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

WVU v. Maryland: Sing me a new song

September 26, 2015 by Mike Casazza
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Some 35 years ago, John Denver opened Mountaineer Field with Country Roads. It remains one of the seminal moments in the history of the field, the program, the athletic department, the university and, heck, the state. Just a proper and memorable merger of state and sentiment at a place that’s oh so sentimental for so much of this state.

We’re going to insert an addendum into the history today. Brad Paisley, who hails from Glen Dale, will play Country Roads before kickoff against Maryland … and then hurry to a concert tonight in Bristow, Va.

I know this because I just watched him warm up on the 50-yard line.

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It’s a nod to the past — note the marching band taking a knee in both photos — with a new finish for the present and the future. Let’s have some fun with the photo. How’s this? Better?

This is oddly divisive in some quarters. We know how West Virginians are. Change is not always easy or welcome, and people hold onto their traditions, their history, their heritage, their memories and the like. And reaching back into the Product’s era, it’s been commonplace to play the song after a victory. So some people feel uneasy about this, which led to a fun discussion on Twitter last night. Click it. Check the replies. Fiesty!

Up to you, I guess. Makes no difference to me.

I’m off to the IMG pregame show. Catch me if you can.

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Friday Feedback

September 25, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which does not go on hiatus after today’s edition. Actually, it might but just for a week. Typically the standard has been that we won’t do the F Double on the Fridays I travel, and I’m not sure that’s going to change. The closer doesn’t come out every night, you know?

We’ll see.

Speaking of scheduling and functionality and probably pitchers, too, I think I’ve found the strike zone with this new schedule. It’s still weird as hell to have to publish for Saturday and Sunday papers and push myself for the entire week, and I haven’t even soldiered through a travel day yet, but the blog routine is fine on my end. Obviously, we’re still working through conquerable issues with its appearance and the way things are supposed to look and work, but we’ll get there. The headlines and the RSS feed on the blog’s homepage ought to be working soon. The problem with embedding the chat is fixed. The other problem with the chat should have never happened, but that’s not a blog thing. I’m not at the “Write your local congressperson!” stage quite yet.

I took the new in-game blog plug-in for a spin yesterday, and some of you caught it. It’s all right. I think I’ll like it, and I hope you do, too, but it’s new, so of course I’m not sold on it as of yet, and it won’t be completely smooth tomorrow. But as has been the case on the Daily Mail side, that’s going to be our as-it-happened account of the game. No halftime story. No at-the-buzzer story chased by a more complete version for print. Live position the game. Story after the game. There won’t be as much Twitter, either, and, yes, this is a different story than I told you two weeks ago. But we spent some time considering the options and this was the best vehicle, as it always was.

All I ask is you be on your very worst behavior.

(One more: My JRL493 class publishes its first editions of their competing online sports magazines a week from today. Your, um, feedback is appreciated.)

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, choose your words carefully.

Mack said:

I think the telling part of Mike’s story is that when RichRod picked up on people possibly stealing his signs, he switched to a wristband… it didn’t work and they went back to the signals halfway through the game. The more you overthink things, the worse off you’re going to be.

An advantage can certainly be gained if you know the play that is coming… but the players on the field have to be the ones that know it. If the coach on the sidelines knows the play, it just seems as though it would take way too much time and effort (and likely lead to confusion) for them to tell their players as the offense is lining up.

The Georgia Southern coaches though WVU might run some zone read… so they prepped for it. How many plays did WVU actually run a zone read? On top of that, with White/Slaton/Schmitt, WVU seemed to only run four different plays per game and still no one on their schedule could stop them.

I think ESPN and Rod Gilmore has led us, as fans, to believe that a win can always be had if the coach just makes the right decisions throughout the game. I’d say it has a lot more to do with the players on the field doing the right things. (Sorry, I watched part of a game that Gilmore was commentating, this weekend. At all times, he wants every player/coach/team to do anything other than what they’re doing.)

