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

Leftovers from Mike Burchett

June 22, 2015 by Mike Casazza

I didn’t have any space in print for this update from G.A./quarterbacks coach Mike Burchett, but he’s keeping busy with WVU’s quarterbacks in the summer: Skyler Howard, William Crest, David Sills and Chris Chugunov.

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Whoa, a tight ends coach!

by Mike Casazza

Technically speaking, Dana Holgorsen has no room — and no need? — for a tight ends coach. Have a look yourself. But on that list of graduate assistants, and in the spirit of busy Mike Burchett, is a tight ends coach. He’s Dan Gerberry, a former all-conference player at Ball State and five-year pro in the NFL. He was a center then and now is in the middle of a room handling the team’s tight ends all by himself.

The twist here, though, is that a year ago he was a full-time assistant coach in charge of the tight ends at Youngstown State. Things went sideways and the Penguins cleaned house, leaving Gerberry, married not yet one year, figuring out his life and his career on the fly.

“You know what you’re getting into with this career,” Gerberry said. “It is what it is. The best coaches in the world get fired, and if you haven’t been fired, you haven’t been coaching long enough. I’ve been fortunate. I caught a bad break, but at the same time I’ve caught good breaks, too.”

Gerberry married in February 2014. Less than a year later, he and wife Jaclyn’s immediate future was as uncertain as the bouquet toss.

“There were a lot of nights with long conversations. ‘What are my options? What are we going to do? What’s best for us?,’ ” Gerberry said.

He found some possibilities and some found him. He said he never closed the door on any opportunity that would keep him in football and on his career path, but there were times when he and his wife would ask one another what was worthwhile.

“Every coach has to have that talk,” Gerberry said. “There’s a possibility that even great coaches will lose their jobs and not have another offer, so whether it’s a tiny thing you have to think about, whether it’s you can’t move your family for a job offer or the offer just isn’t really feasible, you have to at some point in your career sit down and look at your backup plan.

“Then the West Virginia offer came on the table, and it was a no-brainer. I would have been foolish to pass it up.”

Don’t trash-talk me

June 19, 2015 by Mike Casazza

I’m away for the day and back on Monday, so don’t go too hard on me. Then again, boy, do I miss rivalries. If not for this sick burn — so sick I had to rush it to MedExpress — then this from Texas A&M chancellor John Sharp would be the sickest burn in a long time.

Damn. Poor Texas. Fire coming from every direction, and the tenor of that take up against this bludgeoning of the athletic director makes you pity the Longhorns and skip past the fact Texas A&M is not all that … bowl wins against suspect Big 12 squads not withstanding. But when enemies square off, in any forum, you oooh and aaah over the biggest punches, never mind who’s winning the fight.

We pine for that sort of animosity, though. And I’m getting a feeling we’re a long, long way from getting Pitt back into our lives and restoring what the Backyard Brawl meant to us in our different roles in life.

A while back, we wondered how and when WVU and Pitt could play again. Our best guess was 2022. It’s still possible.

This  is promising because 1) it’s farcical Pitt would work with Cincinnati before WVU and 2) Pitt is working on scheduling holes in that 2022 neighborhood. I know WVU wants to make this happen — “Without a doubt,” he said, “we’d love to reignite the Backyard Brawl.” — and I still think the Mountaineers would take a one-off neutral-site game at Heinz Field, and if a sponsor gets involved in that, some of the financial weight is off the Panthers.

So we think 2022 works because WVU has five Big 12 home games and can go on the road. The Panthers have room to work with,  as well, and home games are always welcome.

There’s a whisper lately about 2017, because both teams have room to make it work, but I still wonder about that. WVU’s playing four Big 12 home games and plays host to ECU in non-conference play and plays Virginia Tech at FedEx Field. It has to be in Morgantown for it to make any sense, and Pitt has room for a road game, but Pitt also plays at Penn State and at home against Oklahoma State. I doubt the Panthers add a road game against another Big 12 team. I suppose at WVU in 2017 and at Pitt in 2022 is possible.

That said, it seems imminent Shane Lyons and Pitt’s new AD meet soon and get this rivalry back on the field. If they want to insult one another a few times along the way, that’s fine by me.

 

Swords down

June 18, 2015 by Mike Casazza

From out of the blue, and a without much detail, is news West Virginia Radio Corp. and WVU have settled their lawsuits against one another and agreed to dismiss the proceedings.

