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

Friday Feedback

July 22, 2016 by Mike Casazza
EPSON MFP image

 

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which needs a hand. The above is a peek at an idea I have and something I started working on during my flight to Dallas Sunday. It’s a list of 54 things that will, should, could and might not happen when West Virginia starts preseason practice Aug. 2. Events. Stories. Phrasing. Quotes. Etc.

It’s almost exhaustive. But is it comprehensive?

So I need your thoughts and additions. What’s missing? We won’t be here too long today (Ed. note: lie.), what with this being an unusual week, so I ask you to chip in as can. I promise I’m going somewhere with it, and I’ll let you know on Monday. Then we’ll reveal something else Tuesday, something new to our in-season rotation this year. After that, I’m gone for a few days to end the week.

And then, believe it or not, we’re in the season. Big story in the July 31 newspaper. West Virginia’s players report Aug. 1. Camp begins the next day. How about that?

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, watch your step.

Clarence Oveur said:

Don’t bother trying to stoke those flames, Matt Campbell.

There’s no rivalry between WVU and ISU.

Wrong. Wrong.

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Long overdue change arrives

July 21, 2016 by Mike Casazza

 

I realized this today when I started to research and write this post, but we’ve been hemming and hawing for seven years about the way West Virginia does and, more to the point, does not honor its athletic past. The athletic department tried to shut our traps today.

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The wild and wonderful Whites of West Virginia

by Mike Casazza

Video

Coming from the Mountaineers player deemed most likely to be good at everything he does, this is high praise for Ka’Raun White. Later Tuesday, coach Dana Holgorsen said White was WVU’s best receiver in spring football and that he’s physically similar to his bigger older brother, Kevin.

And if you we were wondering about their little younger brother, Kyzir, and why he was absent from the depth chart the school unveiled Sunday, don’t worry.

“We really didn’t work with him in June,” Holgorsen said, noting that Kyzir came to WVU with a minor injury. “It’s nothing serious, and he’s 100-percent cleared right now, but he came in and had a tweaked leg. We’re limited [by NCAA rules] with what we can do with him anyway, but we really couldn’t do anything with him. But he’ll have a shot to be the spur.”

Junior Marvin Gross is the starter on the depth chart and is backed up by redshirt freshman Deamonte Lindsay.

This will be so much more fun

by Mike Casazza

I think it’s fair to say some of you — fine, some of us — have in the past suffered from conference expansion fatigue. And it was transcendent. For a time, it directly affected West Virginia, and then later in involved the Mountaineers, but has it ever stopped? It hasn’t.

What expansion did in its past was give birth to a new subsection of sports writing, but look at what it did for social media. It was a huge accelerator for the evolution of Twitter. But, to me, the reason behind all of that was how much of expansion was done in secrecy. And you know how people are. They want to know things they aren’t supposed to know. The surreptitious nature of expansion drove people to great lengths to discover (and report) and learn more about the topic.

And so it is that you might sigh and/or roll your eyes when you come to realize expansion is back. It is. It won’t happen quickly this time, but it won’t happen the way you’re used to, either.

That’s going to be great. Allow me to present Exhibit A from Tuesday, not even an hour after the Big 12 concluded a conference call that fast-tracked expansion.

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Turn out the lights, the party’s over

July 20, 2016 by Mike Casazza

Maybe I should feel bad today about that video title from 10 months ago? On Tuesday, we learned that this hit was and should have been ruled that day as targeting.

It wasn’t, and the league’s coordinator of officials, Walt Anderson, regrets that.

“It should have been called on the field,” Anderson said. “We missed this, and this would be one that this year we would want the instant replay official to stop.”

Some of you disagree. I know that. So on the day this play was used to explain why replay officials now have the authority to stop play so they can determine if a play should be called targeting, Anderson and I decided to spar about this hit.

To be sure, that does not sit well with WVU’s following, the most vocal still insist Joseph did it right and was not in the wrong. But Anderson said there’s no arguing it was targeting. The officials tell coaches and coaches now tell players that there are four “low-risk indicators” that can be taught, learned and remembered to avoid targeting:

Keep your head up. Wrap up. Move your head to the side. Lower your strike zone.

“He pretty much had all the negative indicators on that,” Anderson said.

 

This time, WVU really is down one

by Mike Casazza

 

West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said Tuesday that offensive line signee Craig Smith will not be enrolling. He’s not academically eligible, meaning the junior college All-American is the only player from the 2016 class who won’t enroll. All the others are already taking classes.

We should have expected this. Holgorsen said WVU accepted Tennessee transfer Ray Raulerson to take Smith’s scholarship and to take a shot at playing center next season.

…but who’s counting?

by Mike Casazza

 

A year ago, West Virginia finished 8-5 and won a bowl game, two things the Mountaineers hadn’t done in the Big 12. Head coach Dana Holgorsen was asked Tuesday if things were going as well as he’d hoped they would when the team arrived in the conference in 2012 — actually, “… have you been surprised at how difficult it’s been for you to get momentum going?” — and Holgorsen responded that things were on schedule and his team was where it needed to be.

“Two points away from winning 10, so I think we’re pretty competitive,” he said.

Hmm…

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Now that we’re expanding, what does WVU think?

by Mike Casazza

 

Now that the Big 12 has decided to go ahead and look into expansion with the purpose of eventually adding teams to the mix, we need to know what the Mountaineers think of all this.

Well, we know that President Gordon Gee wants to expand, and we know that Athletic Director Shane Lyons wanted the conference to make up its mind and either do it or move onto something else.

And now we know what the head football coach wants to do.

It’s back!

by Mike Casazza

 

Aaaawww, yeah! Expansion is all up in your area again, and it isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

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Dana Holgorsen at Big 12 media days

July 19, 2016 by Mike Casazza

He’d like you to know he didn’t stop recruiting four or five years ago