Welcome to the (260th) Friday Feedback on the eve of what might be the least-anticipated spring game I’ve encountered since spring games became Things around here. Funny thing is, the one I would compare it to is last year’s. Maybe we have a trend.

I’m not going to grandstand for a few reasons, chief among them being I don’t think it’ll ever draw an enormous crowd here and I sort of think WVU is OK with this development. You’ll get a couple thousand people every year, maybe 10 grand when the conditions are optimal, but that’s a ceiling. WVU isn’t as concerned about a ceiling as much as working under proper conditions. Spring is about different things here — developing and discovering, learning and remembering, so on and so forth — and it’s never going to be the same. That’s perplexing and sometimes problematic, but coaching isn’t static. That’s why coaches seek control and try to manufacture consistency and repetition in so many things they do.

Here’s a question: How important is spring practice to coaches?

Let’s set aside tomorrow’s Gold-Blue Game, which WVU treats like a regular game when it comes to interviews. We get to talk to Dana Holgorsen four times: Before the first, sixth, ninth and 12th practices, each of which is open. You get to watch that practice and then wait a week to ask him about it, so you’re not really there to report on the practice.

You get to talk to assistants and players after the sixth, ninth and 12th practices, but the players have to have played in a game and have to be cleared by Holgorsen, who approves and nixes requests on his own, so you’re not necessarily there to write about who or what you saw at practice. (#FreeKhairi)

Full disclosure: I think you’re crazy to write about practice. Developments? Sure. Action. Why? Goose an gander, I suppose.

(Aside: This is ordinary at WVU. It’s not a deviation, and I’m not airing any laundry. These are the conditions — the same as or better than you’d find in some places, worse than you’d find in others — and you work around them, even if it means less work. I’m just explaining things to make a point and answer the aforementioned question.)

So to circle back, what happens in practice is important to the coaches, but how it’s digested and dispersed outside of practice is not that important. And maybe that’s an issue. People like to ask me how practice is going. I have no idea. I do know that Holgorsen is happy with where he’s at and Tony Gibson would like to be healthier and, as a result, further ahead than he is right now. Beyond that, who knows? They know, which, in the end, is all that matters.

This might be a non sequitur, or it might be the point altogether. Again, I don’t know. But I got back in town Monday night, lost power to a thunderstorm and went out to eat. I was talking to someone — not Someone, but a renowned fan — and he asked me if I was covering football. (!) I came to see his point: I hadn’t written much. Some of that is my vacation schedule and some of that is not, but what he came to explain was he wasn’t reading a lot about football anywhere during spring football, and that concerned him because he worried about the bridge that can connect the team, media and fans.

That got my attention because, you know, my job.

That makes the spring game interesting. Who or what are you buying a ticket to go see? A lot of people will just go to the game. That’s their nature. But it’s also the nature of others to be drawn out to the game, and I suppose it’s fair to wonder if there is a draw and who or what it is. But I also think it’s fair to mention that draw is somewhat insignificant, too.

I think a lot of coaches would just rather have their 15th practice be their 15th practice and not a goofy scrimmage after the 14th practice. Just this year, for example, WVU has so many people hurt or hurting that you’ll have a number of Who’s That scrimmaging tomorrow when they might be better off just practicing. WVU does enough scrimmaging in practices that tomorrow isn’t some sort of grand reveal, which, correct me if I’m wrong, is or was the purpose of the spring game concept. Under whatever circumstances, there comes a point where risk and reward meet and you wonder what’s the cost of compromising a critical practice for the amusement of a few thousand fans … especially when you’ve opened three practices/scrimmages for a few thousand fans already.

This is not to say WVU had some ingenious plan to do away with the spring game by opening a few practices and traveling to far corners of the state. But WVU has, in a way, brought the spring game to Charleston and Wheeling, to Shepherdstown and White Sulpher Springs. Those folks don’t have to and likely won’t come to the spring game, and they might not in ordinary years anyhow, but it dents the crowd a little.

True, it’s neat to simulate the road trip experience and introduce kids to that situation before the regular season and to see how they react, but I think it’s more than that.

Does that mean WVU turns its 15th practice into the one that’s open in Morgantown, or the spring game might be in Bluefield or Parkersburg, or perhaps the practice that’s open in Morgantown is No. 12 and followed by three closed practices? Possibly. There are no rules here and the payoff, the sort of crowd that normally isn’t markedly bigger than the ones in other cities, isn’t so great that it can’t be manipulated.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, clean up after yourself.

ffejbboc said:

2016: Youngstown State, BYU, Missouri

2017: ECU, VaTech, TBA

2018: NC State, Tennessee, TBA

2019: NC State, Missouri, TBA

2020: ECU, Maryland, TBA

2021: Maryland, VaTech, TBA

2022: VaTech, TBA, TBA

2023: Penn State, TBA, TBA

2024: Penn State, TBA, TBA

Why could we not add Pitt as early as 2017? With ECU on that year, it looks like we need another P5 school.

