The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

The NFF covers the crazy eight for 2013

August 7, 2013 by Mike Casazza

Eight rule changes will become part of our lexicon during the season that starts 22 days from today. We know about targeting, but did you know about jersey numbers?

Submit your Tier 4 queries here

by Mike Casazza

We’ll run the mailbag back again tomorrow, so think and ask right here. Now that we’re a full week into things, perhaps I can give you better answers than I did last week. Maybe stories by me and others have stimulated new thoughts. Plus, I have doubts about what I can pull from these abbreviated practice sessions without making Houstin Syvertson a star merely because the players who watch him punt gasp when he sends one booming into the sky.

It’s impressive. Kid’s 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds. You know who else is 6-2, 220? Brandon Golson, and what have we been saying about him thus far?

I don’t know what circumstances would precede a bench clearing brawl, but I’d like to think that because they’re not padded up like, say, linebackers that there’d be some unwritten rule by which punters fight punters, not unlike goalies fighting goalies in hockey. And if it happens, I really like WVU’s chances with Syvertson, Nick O’Toole (6-5, 220) and requisite luchadore Mike Molinari (5-9, 150). If they need a fourth horseman, Josh Lambert (6-1, 199 … definitely not 200) looks like he lives in that new weight room.

Other updates: Vernon Davis is still a receiver, and pretty pumped about who else arrived this offseason, while Clint Trickett was perhaps too ambitious about becoming WVU’s quarterback last fall. Oh, and still no sign of Howard, McDonald and Henry. What’s interesting there is that WVU added a kicker from Hurricane named Mike Molina this week. That gives WVU 103 players in camp. You’re allowed 105. At his opening news conference, Dana Holgorsen said WVU would wait until school started to add kickers. I think you can arrive at your own conclusion here.

Dana Holgorsen and the space between

August 6, 2013 by Mike Casazza

I’ve been around the figurative block a few times now, so I know that every season is different. There are new players and coaches and schemes, new opponents, new venues and sometimes new conferences. There is never a continuity of circumstances when you’re dealing with 100-some players, 10 coaches and then 12 or 13 or 14 opponents who, by the way, are experiencing a lot of changes, too.

So while we might talk about how 2012 was a lot like 2004, how the preamble to the 2013 season isn’t much different from the one in 2005, the conversation only goes so far because, really, they aren’t alike at all.

And this is why coaches stand atop the bully pulpit and proclaim, without fail, that it’s a new year and how the past is in the past.

Dana Holgorsen has played this part perfectly so far, but, boy, after five days, four practices and two press conferences, it seemed like he’s trying to put a lot of distance between his second team and his third team.

“It’s much more settled, much more my program than it ever has been,” Holgorsen said last week. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding, not arrogant, but optimistic. I don’t want to sound optimistic. I want to sound like the world is coming to an end, the sky is falling, the walls are crashing in on top of us, whatever.

“I want everyone to think that, know what I mean? I want everyone to think we’re lousy.”

He wants that to be the perception – or, more accurately, to continue to be the perception – because it is not the reality. Had it been? Was he not looking over his shoulder to monitor half a coaching staff he didn’t hire and agreed to keep for a season? Wasn’t he sidestepping the issues that come from rolling into a new conference with all the momentum and swagger that a program could want and that an opponent could despise?

And isn’t that all gone?

“The truth of the matter is I feel pretty good about where we are right now,” he said. “I’m looking forward to coaching this team more than I have the previous two teams.”

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Video blog: Day four

August 5, 2013 by Mike Casazza

We’re slightly off center and under the weather today. Also worth noting, still no sign of d’Vante Henry, Darrien Howard and Isaac McDonald. Enjoy.

Long read: Dana Holgorsen’s tour de force

by Mike Casazza

The entirety of the experience of being a football player at West Virginia University begins here, inside the head coach’s office, where, with rare exceptions, every prospective player must meet with Dana Holgorsen before he’s offered a scholarship.

Whether it happens or not, the participants eventually leave the office. The door swings open and, bam, there it is, a massive, wall-length mural across the hall that serves as one of the many recruiting reminders for the Mountaineers.

 

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The sight of Andrew Buie, Will Clarke and Karl Joseph in their gold, blue and white uniforms, respectively, is supposed to stick with a recruit. Same goes for the Big 12 logo and the photographs of WVU’s NFL players that are in the background of the mural.

“The uniforms are new, the Big 12 is still new and then we promote the heck out of our NFL guys,” Holgorsen said. “It’s all recruiting. They see the new uniforms, they see the Big 12 and they see the NFL stuff. It matters.”

And with that, Holgorsen is off and running on a tour of his facility and all the new elements he’s introducing to his current and future players.

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Friday Feedback

August 2, 2013 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which will give Ivan McCartney credit for one thing: That guy always wins the press conference.

