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

Busy Saturday?

August 26, 2015 by Mike Casazza

High school football starts this week, which is sort of useful as you wait another week for WVU football. But if it’s not enough and you just you need that Mountaineer Field fix — something like the final preseason game before the first one that counts — then you do have an option.

The stadium will play host to a top-shelf prep game Saturday: Cleveland’s St. Edwards against Baltimore’s Gilman. St. Edward is No. 3 in Cleveland.com’s preseason state ranking and No. 19 in USA Today’s national ranking. Gilman is No. 2 in Maryland this preseason and No. 3 in USA Today’s Northeast regional ranking.

High school football is mirroring college football and staging elite matchups to start the season, and the one reserved for Morgantown is among the best available this weekend. The Mountaineers can’t be involved in any of this — and I mean, can’t be in the stadium, can’t have their scoreboard operator working the game — but they do indeed benefit. Neither prep program is far from here and two pretty strong prep programs are paying WVU to come visit.

 

Whoa there, Steve Clarkson

by Mike Casazza

Steve Clarkson is one of those broom-wielding, promise-making quarterback whisperers who’s realized great fame and even fortune through the years. His reputation can go either way, depending on how you choose to view his motivations and his role in a kid’s life. Whatever that perspective, he’s achieved quite a bit through the years, and he’s been profiled on just about every stage imaginable. I mean, Morley Safer took notice.

Clarkson, of course, has long been connected to West Virginia’s mercurial freshman David Sills. Whatever their relationship and whatever it means, understand Clarkson has an eye for talent. Two eyes, in fact. And as you can see above, he’ll just go ahead and compare Sills to Johnny Manziel.

I bring this up today because Sills will in all likelihood redshirt this season, like Manziel did four years ago before winning the Heisman Trophy the following season. W.V. Crest is Skyler Howard’s backup, and it appears Chris Chugunov will travel with the team as well. Sills, meanwhile, has talked to teammates about what it’s like to redshirt. His high school teammate, receiver Daikiel Shorts, who led the team in receptions as a true freshman in 2013, told Sills it’s worth it for long-term benefit.

And since Sills is redshirting (for now, because let’s not forget Howard was supposed to redshirt last season), that means he’s on the scout team. And at this time of the year before this tricky first opponent, Sills is keying the scout team offense by mimicking the Georgia Southern quarterback in its unique option offense. He also happens to be darwing rave reviews from the coaches schooling him on what to do and how to do it.

This is all of the talk about Sills — faster then you’d think, a very good runner, best athlete at the position, no less capable of playing running back or receiver than was Crest — in action, and though it’s a small and cloudy window, it’s a look into the future versions of Dana Holgorsen’s multiple and evolving offense.

#Midvale

by Mike Casazza

Bob Huggins. Taking over.

Theory time

by Mike Casazza

Something hit me last night and it’s still spinning around in my head. We’re trying to figure out the receiver position at WVU and sort out the best five skill position players — and that, again, is a big part of WVU’s attack because of its aim to apply multiple tempos. You play faster without subbing.

Daikiel Shorts is, according to people on defense, the team’s best all-around receiver. He can and will play inside and outside because he knows and has handled both positions. He says, though, that he’s an inside receiver now. I asked him where he’d put his name if I handed him a blank depth chart and he said, “Inside.”

So here’s an idea, which is not to say it’s the idea: The wide receivers — two or three of them, at least — are all right and Shorts and Jordan Thompson will give the Mountaineers punch inside. The offense then branches out from there.

Continue reading…

Dana Holgorsen: Aug. 25, 2015

August 25, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Good stuff, as expected after this break away from camp, about where the team is and is headed. Personnel decisions are taking shape and must be made, and Holgorsen is left to make but three calls on starting spots. Then there’s the part at the very end about his essential best five skill players on offense, which left me wanting more.

Just like herding cats, actually

by Mike Casazza

Season ticket sales are down once again for WVU football, though that might be a temporary description as there is hope to reach last season’s number by Sept. 5. It’s part of an interesting discussion today, though.

Television is an increasingly popular and preferred way to follow your favorite team. Costs are more manageable. The experience is more convenient. For so many reasons to so many people, TV outranks the stadium.

Yet TV is experiencing a dip, as well. ESPN is losing subscribers and being asked by Disney to manage its costs better. Fox Sports is laying off people in regional outfits. Fox Sports 1 altered its news operation and the structuring within. Writers, I’ve heard, are going to work with new limitations.

The biggest issue of them all? People are moving away from cable television. We’ve coined “cord-cutters” all of a sudden and people have flocked to streaming devices and services while finding new and acceptable if not high-quality ways to follow teams without relying on a cable subscription.

What’s that mean? Why are we here? Well, what happens if this keeps trending, trending, trending? What if networks keep losing subscribers and are forced to be more cautious and conservative with their expenses? Does that not affect the next roudn of television contracts between networks and major college conferences?

