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

Friday Feedback

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, a bandit for eight years running. Today we begin with Karl Joseph and the end of his career at WVU. Worst news since Da’Sean Butler’s knee. This is not worse — I’m not going to compare and contrast ACLs or differentiate between the scopes and specters of each, because they were both awful — and it’s equally terrible because of what those players, separate from one another with a distance created by time and sports, came to mean for the team, the season, the state, so on and so forth. I hate it. The WVU v. Duke game was, for all practical purposes, over before Butler fell. I was writing and ready to send a story to post at the buzzer. Butler’s injury, Bob Huggins’s intervention, the reality Butler’s draft stock was irreparably affected, all of it just stalled me. I don’t even like to think about it now

Wednesday was no different. I hate it. Hate. It.

Obviously, I spent a bunch of time on the phones and in front of people talking about this very bad news, and you can imagine how disappointed and angry people were. Just about all of the conversations, though, began similarly, and those prefixes started with The Letter F.

That kind of blow for the team, the locker room, the season, just the way you’re supposed to feel when this happens to great young adults who are great players and worked hard to become each.

Dana Holgorsen, who has established a pattern of secrecy and subterfuge but should be commended for announcing the news Wednesday and not stunning 60,000 people Saturday, used his radio show last night to say Jarrod Harper will start.

That’s not a surprise. He’s been in the program for as long as Joseph has, and he’s this team’s version of the guy who would be starting at many other places if he wasn’t behind The Man here. I’ll be honest. For as much pub as Jeremy Tyler got in the offseason, I was surprised Harper went as unmentioned as he did. The coaches like him at least as much. He knows the position. In addition to being the backup bandit, he’s also the backup nickelback behind Ricky Rumph, which speaks to Harper’s coverage skill. But Rumph is better in coverage, and WVU’s facing teams that are going to use 10 personnel (four receivers) or stellar receivers in sets with three receivers. Does he play more now, either as an answer to a matchup or to spell Harper, who can’t be accustom to playing as much as he’ll have to now? Or is Tyler the (able) backup bandit?

There are other ripples. Joseph was on two special teams. A backup is in now, unless WVU moves a starter on that unit over to Joseph’s spot. And if that’s the case, a backup takes the opening created there. Harper is all over WVU’s special teams, but he’ll have fewer duties now, and backups will go into those places.

With Harper starting now, there’s a new backup (third-string!) bandit plus a new backup nickelback. That matters more than it would appear on the surface. We’re not sure who spells Harper or how WVU will do it. We also know Rumph is the team’s third cornerback. If Terrell Chestnut or Daryl Worley can’t play, Rumph slides in, but what happens on third down? Previously in that scenario, Harper would be the nickel, but he’s the bandit. Who’s WVU’s third nickelback, and how much football has he played?

Lots to keep track of Saturday and all the Saturdays and one Thursday that follow.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, keep your head.

Shoot4Show said:

The young wideouts struggled versus physical play. When they got a release, OU had safeties back to prevent the big play. It also made Skyler hold the ball and exposed him to pressure. OU gave up some yardage in the run game by doing that, but you want to make Dana’s teams to try to beat you by being methodical. The young WRs will develop, and the offense will get better… but who knows when.

More concerning to me was that it seemed Gibby got out schemed. Maybe his boys just played poorly – and it looked that way at times – but I thought the Sooners had some really effective counters to what we do on D.