Bingo. In the referenced 2007 game, WVU was bothered during the game because it allowed itself to be bothered before it. There was something empowering for that team to stand on the sideline and see the coach rip of his wristbands and go, “Screw it. We’re beating them at our game, even if they know it’s coming.” I think more coaches are like that than we think, though they’re all paranoid to certain and sometimes extreme degrees. The bigger concern, as I see it and has been relayed to me, isn’t what opponents know but when they know it. It’s too hard, as explained above, to communicate every stolen signal on every play. The best coaches would rather their defenders read and react than predict and react. But say there’s a fourth-and-2 play at the defense’s 34-yard line in the fourth quarter and the offense wants to pick up the first down to protect a 31-30 lead and kill the final 1:05 on the clock. Defenses are smart enough to know the offense is going to pick from a small number of plays.  That’s scouting. The defense can then call a timeout or just quickly convey something and prep the players for, say, three plays. Those players can then go out and focus on the signals for just three plays. The other side of that is the defense could just as easily tell the players to look for those three plays and read and react and not predict and react. How you feel and what you believe about this topic is really subjective. I just find it fascinating, and that was the case before Baylor’s brilliance. Those guys …

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It’s been a long time, but it’s healed all wounds

September 24, 2015 by Mike Casazza

He’s on the West Coast now, rooming with another former WVU player, but Ford Childress is finally throwing a football again, two years and two schools removed from that fateful start against Maryland in 2013.

Childress was an aggressively recruited prospect out of Houston, a 6-foot-5 player to whom WVU devoted a wealth of time and attention so that he might one day start and star for the team. That day arrived on Sept. 14, 2013. In his first start, he set WVU’s freshman passing record with 359 yards and had three touchdowns in a 41-7 victory against Georgia State.

The Geno Smith era ended long before at WVU, but the search for his replacement ended that day. After the recruiting cycle and a redshirt year, the time had come for Childress and the Mountaineers.

It lasted four more quarters and, in reality, it was more brief than that.

“I tore it on the first play,” Childress said Tuesday following a practice at Fresno State, the school he now calls home, his third team in as many years and the place where he shares an apartment with former WVU running back Dustin Garrison.

His 42nd pass with the Mountaineers was the first of 22 against Maryland, a short throw to running back Charles Sims that turned into an 11-yard gain. The pectoral muscle on his right side ripped on the throw, and it would be a long time before Childress was even close to the same again,

“It had been bothering me a little bit before that,” he said. “That first play, I threw the ball kind of side-armed because it was a quick screen outside, and I kind of felt this sharp pain. It felt weird, but, whatever. The next play, the pain wasn’t that bad, but it got progressively worse throughout the game.”

Childress was once the future, but his eventual replacement, Skyler Howard, currently leads the nation in pass efficiency rating, two years and two other quarterbacks removed from the day Dana Holgorsen looked like a man running out of time and options. Saturday’s game might serve as a bookend for Holgorsen and the Mountaineers, who are better now because of when they they looked broken long ago.

A year after the embarrassment, WVU went to College Park, Maryland, and again allowed 37 points and found a way to win with a field goal as time expired. This time, they’re 17-point favorites at home.

“It motivated us, and I think we improved a whole bunch going into the game a year later,” Holgorsen said. “We fixed a lot of those problems. There were snap issues. There were quarterback problems.

“Clint played really well against them last year. Offensively, we played really well against them last year. We played a lot faster. We played up-tempo. We took care of the ball. We made plays downfield. We ran the ball effectively. I think we are as good right now as we were back then.”

You’ll Never Talk Alone: S3E3

by Mike Casazza

We’re live once again at 11 a.m., and all some of our blog issues have been fixed. You can jump in and ask your questions now, join the party once we get started or re-live the magic afterward. You make the call.

Live Blog You’ll Never Talk Alone: S3E3
 

“The witch’s hat”

September 23, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Wrote about Brad Craddock today, because he’s really good. He could be the first two-time Lou Groza Award winner and the first Australian-born NFL placekicker. He’d never seen an American football game until his first college game, and that one was a 7-6 win against William & Mary with the difference coming on his extra point in the fourth quarter.

He arrived at Maryland as a punter, though, and had some shaky moments in his first season. He made 24 straight field goals across the next two seasons and remains one of the best in the nation as a senior. But getting to Maryland was a chore.