Indeed it does. “I know our partners are very concerned about it,” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said. “It hasn’t had an immediate impact upon us, but it will in future negotiations.”

But then again, what we’re talking about is different than what we were discussing five or 10 years ago, so it stands to reason the worries are misplaced for now because the game will change by the time the Big 12’s deal, or any deal, comes up for bid in the future.

“I think there’s a larger question there, and that is, ‘Is cable TV the delivery system of predominance in the years ahead?’ ” Bowlsby said.

Probably not, and the swaths of cable-cutters serve as proof. It wasn’t long ago when big televisions were the rage. Now people want to watch games on their phones, tablets and laptops. Digital access is that popular and important now. There isn’t a more cherished sports commodity than an NFL game. Yahoo! will stream one for free online this season. Internet providers are hurrying to solve buffering issues in streaming technology but also working to market and monetize authentication services that let people link their cable provider over an Internet connection and watch a game remotely.

Kickoffs and tip times were once indisputable appointments, but the rise of DVRs have calmed people down and built a hunger for on-demand programming. The HBO Go and Showtime Anytime models have fans clamoring for previously recorded games to be available at their convenience — and a service like that with a subscription fee attached would pay a lot of bills at ESPN or Fox.

“There are probably two schools of thought,” Allen said. “Are they going to be conservative in order to keep their costs down, or are they going to be aggressive to keep the programming they need to hold on to the subscribers that they have? A lot of people believe it’s probably going to be the latter.”

 

Georgia Southern has depth

by Mike Casazza

By now you know that Kevin Ellison, the Georgia Southern quarterback and the essence of the Willie Fritz offense, is academically ineligible and will miss the season’s first two games. That’s a shame. Oh, it might be a relief for you and Tony Gibson, because Ellison is really, really good in that offense, but the game would be more fun with Ellison in it. He not only misses the opener, but he’s out for the following week’s game against Western Michigan, which has immense potential to be one of the most entertaining non-conference games of the season.

In his place will be Favian Upshaw, who is not Ellison, but who’s a bit more veteran and experienced than you might think. He’s on the small side, but Georgia Southern has a highly regarded quarterbacks coach/offensive coordinator in Doug Ruse, and Ruse really likes Upshaw. It doesn’t hurt that Upshaw likes Upshaw, as well. “I’ve had some pretty good days,” Upshaw said. “I’ve been rolling lately. Hopefully, I can keep it going into West Virginia.”

But that’s not why we’re here. The Eagles, it turns out, have depth at kicker, too. Alex Hanks will be the main man again, but watch out for Younghoe Koo, the backup kicker, the kickoff specialist and the guy who can do this.

https://twitter.com/MrAllPurpose4/status/635957071154925568

 

Lineups taking shape

August 24, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Kansas will start Montell Cozart at quarterback and Oklahoma will go with Baker Mayfield, and these are notable developments for a few reasons. Cozart has a specific feet-first skill set, so you get a clue about the direction Kansas will head in during David Beaty’s debut season. Mayfield has pro potential. He just hasn’t had a stage. He was part of Kliff Kingsbury’s juggling act in 2013, and then Kingsbury blocked his transfer to Oklahoma, which forced Mayfield to walk on with the Sooners as he redshirted last season. But he’s won the starting job at two places now where he arrived as a walk on, and that says something about him, no? (It might also say something about Trevor Knight, too. Remember that Sugar Bowl game against Alabama?)

WVU didn’t have a quarterback dilemma hanging over the offseason, but it may gave gotten better at combating quarterbacks over the weekend.

Continue reading…

Safeties second

by Mike Casazza

Karl Joseph is the best player on what we believe will be a very good West Virginia defense. K.J. Dillon plays the most important position on that defense. Dravon Henry, it has been argued, exhibited the most improvement on that side of the ball in the 13 days of preseason camp.

Each is a starting safety for the Mountaineers, and everything they have to do as part of the interchangeable responsibilities on the front line and back end of the defense is critical. Not Rose-Barber critical, of course, but certainly vital as it relates to how WVU plays the run, pressures the passer, defends the pass, wins on third down and succeeds in the red zone.

Continue reading…

‘Because of gap integrity’

by Mike Casazza

West Virginia is going to see a bunch of good to very good quarterbacks this season and even more very good to great receivers. That’s life in today’s college football and in the Big 12 in particular. I don’t much care that, in August, the quarterback talent is down. I think that’s probably because it’s unknown, and I believe that perception can and will change in the opening weeks when answers arrive at Texas Tech, a starter emerges at Oklahoma and numbers continue to accumulate at Baylor. I do know the receivers in the Big 12 are sort of scary, and that’s why the WVU’s depth at cornerback — now deeper than before with Rasul Douglas officially eligible and practicing — is such a good development.

We forget, though, that the Mountaineers were just average against the run last season and proved to be wholly inconsistent. That deserves more ink than it’s thus far receiver.

Continue reading…