There isn’t much to this and there isn’t much more I can tell. I’m frankly surprised it’s been done-ish for two months now with no mention of this before yesterday, though I can explain and offer a theory. I’m more surprised that many of the people I’ve spoken to the past 30 or so hours were caught unaware of this and without any reaction.

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Show of hands!

by Mike Casazza

Who among us has spent some idle time during this most idle time on our calendar giving great thought to even minor items concerning WVU football? As I expected. These are the things I think about, not only to fill my free time, but to help fill a sports section. I, and maybe we, keep coming back to one: The way Dana Holgorsen restructured his coaching staff this offseason.

If you whittle away and get to the core, you find he lost an offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach to be the same at Kentucky, replaced that piece with someone from the FCS level who became the team’s third defensive line coach, lost one of the other two defensive line coaches to the defensive coordinator position at UCLA and replaced that person by promoting a defensive graduate assistant to be the boss on special teams.

Read that all again. It’s very unusual.

Is it bad? Is it that bad? I could argue both sides capably, but I think I’d have more success saying it isn’t too large of a concern.

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Lots of gold and blue up in that dorm room

June 17, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Kyzir White — The Third White, following older brothers Kevin and Ka’Raun — committed to WVU upon visiting over the weekend and decided to wait to make the announcement until last night, possibly because he needed time to put together that photo frame.

We suspected this was coming as far back as the April visit to Lackawanna, because Kyzir was fond of WVU’s early and aggressive interest and somewhat put off by the way other schools quickly followed WVU’s offer.

Turns out that sincerity was significant all the way through the process.

“A lot of schools just offer you because the other offers you currently have, and they’re not really as interested as they say they are,” he said. “They just throw the offer out there and expect you to come, and they won’t contact you or let you know how much you mean to the program or how much they want you.

“With West Virginia, I felt like once they offered me, there was constant communication. They let me know how good of a player I was and how much they needed me. The other schools that offered me or contacted me, I didn’t have as great a relationship with them.”

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What motivates Mountaineers in June

June 16, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Fun story here … again … and I’m starting to worry worried I’m not doing my share during these down days. But these aren’t duldrums for everyone, and West Virginia’s football team is hard at work lifting weights, watching cut-ups from the spring and doing brisk walk-throughs (no football, please!) during the summer workout windows.

It’s not especially fun work. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not a lot more than nothing, either. Still,it’s necessary, and it requires a focus to stay tuned for the (up to) eight hours a week. There needs to be a light to chase, a carrot to pursue, and the motivations are different for everyone.

But Bill Snyder has become such a gentleman through the years and his letters have become so treasured that getting a letter from Snyder is a goal for some, including WVU’s Clint Trickett.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the note came. Trickett sustained a concussion in West Virginia’s 26–20 loss to Kansas State on Nov. 20 and had to leave the game in the third quarter facing a two-touchdown deficit.

“Sorry I didn’t get to see you after the game Clint. Wasn’t aware that you had received a concussion. I hope the symptoms are gone by now & that you will be back soon. Always appreciate you as a young man of great values as well as being an excellent quarterback. Pulling for you to finish off the season at your best. Warm Regards Coach Snyder.”

Trickett, of course, has the letter. He’s taking it with him to East Mississippi Community College, where he’ll start his career as a quarterback coach.

At some point, the letter will hang on his wall. He’ll have framed a memento, essentially, from the injury that ended his playing career. “He’s the foundation of what a coach should be,” Trickett says. “When you think what a coach should be, you think of Bill Snyder. The handwritten letter epitomizes it.”

The other Canadian isn’t bad at all

by Mike Casazza

We give a lot of attention to Kadehisha Buchanan, her exploits at WVU and her spot on the Canadian women’s national team roster … and let’s be honest, deservedly so. She’s terrific, and she’s on a stamp. Buchanan has been renowned for quite some time, even if you’re just now noticing, and her star really started to soar last year when she scored on Hope Solo.

But she has a teammate with the Mountaineers and with Team Canada who’s a way-above-average player who just doesn’t get the same attention. For now? Ashley Lawrence has been starting for the Canadians and she, too, has an international goal to her name. The first of her career came Monday as Canada won its group with a 1-1 draw against the Dutch.