You know, I wondered the same about the receivers, but the corners weren’t in-your-face physical with them, and Lonnie Galloway, of all people, was content with how Shelton Gibson and Jovon Durante handled that. I don’t think that was their biggest problem. But here’s the dig: This is what teams are going to do — it is what they do — to WVU. The receivers are different, but teams were hanging second defenders over Kevin White and Mario Alford. WVU has to run the ball — it does — and hit the middle routes — hmmm — to avoid falling fully into the trap. As for the defense, more players than coaches and probably more Oklahoma than WVU in some instances, a few being just critical and devastating. But here’s the dig again: That’s what WVU does. Blitzes did not get home, but do you not call blitzes? Remember those times I shared on Howard’s sacks? If you applied some of them to Mayfield on the double move and some other big plays (not the other two touchdowns) he gets sacked. Mayfield got rid of it and beat the blitz. WVU better get used to that idea, too. 

smeer said:

the things we were worried about before the season, are the things that were exposed today

Skyler reverting to Liberty Bowl form
Cajuste acting like the frosh he is
punt returners forgetting their coaching
young receivers being inconsistent
teams with the ability to play power football exposing the 3-3 of the 3-3-5

it couldn’t have happened at a more inopportune time to a nicer group of people. OU had something to do with it too

Shouldn’t happen
That’ll happen
Was bound to happen
Shorts isn’t young
I didn’t see that

You see the two road games coming up? The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh games were always going to show us more abou this team than the first three. We’ll look back and realize how bad that non-conference schedule was. Two backup quarterbacks! Liberty was the best of the bunch! Mix that in a bowl, put it in the oven and then go to Oklahoma, which played Akron, Tennessee and Tulsa and then had an open week.

avb31 said:

The only thing we can hope is that Skyler got the big game jitters out of himself today and will be better for the rest of the season. The defense had a few lapses, but played well enough for us to win. The offense and special teams did not.

If Skyler continues to be inaccurate, Dana might have a decision to make. Does he stick with Howard, or go to a zone read attack with Crest, Shell, and Smallwood?

I don’t believe nerves were at the root of all his problems, but many do and certainly you can look at the game and come to believe that. If that’s the case, you’re asking your starting quarterback to finally get his head wet after jumping into a game and attempting a comeback against a ranked team, starting on the road, starting in a bowl game against an SEC team and starting four games this season. What’s the expiration date?

50yrfan said:

I don’t blame Skyler, he’s playing in a big time league with mid level talent. He’s in an almost impossible situation playing his heart out. Take away all the xos, plays & patterns. Our HC Holg now has a history at WVU, he can’t recruit a QB with the talent to play at this level. Howard is not the problem. He’s shouldering the flaws of our HC.

You’re building a straw man, but one that’s hard to argue against. The QB struggles, he shouldn’t be in there, and then it’s on the head coach because there isn’t a better option. Still, I think it’s silly to assume this offense — one featuring the read option and rollouts and things like that to cater to Howard — hasn’t been tailored to accommodate Howard’s limits. How many open throws were there that didn’t connect? How many open receivers were not seen or selected? Saturday wasn’t Mullen_ asking Geno to run read option and Geno struggling to take a knee in the open field because he didn’t know what he was doing. It was missing open windows and losing poise under pressure. I know he had a lot of help in setting the offense back, but he was involved.

Mackstradamus said:

Bad quarterback play basically gave wvu no shot to win this. Errors in other phases, which you’re always going to get in college football, but the quarterback play has to be a lot better for wvu to win a Big 12. Unfortunately, I think the “real” stat would be to look at Skyler Howards’s numbers when he’s not playing Kansas, Iowa State, Maryland, Georgia Southern, or Liberty.

Fair, but Texas A&M was fire-the-coordinator bad defensively last season but had time to scheme up something for the Liberty Bowl.

lowercase jeff said:

as i look around the country, i realize every single team sucks.

this gives me hope that wvu can and should just keep on marching.

i dont think yesterday’s loss was demoralizing. in fact, i think the team can, rightfully, feel self-defeated. the comeback from that is easier than “just not good enough”.

i think the team is good enough to be relevant all year.

we’ll see.

I’ve no problem with this.

BobbyHeenan said:

We’ve all seen pretty little meaningful snaps from Crest. But I’m surprised that from what we’ve seen, anyone thinks he’s a better option than Howard at this point.