I don’t think we’d add them for 18, 19 or 21 because we have two P5 OCC already scheduled for those years.

I thought about 2017. It has to be a home game, because the VT game is at FedEx, and Pitt has room for a road game. But I’ve heard WVU is open to a FCS school that year, too, to fill the home schedule at a cozy cost. Also: Pitt opens at home against Youngstown State, plays at Penn State and plays host to Oklahoma State the first three weeks. Where are the Panthers putting WVU, and why?

Matt said:

Add WVU to the ACC.
Add Missouri, Nebreska, and Texas A&M back to Big 12.
Add Notre Dumb to the Big 10.

Fixes college football rivilaries.

Notre Dumb!

Ron in Morgantown said:

I know what I’m about to suggest sounds crazy but I think it could work . I suggest an Old School Rivary Weekend in Atlanta Ga with the first ever college football doubleheader . 1pm WVU vs Pitt followed by 8pm Oklahoma vs Nebraska . It would be widely popular with fans and TV executives as well . Why not do it ? It would be great for the B12 as well . It’s a unique way to promote the game in an era where that’s becoming more difficult .

It’s not crazy. Utopian, for sure, but there are a lot of pieces that have to fit together.

overtheSEC said:

Meanwhile, the only holdup to WVU playing Pitt in basketball seems to be Jamie Dixon.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger-college-basketball-blog/bob-huggins-wants-continue-west-virginia-rivalry-pitt-200820790–ncaab.html
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2014/02/11/wvu-coach-bob-huggins-not-keen-on-cameron-crazies/

New year, same story. That said, WVU has another anchor on the schedule it could do without and, hey, did you hear who isn’t running for governor?

Mack said:

I’m always intrigued by the draft more than I should be. If it’s me, I probably take Cooper over White and the only reason for it is Cooper has been good over a longer period of time. White has really only been at the top level for about 3/4 of one season. If I’m an NFL GM, I want my first round picks to DEFINITELY make an impact on my team. I take Cooper because I deem him to be a safer pick, even though I may even be wrong on that. If I’m a GM, I want to know what happened to White for the several games last year where he was ineffective.

With that said, White is better than Cooper in all of the measurable ways. I also agree with White’s opinion on First Take about him lining up in the same spot every game. NFL receivers generally line up in the same spot every game. The idea that Cooper is “more versatile” because he does the other things is incorrect to me.

In other words, the things White does are the things that NFL receivers do. Against WVU, nearly all of Cooper’s catches were on short passes and screens. White goes down the field and catches the ball at its highest point. A great quarterback would love to have White rather than some of the undersized guys that some teams are stuck with.

Cooper’s versatility is overstated for the NFL, too. He’s not dynamic enough to be treated that way in the NFL. He’s not Reggie Bush or Percy Harvin. But he’ll be good and people will trust that because he’s been productive at a quality program. Kevin has some system bias working against him, as well as his uneven past. The potential is greater for him than Cooper, but potential gets people fired, too. I believe Cooper goes before White. My educated guess: Oakland looms large. Two scenarios seems plausible. 1) Oakland drafts Cooper and somebody jumps up to get White before the Bears pick at No. 7, where they’d take White. 2) Oakland trades its pick to someone who wants Leonard Williams, and then things get dicey with White maybe falling to, say, Minnesota at No. 11.

Rob W said:

I absolutely wish him the best and hope that he succeeds to the highest levels.  But at this point in time I am MUCH more curious about and interested in his brother’s abilities.

I’m on that one, I promise. Ka’Raun will be here for the spring game, too. I don’t believe Kyzir will be, though.

Brother X said:

The writing was on the wall, though. This team is goofy deep at guard with more on the way. That said, I always enjoyed the moments Chas3 was on the court but I imagine he’d be best suited as a Mountain East Conference (West Lib, Concord, etc) guard. He could – in theory – tear that league up with his shooting. And there’s definitely a precedent for “former D-1 guy shows up in WVIAC/MEC school and goes bananas” – my Alma Mater certainly benefited from 2 of them in the late 90’s (Daniel Hicks & Kelly Mann showing up in Athens lead to back to back conference tournament championships for Concord.)

I don’t think Connor will be homeless for long, and I don’t think he’ll be moving all too far.

smeer said:

was hoping he’d make it too but he caught Huggitis and couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn for a guy with one job to do – hit threes

all that – still a WV walk-on kid so will be missed

he’ll light it up elsewhere once he gets away from the WVU practice facility

Nice kid, fun story, but as good as (we heard) he was in practice, it was much different when the lights were on, and he struggled the final third of the season. 

