Product did a lot of damage and Beilein’s lawyer was on WVU’s side to successful argue that. Again, there are no coincidences.

Mack said:

I think it’s easier to say a guy is a class act than it is to talk about good coaching. Beilein is a great coach but Pitino, I thought, did a masterful job last night and for most of the tournament. Pitino mixed up the defenses and had a big hand in essentially taking Burke and McGary completely out of the game. The best performance from Michigan came from a guy that Louisville probably didn’t even put on the scouting report.

That last sentence sticks with me because I wonder if Albrecht was on Michigan’s scouting report. I know Burke’s foul trouble created an opening, but Albrecht’s season-long numbers were what they were for a reason. Within the game, I wondered why in the biggest game of the season Michigan was banking on a trend-buster. And Pitino is a wizard. He never lets his teams quit and I’d imagine his teams know he’s got a few things up his sleeve to fix problems.

Shoot4Show said:

After watching a lot of the tournament games, seeing the success of teams like Wichita State and Florida Gulf Coast without four- and five-star recruits, reminiscing about the the JB WVU teams, and seeing and remembering the ball actual go through the basket with relative frequency, I’m hopeful that current WVU players, future WVU players, and former WVU player Kevin Jones all buy FGCU’s former coach’s self help shooting program and develop a shooting stroke. The Mountaineers and KJ would be well served by learning to shoot like the Mountaineers of the JB era. We might win more than 13 games if we could score 70 points in regulation, and KJ could have a nice little NBA career like Udonis Haslim. Whew, got that of my chest. Go Blue (for tonight)!

You good?

Wayne said:

Mike, do you think that Morrisey’s approach surprised Raese or is this another delaying tactic with July 1 in mind?

A little of each? Hard to make sense of a lot of these moves. Get ready to read a lot more about this, though. Apparently WVU is ready to release like 33 FOIA requests Monday. I think the only thing I care about right now is who bid what, and that won’t be public until after the process ends. Still, the line about Team Raese side being totally transparent and with nothing to hide seems to me to be a little disingenuous. I mean, if you claim you have reason to believe your bid was better than IMG College’s big, well, 1) How do you know? and 2) What was your bid? That said, I understand why you wouldn’t share what others have not shared, too.

pknocker40 said:

Questions/comments:

Who arranged the meeting? Was it Raese?

Did Raese ever intend to provide information to the AG going into the meeting? Or did he get defensive once the AG represented that he was there on behalf of the State/WVU and not to act as Raese’s sycophant?

Is the outstanding FOIA request the only reason Raese gave for not talking during the meeting?

Did WVU actually retain the AG’s office to handle every single aspect of this controversy, including the intake, analysis, and response to FOIA requests? I doubt that. My impression is that the AG’s office was contacted simply to look into the Tier 3 bidding process and potential conflicts due to Payne’s position on the Board of Governors in relation to his investments with WV Media Holdings – you know, the “appearance of impropriety,” the primary (only?) allegation Raese has made challenging this deal.

I imagine that the legal affairs office at WVU handles the wide range of FOIA requests made to the University, and the AG’s office would have no involvement in that type of vast document compilation and review. That’s to say, the AG’s office would have had nothing to do with WVU’s response to Raese’s FOIA request.

Against that (speculative) backdrop, it seems disingenuous for Raese to hide behind the FOIA request as a basis for refusing to provide information to the AG. If it was simply a matter of Raese not knowing what to tell the AG because he didn’t have the documents yet, he could have easily postponed the meeting until the documents were provided – as opposed to making the AG waste his time (and taxpayer dollars!) traveling to Morgantown for a useless meeting.

Big Al said:

The Attorney General is the State’s legal officer, who has as one of his duties the legal representation of State entities. WVU is a state entity.

When WVU requested the AG’s office to review its Tier-3 bid process, it is something that a client would ask of its attorney.

Mr. Raese, as owner/CEO of a company that submitted a bid to WVU, also suggested/requested that the AG review the bid process. However, the AG does not work for/represent Mr. Raese or his company.

It seems to me that Mr. Raese believes the AG should be reviewing the bid process on behalf of his company, but in reality the AG is reviewing the bid process on behalf of WVU. I’m sure the AG will inform his client, WVU, of the results of his review. Given the amount of publicity attached to this bid process and the AG’s review, WVU will probably make the review (or a summary thereof) public.

If Mr. Raese wants to challenge the bid process, he needs to take legal action, not try to convert the AG to his private attorney.

I’m stacking these two because they can be ready together. And remember, Mr. Raese has an attorney now. I can’t attempt to make sense out of all of this, but to read what Team Raese says, it was bothered by Morrissey calling WVU his “client,” and it seems Team Raese feared sharing its intel without knowing what WVU possessed within the FOIA requests would tip the hand too far in WVU’s direction. Team Raese did not want to go that route.

oklahoma mountaineer said:

Gruden hit a couple of nails on the head — the biggest is that Geno is a very emotional person. His emotions take him too high and too low during the course of the game and, I believe, is something that hurt us during some of the games during the losing streak (particularly Texas Tech).

If he goes as high as advertised, a bad team around him may well put him out of the league after his first contract…….

Very fair and appropriate. I can’t get this out of my head though: New York Jets. That’s been a bad locker room the past few seasons — and that’s coming from the locker room — and that’s a team that simultaneously needs a quarterback and has no business taking a quarterback. Just imagine Geno drafted that high in that market on that team. Whew.

Sammy said:

How much do you want to bet that “this guy shreds people. Here’s a human shredder” makes it onto the recruiting highlight tape?

At WVU or at Arizona?

Mackstrodamus said:

Does anyone want to co-sign on my prediction that Tavon gets drafted before Geno?

Some clairvoyant you are. I believe I had that first. But while we’re here, Sportsbook.com set the over/under on Geno’s spot at 4.5. The betting hit fast and it’s now 5.5. Tavon is 13.5. 

Nolan Nawrocki said:

Poor overall drawing of Gruden.

The picture looked like a cross between Louie Anderson and Beavis. It was a gimmicky, overhyped product lacking the artistic savvy, work habits and skills to cement an exhibition at MOMA.

Shaky dry-erase mechanics. Needed to be coddled by his subject – cannot handle hard cheekbones. Will struggle to produce caricatures with proficiency against subjects with more complex features.

Enjoy the weekend!