It’s a small sample size, but as bad as Skyler played on Saturday, I’ve been very underwhelmed by Crest.

Am I alone here?

You should not be. He was working out at receiver and running back as recently as August! You think that was because he could unseat the starter? Or do you think it was because one of the freshmen was, at that time, a better backup option when paired with not wasting Crest’s agility, eligibility, etc? I can’t believe that smoke screen was so effective.

Josh said:

Skylar is a good kid. He’ll own his failures and he’ll get/play better. The boys will probably have a good week of practice, too. This is a tight team of friends.

OK State is undefeated, ranked, and has lost to us for two years in a row. They will bring it to Morgantown. This should be the closest/on parity game that we have all season. We have a real shot to win what would be a great victory. But if we let it fall into a trap experience, we will have blown one that we really could have earned. Got to win the winnable wins at home!

Howard was odd — and I mean, not what we’re used to — during the media session Tuesday. Someone was standing behind the media and observing the questions and answers, and Howard was watching Someone as he fielded questions and gave answers. He gave no specifics about his performance or his evaluation of it, and that was when he wasn’t providing brief replies. Twice he was asked a perfectly reasonable question and he paused for 10 or seo seconds before replying. On one, he said he had nothing and apologized. He couldn’t wait to get out of there. I suppose it’s good that he’s working on his escapes.

LoopyHoopy said:

You have to stick with Howard. He had a “bad,bad” game, but I think some of it was bad luck though too. The one pick Gibson slipped coming back, he might catch that or at least stop that one from getting picked. Another pick was a deflection off the wide receiver, again can’t put that all on him. Then the big broken pass play that didn’t happened to Smallwood was a hell of an effort, just barely touched the ground with his knee, if that one stands, who knows.

Hats off to Mayfield, he made the throws he had to and was especially slippery in the pocket.

I want to see more Maryland, less Oklahoma game on Saturday. I know the defense dictates what you do, but maybe some shorter passes in the early going to get SH’s confidence up would be beneficial. What happened to getting the ball to Smallwood from the slot?

Agreed, and it can happen once. It’s going to happen once. Where you stand now, maybe where you stood before and where you stand moving forward all depends on how you respond to some cues. Is Howard 2015 a work in progress, in which case one of these days is acceptable and (m)any more are not? Or is 2015 Howard shaped by 2014 Howard, in which case Saturday should have been avoided or mitigated?

abpriddy said:

A few points:

a) Maybe it’s just because the first loss of the season is always so jarring that the reaction is so strong, but I don’t see how this even remotely qualifies as an “it’s happening again” game. You’re on the road against a top 15 team that also happens to be a national brand. Certainly WVU made plenty of mistakes, but they also fought back from a 17 point deficit and gave OU all they wanted until a couple bad breaks made that game look a lot worse than it was. “It’s happening again” games are inexplicable bed crappings (often at home) against inferior teams or blown 2H leads. This was neither.

b) I’ll extrapolate that a bit further and say if this team does go 1-3 over this 4 game stretch or heck, even 0-4, it’s not time to go crazy. This team will be judged by the last 5 games of the season – all 5 of which they should win. I don’t know how a person could look at what is quite possibly the most difficult 4 game stretch that any Mountaineer team has faced and say it’s reasonable to expect no worse than a split.

c) My biggest complaint of HCDH was what I think someone accurately in the texts called “exotic” play calling. Was it just me or did WVU seem to do really well out of the I? For all the trouble OU’s D line gave them on the edges (‘trouble’ seems an inadequate word, really) I think we made some hay in the middle, but when running plays are from the pistol it takes another half second for things to develop and that was a long half second. I feel like there were times that WVU could have just lined up and pounded the rock and taken some control, but I’m curious to re-watch the game (I was managing kids as I watched) and see if that was true.