He spoke to us today, surprisingly, I would say, for the first time since leaving and later returning to the team. And he was again who and what he had been before, which is to say he was thoughtful and interesting and that he represented himself very well, which is saying something for someone in his situation. There were a lot of unknowns he sought to answer. He spoke about a situation with his grandfather that compromised his focus and eventually drew him home. Now he’s back and ready to play again and like he never he has before.

I’ll prepare you for the assured onslaught of feel-good pieces about contrition and inspiration and words like “hunger” and “desire,” because they’re coming. All of them. You’ve heard and read the story before, and McCartney’s version makes is sound and look quite good, but the fact is he’s got a long way to go until he’s in a position to back up his words. Today, I guess, was a good day because he crossed “Explain myself” off the list and it’s one fewer thing for him and his coaches to worry about as things progress. Realistically, it means little as practices matter much more, and even then he has to sustain it as long as, and probably even longer than, everyone else.

He has talent, without question, but he’s running out of time.

The only other players who weren’t available to us today were, as expected, newly arrived Clint Trickett and Charles Sims, but also dog house’d Jordan Thompson. So that prohibition will exist in perpetuity or until Thompson has a 100-yard and/or two-touchdown game. In a win. I bet.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, do the right thing.

JC said:

Defending tempo may not be as much about scheme or play calling as it is about speed, conditioning, and depth. The days of the 300lbs nose tackles and 260lbs linebackers may be coming to an end, reverting back to smaller, faster, and more technically skilled players. I think this will ultimately even the playing field that much more. The stud defensive lineman weighing 280+, linebackers running 4.5 40′s weighing 250+ are much harder to come by than guys weighing 230.

Conditioning has already changed in many programs. Endurance is just as important as enhancement, and depending on who you play, it can me more important. Law School Hill will get even more use in the coming years…….

And depth. Depth is THE biggest key to defensing tempo. Even with less opportunity for subs, having multiple players at each position, ready to go, is more important than it’s ever been. LSU has been doing this for years on the d-line, even before the spread and tempo made it’s way onto their schedule. And don’t be surprised if the NCAA legislates some sort of obligatory player substitution allowance, similar to what the NFL has.

That was a pretty interesting point by Mack Brown — you need a second-string defense to roll in when needed. That’s just so hard, though, because offensive coordinators will find ways to feast on a green cornerback or defensive end. I think there’s a way to scheme it, but I’m not sure if it’s scheme or personnel. That hybrid safety/linebacker and a way to play 4-2-5 or 4-3-4 interchangeably is valuable. I wonder, though, if teams can fish for a DE/OLB/S. That would solve lots of problems, and I don’t think it’s outrageous. Remember John Holmes? I also found Gary Patterson’s take to be the most useful, though. Defenses need to act like the offense, which means practicing fast and getting used to that pace, but they also have to call plays like offenses and build in checks and audibles. You need a very veteran defense that can spot, act and communicate fast, but if you have it, it’s fire vs. fire.

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On to the next one: Players speak today

by Mike Casazza

That is, the ones Dana Holgorsen grants reporters the media access to. We can safely assume freshmen and transfers who weren’t here in the spring are off limits for now, but we also have to wonder if a Jordan Thompson or Darwin Cook or even a Kevin White will be allowed to meet the media today. Time will tell.

Yesterday’s practice was, as near as I could tell, uneventful, but it was nevertheless significant because Clint Trickett threw a football in a gold uniform. I hesitated to say what I’m about to say on the vlog yesterday, because it sounded so presumptuous and misguided on the first day, but then Holgorsen spoke later and reinforced what I had observed in a very brief sample.

Now I feel safer.

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Dana likes talking physique, but not 2012

August 1, 2013 by Mike Casazza

A finish with a flurry as the 2013 season begins — with a water bottle!

Video blog: Day one

by Mike Casazza

On punt returns, tough guys, arrivals, absences, Nos. 5 and 10 and whatever else that happens on the first day of practice.

Football’s starting five

by Mike Casazza

This sort of stuff is always fun because it gives you a narrow focus when things are so broadly discussed, but you’ll remember upon ending spring football last year that Dana Holgorsen was, by his own admission, only looking for two players to complete his offense.

We have a similar discussion for the start of preseason practice a year later. Holgorsen is looking for his five best offensive skill players who can handle more than one position so that the Mountaineers may play like neither they nor Holgorsen have played before.

“The nature of the offense is to not do that,” Holgorsen said. “The nature of the offense is to get guys into a position they feel good about and are comfortable with and not move guys around. Catching a fade route over the left shoulder is a different skill than catching a fade route over the right shoulder.

“You’re trying to get guys into a position to do the same skill over and over and get good at it. That’s the backbone of the offense.

“With that said, I think the future of offense is more personnel related. It’s more of what we did with Tavon. It’s getting guys like Cody Clay, who can play slot, tight end and backfield stuff, to try to do something different and try to gain an advantage on the defense from a matchup or tempo standpoint.”