Shoot4Show said:

Easy kid to root for… WV kid, walk-on underdog, scrappy contributor, etc. Was hopeful he’d carve out a role, but how many 6″ -ish kids can you have on one team that get to play? I hope he lands in a good place and that it all works out for him.

He’ll be fine at a lower level, and he’ll know he belongs there. That’s not a slight, I promise. He’s a confident kid who’s going to drop down and know he was good enough to get some burn at a higher level. That’s important. But up here, he couldn’t guard and he had one line on offense. Hard to play a guy honestly when he takes two 2-point shots in 23 games and 122 minutes. He has to add that wherever he goes next, and he might have it, for all we know. But what we also know was he didn’t have the PT and the skill set to show it here. (Also, is there where I add that there was no press release and no quote from Bob Huggins, who was high on Connor, wishing him well? Is this where we wonder if it’s a surprise?)

Karl said:

Here’s the problem: A precedent was set last year and the voters will be likely to follow it again. They were confronted at the season’s end with the problem of too many 1-loss teams. It was a tough decision. The championship game gave them an out, a mechanism of differentiation, a way to save face and avoid having to choose a team based on subjective factors. Now that this has been done once, it’ll be the committee’s default solution in similar situations. They can justify leaving the Big 12 out again by saying, “Hey, they saw what happened in 2014, they have the means to fix it, but they’re not doing it. We have no choice.”

Indisputable, and that’s one reason I hated the weekly rankings show. It made it objective and opened the process to discussion and debate when the entire point of the committee was to isolate the decision. You can’t — and won’t — tell me if the first poll was the last one and Ohio State was No. 4 anybody would have freaked out and that the Big 12 would be apoplectic. But with no boundaries in the season, there are no boundaries after the season or for subsequent seasons. Seriously, look at the breadth of the conversation we’re having about title games … and the committee is supposed to be the lone authority on this. Why in the world is the outside allowed inside? And here’s another bit of hypocrisy: What if TCU goes 11-1 this fall and is No. 3 in the playoff? Do you table the title game conversation/variable, even if a Big 12 champion making the playoff does the exact same thing as TCU/Baylor being left out last year? This makes me crazier than it should. I need a vacation. (Also, is this where I add the nxt three Fridays will be F Double-free? Is this where I say I’m here for two days between April 30 and May 18?

Mack said:

I don’t think a conference title game would have changed anything last year. Ohio State won its championship game by a million points, and it’s a huge school so it was getting in no matter what. If Baylor and TCU would have played, it would have been a close game. That would have given ESPN even more fuel to the fire of putting in Ohio State.

Condoleeza Rice wanted big state schools in the tournament – especially in the first year because she wanted the playoff to be a roaring success – and they got it.

I just like to reiterate how ridiculous it is that Condoleeza Rice is on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee.

Rice, I should mention, was a proponent of transparency in the selection process, which let the weekly rankings out of the bag. No one has come out and said that “Big 12 Champion Baylor” or “Big 12 Champion TCU” makes the playoff last season, so I’m skeptical a label last year means much. But if Baylor had beaten TCU for a second time, would that have made a difference? I feel like we need an absolute answer there before anything changes. 

netbros said:

The four-team playoff also doesn’t account for a team that gets really hot late in the season. Let’s say a B-12 team loses two of its early season non-conference games, then runs the table during conference season. They aren’t likely to get a bid whether there’s a conference championship game or not because of two early losses.

Go back and look at Major League Baseball and NFL playoffs at the number of wild-card teams that won the championship. It happens surprisingly frequently.

Sometimes the best teams don’t even get to compete. Maybe it takes a few games early to get untracked, but once the ball starts rolling they become invincible. In the College Football Playoff, by then it’s too late.

Agree and disagree. Ohio State looked as bad as you can look with the home loss to VT, but then barreled into the playoff – with the benefit of a conference title game, which added an extra week to a shorter season than the other sports you mention. I do think a 10-2 team that goes 9-0 in the Big 12 will never get in a four-team playoff, though I doubt Alabama is ignored if it goes 11-2 and wins all its SEC games and the conference title game. Your point is hard to ignore.

abpriddy said:

Great point about the B12’s conference title game history. What’s really interesting is to contrast that to the SEC’s history, where I think they only lost a title team once (2001 Tennessee). A lot of that is good and some of that is luck, but it all informs the discussion.

My initial knee-jerk thought was in favor of a title game like everyone else, but about 30 seconds of thought shows how silly it is. In a round-robin format I don’t see how that does anything but muddy the discussion. You’ll be guaranteed to have two teams play each other who have already played each other once, and since they’re probably both pretty good a high likelihood they split, so if you’ve got your high-ranked team having won the first game, it’s quite likely they drop that second game and get left out. At least with a division format you’re not guaranteed to play a juggernaut and you might get a mini-creampuff (i.e. the entire SEC East for the last half decade).