I think point a) is intersting, but I think it has a lot or everything to do with people not yet believing or not yet wanting to believe in the coach/team/record/turnaround. What happened Saturday was, at the least, reminiscent. It revived bad memories when what the most vocal wanted most of all was to cover those with new and better ones. b) The reasonable people always knew 1-3 or 0-4 was attainable. That’s the arrangement WVU has with this conference, so, no, going crazy is a reach. But if WVU’s 3-4, I don’t know how you can say they should win the five remaining games, but that could just be me. Seems unsafe to assume WVU makes it out of a four-game slide with the same level of confidence, health, advantages, etc. that it had before the slide started and that other teams don’t make gains along the way, all of which then makes 5-0 harder to comes by. My point is a team that goes 0-4 loses some or a lot of what might normally translate to an edge over Texas Tech and Texas and that future opponents are making gains by playing more reasonable schedules. You don’t think Bill Snyder’s going to have things figured out by the regular-season finale?

Down South said:

Didn’t get to watch the game so view these comments through that prism. I did listen to the radio broadcast (until it went out), but Dwight Wallace does little to aid in understanding the action. I also followed the game on Twitter and read multiple recaps so I’m not uninformed, although I am anxious to see G&B to see if my thoughts are consistent with the video. Anyway, here goes:

1) This was not a bad loss. Sure, we could have played better, but that is true of any loss. If any of us were being honest about it, we weren’t supposed to win this game. The primary difference is their QB made the throws to keep their offense churning out yards and points, and our QB missed some open throws that could have extended drives and changed field position. When we got behind, they turned up the pressure and we flinched. In a hostile environment. It stinks to lose, but we didn’t lay an egg at home against Iowa State. Hopefully, by now, that has sunk in for everyone. Hopefully, we don’t let Oklahoma beat us twice.

2) Home field matters a lot in college football. Not hard for me to think that the result of this game would be different if the location of this game had been different. Compare the way we played against TCU and Baylor last season to the energy we brought to the Texas game. Something about that home crowd. Not sure what it is, but I’ve been at enough games at Mountaineer Field to know a good home crowd can make a difference.

3) Late in the third quarter, the game had a 2005 Louisville feel to me. Looking at the texts, I’m not the only one. It wasn’t just that we played like garbage in the first half and were mounting a furious comeback. It was the way we made the comeback. Running the ball with good backs and the zone read, which was how we came back against Louisville. I was at that game and remember running a hurry-up offense where we never threw the ball, and thinking how unconventional that was. It felt like after we had cut it to three and Oklahoma scored to push it back to ten, Dana got a little impatient and went away from the run, when it was working. It sounded like he regretted getting impatient in his playcalling based on what he said during his press conference. Abandoning the run allowed Oklahoma to dial up blitzes, which was the turning point in the game. At that point, we couldn’t protect our QB.

4) If we look at this game in the context of the larger college football season for some perspective, it doesn’t look nearly as bad. There is a level of parity that gives the season an NFL-like feel to me. My Twitter timeline was filled with angst from fifty different fan bases Saturday evening who didn’t think their coach was any good.

5) I keep hearing Dana can’t recruit a QB. I don’t get this. For whatever reason, there was a year where he only recruited one QB. I’m sure he regrets that now. Rawlins left. Childress got hurt and left. Childress was fairly highly regarded. There are three well regarded QB’s in the program who are going to take time to develop. Skyler is limited and Crest isn’t ready yet. Howard is going to have to learn while he plays. The offense, overall, is extremely young, which doesn’t do Skyler any favors. Again, looking around the country for perspective, Georgia and Alabama, two blue-bloods whose blood is extremely blue, started ACC cast-offs during their game Saturday. Virginia Tech is the biggest dumpster fire I’ve ever seen at QB. Part of developing a QB is dealing with the bad game(s) that he is going to have and helping him get better from it. Dana’s presser seemed to say to Skyler: “You’re my guy and I’m going to go stand in front of some bullets for you because I know you are going to get better from this.” Be surprised if we don’t see good Skyler Saturday.