Her story is actually quite good to witness, too. Not to say she was stuck in limbo, of sorts, but there was an uncertain period she’s certainly made seem like a memory.

Lawrence’s success story is different, but it’s a tale of triumph. She’s yet to score in 18 appearances and four starts, and she went from seven appearances in 2013 to three last year and back to seven and three starts this year.

“With Canada, we went back and forth some, and they thought maybe she was better off at a different position,” Izzo-Brown said. “Not to say I was right, but I truly believed Ashley was a midfielder by trade and I stuck by that. These past two seasons, she’s had a great opportunity to show Canada she can be an impact on the field for them, so I’m real happy she’s been able to showcase her trade and her talent and also get better as a player.”

Lawrence, a captain for Canada’s 2012 World Cup under-17 team, had four goals and four assists as a freshman in 2013 and was first-team all-conference. Last season, she repeated that honor and finished with four goals and seven assists.

The top 75 of 2015

June 15, 2015 by Mike Casazza

A tip of the hat to Berry Tramel for this idea in the middle of June. He’s boldly ranked all 75 games involving a Big 12 team in the 2015 season, something he’s done longer than WVU has been in the Big 12, but something I only noticed that first season. Oklahoma at WVU took the top spot that season. The Mountaineers — and this is where we point out Tramel only pointed out last season he was a fan of the Mountain State — took five of the top 10 spots. (WVU wasn’t quite as anticipated a year later with two of the five worst games.)

Anyhow, from Baylor at TCU all the way to South Dakota at Kansas State, it covers every game involving one of the conference’s 10 teams. WVU isn’t in the top 10, but non-conference games make the top 15 and the bottom 10. As far as predictions go, there’s this about the final weekend of the season, which is when the Big 12 has been adept at scheduling eyeballs:

17. West Virginia at Kansas State, Dec. 5: The Big 12 must think this is a big game. It’s one of only two Big 12 games on the final weekend.

A happy ending to the sod story

by Mike Casazza

You’ll remember back in August when WVU’s football players more or less threw their hands up and said they were done practicing on the natural grass surface back behind the dysfunctional indoor practice facility.

Maybe it wasn’t that dramatic.

But practice conditions, and even the mere attempt to discuss them, can be divisive at WVU. Dana Holgorsen doesn’t want to practice at the stadium because it diminishes the novelty he believes should be reserved for game day. The indoor facility is sub-optimal because it doesn’t have a regulation field and isn’t wide enough to allow for drills when one group isn’t butting up against another.

The outdoor facility is all right, actually. It has the most available space. You can get speakers out there. Taping practice isn’t hard. It works. But the grass is a mess. It can survive a few days before it goes bad, and, for whatever reason, moisture and/or draining is an issue up there.

That issue was impossible to ignore after one day last summer.

During preseason camp, the Mountaineers spent a small part of one full-contact practice on the natural grass next to the indoor practice facility. They were there for less than half an hour Aug. 4 before coach Dana Holgorsen moved his team down the hill and back inside Mountaineer Field.

And as odd as that seemed, it was a huge relief for the players.

“We were pulling large chunks of grass out when we were trying to cut or push off,” one player told the Charleston Daly Mail. “You shouldn’t be slipping like that in practice. You don’t want a guy to injure himself because of the field and not because something else happened that you can’t control.”

The Daily Mail talked to several players about what happened that day, and WVU was indeed worried about injuries. During the Oklahoma drill, with the media watching, several players slipped and fell during the contact period. In one sequence, offensive lineman Stone Underwood was working against nose guard Brandon Jackson. The grass gave way beneath them and they collapsed. Underwood injured his shoulder and Jackson tweaked a hamstring. Both missed subsequent practices.

What multiple players remembered most was what happened to Dustin Garrison, a running back who tore an ACL on grass at an Orange Bowl practice in December 2011 and who ended up redshirting last season with a hamstring problem. Garrison angled out of the backfield and caught a swing pass. He planted so he could run up the field, but a foot got stuck in the grass. Garrison broke stride and pulled his foot from turf and avoided danger.

The Mountaineers were soon on the move from one field to another.

“It was a mess,” a player said. “It was slippery. Every time a guy made a cut, the grass came loose under his feet.”

The team never went back there again. The school is taking that a bit more seriously now.

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