I’m surprised the coaches aren’t able to step back and see all this. These are guys charged with regularly making decisions in the heat of the moment, you’d imagine they’d be willing to rely on facts and not be “fighting the last war” – especially Snyder, who’s been around for awhile and seen all of this.

As to Mack’s point (minus the Rice conspiracy part) the real issue here is TCU and Baylor gave the CFP committee cover to pick the biggest programs they could to insure the success of the format. I can’t think of any reason that won’t happen again. TCU and Baylor would be better served to put resources into doubling their stadiums, tripling their enrollment and quadrupling their fan bases.

I don’t think they’ll get what they want because you could argue that — well, let’s say a vast majority of these coaches won’t be here in X years. (How’s that for a hedge?!?!) What I mean is administrators, who float around, too, aren’t going to rush to cater to coaches they might have to fire or who may retire or leave for another job. But if the coaches get what they want, I think they’ll get what they deserve, too. If the playoff goes to eight teams, there is no need for a conference title game. None. You might see leagues try to back out of theirs.

SheikYbuti said:

Here’s the solution:

1. Set aside the first nine weeks for the regular season. Each of the 120 FBS teams plays eight games in those nine weeks, four home and four away.

2. The next seven weeks are devoted to the playoffs, for which all 120 teams will qualify (so it doesn’t matter how weak or how strong a team’s schedule is; if deemed desirable, conferences can cease to exist). It takes seven rounds to eliminate 119 teams. Seed the first 32 teams, like a tennis major, then let the remaining chips fall where they may by random draw, determining home team by seed or RPI. In the first round, there will be 56 games and 8 byes.

3. Teams that are eliminated in the first three rounds move to the consolation bracket (like a wrestling meet) and are paired with teams with the same record (a Swiss format) in subsequent weeks, with home field assigned week to week to ensure all teams get the same number of home and away games.

4. Once a team plays 12 games, its season is over unless invited to a bowl game (no minimum wins to qualify) to take place during the quarterfinal, semifinal, and dead rounds (2 weeks between semifinals and final) of the championship tournament.

You’re welcome!

Thanks!

Karl said:

Skyler reminds me a bit of Will Stein.

Don Budge appreciates the backhand. 

lowercase jeff said:

this makes me nervous. what i saw out of skylar was a qb who had a difficult time getting the ball to players on his team.

that is a weakness, i think.

It is not a strength, I think. The limited conversations I’ve had with folks about him is that he’s made wonderful strides in making quick decisions and he doesn’t run as much, either of which could make you feel better .

TCfromDubVee said:

I’m all for Howard. He might have been inaccurate for the bowl game, but let’s not forget that was his second start of his career.

I like(d) the rapport he had with Shorts last year and that has continued into spring. If we get good play from Thompson and Shelton Gibson steps up this year we are going to be plenty good in the passing game. I’m actually not worried about the running game because I think Shell, Dontae-willaims, and Smallwood will be awesome. That’s a lot of talent at that position. Plus Howard has the ability and skill to take off on his own.

Crest Era will begin next year.

The Shorts-Howard experience is valuable, but it seems Howard and Gibson work out all the time together, too. Howard has to blend in Ka’Raun when he gets here next month, because I can’t see that kid not playing. As for the Crest Era, Howard will be a junior in the fall…unless you’re predicting early entry for Howard.

ffejbboc said:

I have to problem with Howard being the QB as long he becomes more accurate on his deep balls. He was overshooting a lot of WRs in the Liberty Bowl.

I think I’d rather say Crest Virginia could “do a lot of things right” to win the QB job, instead of “A lot will have to go wrong” for Howard to lose it.

Honestly, deep balls are what I’m tracking tomorrow. The clear concept for opposing defenses will be to dare WVU to stretch the field. WVU will try, but the passes have to be there. 

Karl said:

We could do worse than Howard. I feel much, much better about our QB situation now than at the beginning of 2013, when Millard was named the starter. Howard had a confident, aggressive presence in his few appearances. It reminded me a whole lot of Trickett in his first Oklahoma State appearance, when you could tell there was something there even though he was missing receivers. Howard’s arm isn’t very strong, but his decisions and accuracy can be improved with reps and coaching.

If Howard played instead of the concussed Trickett in the second half of TCU and the first half of Kansas State, it would have been enough to win those games.

From Will Stein to here in four comments! The Trickett comparison is a good one, too. Howard’s Money Hands gesture after his first TD in the Liberty Bowl — against Texas A&M! — opened my eyes.

Ccteam said:

Nice quote on a coach in the making. Boyfriend rating though, probably not too high. 

Says you. Says her parents?

I live you, Doug! said:

I was REALLY Worried where that anecdote was going.

It’s Bruce Tall. You’re safe. And you should always listen, because he’s got a James Earl Jones thing going.

Rugger said:

I would have been an awful football coach.

Enjoy the weekend!