5) I saw it suggested, multiple times, that we simply should have thrown short and intermediate routes when they blitzed, and the fact that we didn’t suggests the coaching was bad. I know there were some shots fired Saturday, and I don’t intend that this way, but that is a little simplistic. Good defensive coordinators don’t announce when they are blitzing so you can call a play to beat that blitz. Good blitzes are disguised. Good blitzes include coverage schemes on the back end that are designed to take away the hot routes (raise your hand if you read that in the Wedding Crasher voice) that an offense uses to offset a blitz. In order to beat a blitz, the line has to recognize the blitz and shift its blocking so that the guys closes to the QB are blocked first, giving some extra time. The QB has to see the blitz coming and recognize where his hot receiver is to get the ball there. And the receivers have to adjust their routes to get to an open space and be ready to catch the ball. That all has to be done in about four seconds. We are playing with a QB who has started about 6 games, never against a defense this good. We are starting a bunch of wide receivers who are on the field for the first time. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we struggled to deal with the blitz. I’m sure it didn’t surprise the Stoops brothers. It sounded to me like the Oklahoma plan was to blitz off Cajuste’s side with Striker when he had a split end to that side. Pretty good plan. Which leads me to point six.

6) Dana got a lot of heat for not making adjustments to the blitz, but reading Mike’s tweets during the game, it sounded like we helped to the left side with Wellman on the Striker sack/scoop and score, but Wellman missed a block.

7) I didn’t get to watch the game because I was in NY at a wrestling tournament. One of the kids I coach, who is really good, had a big match against another kid that was nationally ranked. I had watched the opponent wrestle and had talked to him about what to expect to prepare him for the match. The opponent had a really good cradle. I told my guy multiple times to stay out of a cradle and to stay out of positions where he could wind up in a cradle. Thirty seconds into the second period, my guy gets in bad position and gets pinned. In a cradle. I was pretty bummed after the match. I questioned everything we did to prepare for the tournament and every decision I made during the match. For all my introspection, the fact is sometimes young men simply don’t do what you coach them to do. They catch punts inside the ten yard line. They put their head too close to their knee and wind up in a cradle. And sometimes the other guy is so good, you wind up in his cradle anyway. WVU got pinned in a cradle Saturday. By a team with a pretty good cradle. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again this Saturday

Seven.

MontanaEer said:

Do you teach your class in that sweater?

Why, yes. Yes, I did. Came right from class and filmed the Taboo.

I love you, Doug! said:

Biggest game in HCDH’s tenure?

– Last three regular season ones of 2011 (esp. Cincy after losing to Louisville) were pretty clutch.
– Iowa State(!) in 2012 after losing five in a row(!!) was pretty big.
– Beating TCU in 2013? Though I’m not sure any game that season meant anything given what a dumpster fire the season was.
– Iowa State last year?

I think none of the outcomes of the ones above really put HCDH’s job in jeopardy. But if he loses Saturday, an 0-4 October is possible. That’s 0-4 against the league’s top teams, in the fifth year of his contract = no progress, even if he goes 5-0 the rest of the way.

I’m not a Dana-basher, btw. I’d like for him to succeed.

-It was his first year, he was heading to the Big 12, he had Geno and Tavon and Stedman coming back. There was a lot to look forward to … though each was a big game.
-I refuse to consider beating Iowa State a big deal.
-TCU was also 4-8 in 2013.
-I still refuse to consider beating Iowa State a big deal. 

Because the future isn’t guaranteed, as it was in 2012, and because Iowa State and Kansas and probably even Texas aren’t wins that move the needle this season, I think Saturday is heavy. WVU could be 4-1 and the final five games are far more manageable. I don’t see how WVU gets eight regular-season wins without Saturday. I don’t think Saturday is a fire-or-don’t occasion, and I’m shouldn’t have to repeat where I stand with Holgorsen, the job he’s done and the job that remains, but the big picture matters above all else, and Saturday provides a lot of brush strokes.