Craddock is from Adelaide, Australia, and his prep experience was spent in soccer, track, tennis and Australian rules football.

“I made some films,” he said. “Pretty much what a coach can see on anybody’s film.”

Craddock had a camera and a snapper. He’d catch the snaps and boom the ball into the sky. Hang time and distance accompanied every kick. There was also footage of Craddock kicking off and kicking field goals, and together those productions made up his recruiting package.

“I probably sent that to every Division I school in the country,” he said. “I probably sent that to people, depending on the school, about 10 times each and certain schools more than that.”

There weren’t a lot of responses, and the ones Craddock did receive weren’t particularly enthusiastic. No one was offering him a scholarship, which was what he wanted. Then Maryland, acting on a tip from an Australian punter who played for Edsall at UConn, took the bait.

“We’d like to offer you a scholarship,” the Terrapins told him.

“I said, ‘Yes’ as soon as they said that,” Craddock said. “I didn’t even try to go anywhere else. As soon as they offered, that was the end of it.”

YouTube has two of Craddock’s clip videos, and they’re fantastic illustrations of what he had to do to get noticed and just how unusual all of that had to be.

History tells us something

by Mike Casazza

West Virginia is a 17-point favorite Saturday and, whew, that’s a lot of points against a something-or-other Maryland team that, by the way, can score some points. Something feels weird there, does it not?

In 2011, when Maryland went 2-10 in Randy Edsall’s disastrous first season, Dana Holgorsen’s first team was a 1.5-pont favorite and won 37-31 en route to a bunch of other tight games before the Orange Bowl delight.

In 2012, when the Mountaineers were really good offensively, they were 27-point favorites … and won 31-21 against a team that finished 4-8, which led to an interesting Good and Bad and gave life to the idea Maryland could handle with WVU and defend that offense. A “Fool me once…” kind of thing, and Maryland was notable better with a new defensive coordinator.

A year later, WVU was a 4.5-point underdog at M&T Bank Stadium and lost 37-0, a game so bad we went with a rather brief G&B. Same defensive coordinator there.

Last season, the Terrapins were at home and a 3.5-point favorite, that holding from the opening line to the kickoff despite a lot of action on the Mountaineers. WVU won that game, not merely with and by a field goal, but with and by Josh Lambert stutter-stepping his way into a 47-yarder. Same defensive coordinator, again.

I don’t think much of Edsall as a coach. I’ve seen his teams lose when better more than I’ve seen them win when worse, and Brian Stewart is no longer running the defense. The new DC isn’t really new, and Edsall’s working with better players at Maryland than he had at UConn, which helps when the roster turns over like it has there this season. I just don’t think these Terrapins are that bad. They have issues, to be sure, but this is WVU’s biggest test and it comes after yawning through a win against Liberty and then having the following week off. Maryand, meanwhile, has three games in the books and has been on both ends of decisive outcomes. I’m not concerned about the team hitting the road for the first time.

Then again, the over/under is 60, which means something like a 38-22 score, which I could definitely see happening.

This goes without saying, so I probably shouldn’t even say it, and maybe this was a way to get to a bunch of G&Bs in on the day reserved for the G&B, but this is a reality check for WVU. The outcome against Maryland has been indicative of what follows under Holgorsen, and what follows this season is indeed daunting.

WVU hasn’t started 3-0 since opening the 2012 season with five straight wins and reaching No. 5 in the national polls. This is also the first time since 2006 the Mountaineers have opened the season with three straight home games.

A perfect start is advantageous because of who follows.

“Who?” Holgorsen asked.

The Mountaineers play on the road at No. 15 Oklahoma at noon on Oct. 3, play host to No. 24 Oklahoma State a week later, travel to No. 5 Baylor Oct. 17 and then play at No. 3 TCU in a Thursday night game Oct. 29.

“I know what’s ahead, but we’re not worried about it,” Holgorsen said. “I’m going to focus on this one. It’s our goal to get to 3-0. We haven’t even talked about the Big 12 yet. It’s our goal to get to 3-0, and we’re giving everything that we have to win this game. After that, we will figure out who is next on the schedule.”