(You all were warned the Tuesday Taboo could be a terrible idea!)

abpiddy said:

I don’t know that I’m necessarily buying it. And even if I did want to buy it, the sell-by date on that puppy is less than a month. I don’t think the importance of the closing stretch of 5 games can be overstated. WVU will at best be 5-2, more likely 4-3 or (gasp) 3-4 heading into that stretch. All the games are against teams they should beat. There’s only one difficult roadie (K State). Much like DBs (especially and hopefully Daryl Worley) fans have short memories. Even the stench of a goosegg for these four biggies would be erased by a 5 game win streak and then a bowl berth (remember how happy we were at the end of 2003? That team started out 1-4, finished 6-0). Win your bowl game and stretch that streak to 6 and you’re a 9 win (at worst) team surging, emerging and the table is set for good things and fans are happy.

But anything less than that will lead to questions. If anything a win among these next 3 provides some breathing room for that stretch run and if you beat OSU or steal one of the Big 2 then 4-1 down the stretch feels a bit more palatable. But any one of those losses will sting. You’re either losing to at home to a Texas Tech team you need to be better than, a Texas dumpster fire or KState for the 4th straight time (and either of the other two would be unforgivable). My money for “biggest game” is the TT game. WVU will emerge from October battered and bruised and how WVU fares against the Red Raiders will set the trajectory for the stretch run and with it how fans will feel all winter/spring/summer.

Humble nomination for TTues next week: was it really, really dumb to waste WV Crest’s time this spring doing anything other than being prepared to play QB as soon as humanly possible? What is the expectation for when he’ll be able to take the reins? There’s an emerging QB narrative as it relates to HCDH and how much strength that narrative gains probably rests with Crest. Howard is a perfectly serviceable starter, but at this point I think we can all agree he is what he is. Skilled, a great kid, but a limiting factor in what this offense can do and what games this team can win. His shortcomings last November / December are still his shortcomings this October. A better QB would have made some throws in the 1H in Norman that might have changed a lot of things. So do you buy the argument that for WVU to get where it wants to be they need an elite QB and Crest is the leading candidate to be that guy? When is that?

sorry, got on a rant there. Lunch over, back to work.

Rant accepted and endorsed. Look, an 8-4 record could feature an 0-4 October. It’s important to remember that as a reminder that you have to step back and get the panorama view. We do live in the moment, though.

Clarence Oveur said:

Mikey C, are you suggesting that this team pulled another PUCKER, PUCKER, PUCKER?

It never gets old.

PK said:

I think the problem on that Thomas pick was that he threw the ball over the middle at all. He had the right target, he just put it in the wrong place. If Howard had led Shorts deep towards the left side of the endzone, away from the safety, rather than trying to put it on him between the backers and the safeties, Shorts might’ve been able to moonwalk into the endzone for 6. Thomas had come up a few steps – just enough – at the snap when he saw Smallwood motioning out of the backfield and was beat. It was a terrible throw though, regardless of what he saw or didn’t see. As you mentioned, Howard seems to have a hard time judging distance on throws over the middle. Seems that there have been a few instances where he’s left it short, only to date, his receivers had done a good job making plays in traffic. Hopefully he gets it worked out.

Something else: Howard climbed the pocket, too, and then double-clutched on the throw. Was he running and then now? It’s entirely possible and possibly likely he was completely out of sorts on that play. 

I love you, Doug! said:

Oh no! Can he get a medical redshirt?

He actually can. I was under the impression once you surpass four games, you cannot. But he only played four and the clock, as it was explained to me, doesn’t resume until the fifth game. That said, provided the surgery next week is uneventful and rehab produces no setbacks, he’ll have played his last WVU game.

I love you, Doug! said:

Mike, did Joseph’s injury happen on the grass practice field?

It did not. The field no longer exists. They took the grass off weeks ago and have been working around the clock on replacing it — and I know this because I hear the construction at all hours. It’s absurd.

Brother X said:

“Hi, I’m Bob Stoops and I’m going to be a **** just for the sake of being a ****. Fight me, plebeians.”

Can we come up with an Oklahoma version of the ESP chant already?

In fairness to Stoops, it happened in a news conference, and he later went out of his way to address the injury. As for the hit, I still don’t understand targeting or how it’s applied. I remain shocked there wasn’t a flag and a review, but I’m also of the mind Joseph would have been exonerated. We might disagree, but again, I don’t know what they call. To me, Joseph approaches a spot, the receiver isn’t yet there and then isn’t truly defenseless. Joseph does not launch. He steps through the play. He goes shoulder-first into where the Westbrook’s shoulders would be, and the hit whips Westbrook’s helmet into Joseph’s … and that does look bad and dangerous. I won’t argue that, and that’s the sort of thing the rule is designed to prevent. His head is out front, but maybe I need a refresher. How does one go shoulder-first and keep the helmet out of the play? You need to see what you hit, because you need to protect the defender, too. Here’s the catch: I read all your comments — you should, too, or the next comment won’t make sense — and I could capably argue the other side.

The 25314 said:

Addae’s hit was @ VT 2004. There was no targeting penalty on the books back then, which made the call even more frustrating. There was also no replay until 2005.

Never understood why people remember Pennington dropping a 2nd quarter pass, but don’t mention Brad Cooper kicking the ball into the line on the very next play, which VT took back for a TD. It’s like blaming Steve Bartman for Alex Gonzalez’s error.

Jospeh’s hit looked like targeting to me because he aimed high. But I don’t think targeting should be a rule. I get that it’s to prevent concussions. But targeting doesn’t cause concussions, Karl Joseph causes concussions.

Yes!

MontanaEer said:

The Karl Joseph news is shocking; this is not:

http://www.testudotimes.com/2015/10/8/9479531/maryland-randy-edsall-fired-football-coach-2015?_ga=1.2752825.808132192.1416369186

At least the brass will allow this team in utter dissension to be killed by OSU before pulling the plug on the Edsall. I guess everyone will be blocked from his Twitter after this!

Karma, man. But seriously, and because this story has since developed in a major way, how screwed up is this situation? I don’t particularly care for the guy, but I do feel for him. There’s no way I’d be in Columbus Saturday if that were me. He’s toast and knows it and he doesn’t want to go or belong going to Ohio State … but he has to. The administration, and probably even Edsall himself, don’t want the players to be party to a full-on farce, which is what would happen if they canned Edsall yesterday when the news was out and everywhere. You can’t fire the guy and throw together a staff and a plan for a road game at the top-ranked defending national champ. It’s a no-win situation for anyone, and there’s just no way the Terrapins compete.

Mack said:

Question: Can Maryland bring in a high profile coach? I’ll hang up and listen?

Can and will. There are so many assistant coaches to go through, but money could be an issue. Someone who knows Maryland and/or Tidewater will be considered. Two outlier names, just for fun: Schiano, Mike Tice. 

smeer said:

remind us of the sell-outs. that’s really your number one job – put butts in the seats

was Lyons in the room?

You caught that too? Though it was clever. And Lyons was not there.

I love you, Doug! said:

Do we think Howard’s chronic overthrows are caused by his (short) height? As in, he’s always throwing uphill out of a hole?

Height matters. It manifests itself in different ways.

SheilYbuti said:

I think his arms are too long.

Big hands!

ffejbboc said:

Dana seems uncomfortable anytime Mike asks him a question. What did you do to warrant the wariness, Casazza? We all know you have the purest of intentions.

Two in a row! My presentation wasn’t great this week, but he repeated what I said this time. Where I come from? Hooo, boy!

Rugger said:

I don’t know where you are going with that, ffejbboc.

Enjoy the weekend!