It’s a remarkable stretch for various reasons. WVU hasn’t played four straight ranked teams since 1992, when games at home against No. 22 Boston College, No. 14 Syracuse, No. 14 Penn State and at No. 1 Miami produced an 0-3-1 record. That, oddly enough, followed a 3-0-1 start and three consecutive wins.

Never before as a member of the Big East or Big 12 has WVU started conference play by playing three of four on the road. The Mountaineers have played three of their first four conference games on the road before, but those four games as members of the Big East were interrupted by non-conference games.

Dana Holgorsen: Maryland week

September 22, 2015 by Mike Casazza

That’s a BlueGoldNews.com video because my camera inexplicably died. Opposite of lively.

Tuesday Taboo: Shell game

by Mike Casazza

Today’s subject was and remains talented enough to render this discussion as silly as any other … but what if it doesn’t happen?

Baylor isn’t trying very hard

September 21, 2015 by Mike Casazza

That last paragraph in the Sunday story about cheating and spying and how it doesn’t happen often and maybe isn’t even worth the trouble these days? It might have a pretty brief shelf life.

If the tweet is true, and I would think it is if Bob Stoops touched it at all in his press conference, then Lebby’s presence in Norman — Norman! — was illegal. There’s an NCAA rule against that sort of behavior. (There are two exceptions, but they’re basically for basketball, baseball or volleyball when a team is in a tournament setting.)

Baylor didn’t play Saturday. Oklahoma played host to Tulsa. The Golden Hurricane is in their first season with head coach Philip Montgomery, who had been Baylor’s offensive coordinator. Tulsa finished with 603 yards of offense, and, yes, Montgomery is using the Baylor offense. He also might be getting a phone call from Tulsa or NCAA compliance soon because, ultimately, Tulsa is in charge of who is on its sideline.

I don’t know, maybe Lebby wasn’t (allegedly) trying to cheat or steal. He sure as heck wasn’t being sneaky. Here’s the best part: Levvy is very recognizable. Apart from being an assistant coach of a Big 12 rival and one of those up-and-comers in this league, Lebby went to Oklahoma and was a student assistant for four years. More? Lebby was in charge of calling plays in the opener, a game Baylor played without two assistant coaches who were suspended for recruiting violations.

Art Briles explained:

“…come stand on our sideline, that’s all right.” I wish Stoops would pull up in front of McLane Stadium in the damn Sooner Schooner Saturday and ask if it would be all right if he just stood on the sideline in crimson and cream.

Cheating, spying ‘really, really, wildly overblown’

by Mike Casazza

We stop and stare sometimes at the sideline shows West Virginia puts on, what with the signs and the towels and the signals and all the subterfuge.

But that’s the point.

The Mountaineers understand people are looking, so they make it hard to know what to look for by providing a series of distractions. There may be multiple signalers, and only one is live. The sign may or may not mean something. The towels keep people from watching from above.

This isn’t new — it’s still fun and funny — but it is somewhat topical given what Georgia Southern says it discovered about WVU’s offense based solely on one photograph of one glance given by quarterback Skyler Howard.

Whether you believe Eagles defensive coordinator Jack Curtis was honest or embellishing, whether you believe it mattered naught or at all, you do know and confess people are watching.

Teams have people who look for like cues. That’s why teams close practices. That’s why WVU, as an example, doesn’t permit photographing or filming in certain parts and why the team put a Periscope ban in place this fall.

It’s why teams sign in plays with different methods and diversions. It’s why ever time the Mountaineers play Texas Tech or Oklahoma or TCU Dana Holgorsen talks about his signals and why he sometimes says he’s changing them up that week.

It’s why the NCAA has rules that are intended to prevent another Whatevergate.

And it’s why I grabbed a shovel last week and took a look at this subject.

Turns out it’s not that big of a deal these days. The Big 12 has never reprimanded a member for cheating. There’s a committee in place to field inquiries, should a school ever raise an issue about an opponent, and the cases and the penalties are judged on an individual basis. WVU has never gone to the Big 12 with a complaint since it joined in 2012, but there were occasions in the Big East when WVU was made to worry and respond.