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

80? Sure. 70? Yeah. 65? Start there.

August 29, 2014 by Mike Casazza

Much has been made about Alabama and tempo — I seriously just typed Alabampo, so … — but whether you want to hear or read about it or not, it’s a valid talking point for this Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. WVU is at its best when it plays with pace. The Crimson Tide can come undone when the opponent pushes the pedal to the floorboard. (Then again, so can many teams.)

But when you’re looking at Alabama and you’re looking for cracks and those cracks are hard to find, little ones can be made to be bigger.

That can be misleading and thus dangerous, and perhaps Dana Holgorsen was doing me a solid when he stepped all over my tempo question Tuesday like it was Eddie Murphy’s couch.

Having said that, it’s a dynamic we must watch tomorrow. Because there will be tempo. And there must be tempo. The Mountaineers can’t out-methodical Alabama. They have to manufacture advantages and that’s the — AIR QUOTES! — easiest way to do it.

But if you’re going to have this conversation, you have to do it the right way.

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WVU could use some help for this scrap

August 28, 2014 by Mike Casazza

And the Mountaineers will get it as they prepare for Nick Saban and Alabama. Dana Holgorsen and eight of his assistants have never coached against a Saban team in college or the NFL. Bradley was a part of seven Penn State games against Michigan State and Alabama. “And I hated it,” he said.

He saw Saban before and after different trips to the NFL and separate jobs in the SEC. The Nittany Lions were 3-4 from between 1995-2011, and despite seeing different iterations of the game’s highest-paid coach, Bradley always saw the same things.

“It’s a track record with Nick,” Bradley said. “He believes this is the way they’re going to win football games and he doesn’t waver very often. He’ll throw in some things to keep you a little bit off-balance, but he’s not going to make a living throwing the ball all over the park and spreading you out. He’s very comfortable playing that game within the box.

“But you have to be prepared for everything. He has everything in his arsenal. That’s the thing you have to understand. He has the wide receivers, he has the deep threat, he has the stuff to get on top of you. He has the personnel to do all that, but he’s most comfortable playing defense and running the ball. Passing for him is when it’s necessary. It’s a need factor to keep the defense honest.”

You’ll Never Talk Alone: S3E1

by Brad McElhinny

It’s Thursday and there’s a game Saturday, so we’ll chat about that game here at 11 a.m. We’re told the chat engine on this post is mobile friendly. It’s open now, so feel free to file questions. Tell the world!

Live Blog You’ll Never Talk Alone: S3E1
 

Clint would like to kiss 2013 trouble goodbye

August 27, 2014 by Mike Casazza

A year ago, Clint Trickett was plodding through an orientation class on WVU’s offense. Now he’s lecturing in front of an attentive locker room about “400 level stuff, very advanced stuff,” he says.

It’s not new plays or trick plays or things you’ve never seen from Dana Holgorsen and/or West Virginia before. It is instead a level of comfort and control and camaraderie that just didn’t exist last season, which means it’ll be things you haven’t seen from Trickett or his no-longer-new-to-college teammates.

You’ll be able to recognize and appreciate it on the field Saturday, though there might not be a ton of opportunities to show it off.

A simple unspoken signal with a receiver, be it a quick look or a subtle hand movement, can set up any one of a handful of routes. It helps that the receiver has been around long enough now to not only understand Trickett’s hints, but to know what area the defense will open and where to run the route.

“Clint’s going to have a lot of leeway,” Dawson sad. “The kid’s a smart kid. He understands the layout of the defense, but the biggest thing is he understands where we want to attack a certain defense. That’s probably the best thing we’ve been doing really. He gets the ball to the weak spot. Every defense has a weak spot. Every one. It doesn’t matter what play.

“The key to playing quarterback is to get the ball out on time to that weak spot. He’s been doing a good job of that, and we’ve got to keep stressing it, but he has a good understanding of the layout and he understands the way the safeties’ movements are and the way linebackers void out areas of the defense and he understands that’s where he needs to attack.”

 

Wednesday Walkthrough: Alabama

by Mike Casazza

Alabama is Alabama, right? And Alabama is kind of green. Good green, but still green.

ALABAMA HAS A DEPTH chart with 74 players on offense and defense. Thirty-nine are freshmen and sophomores. In a true two-deep, Alabama figures to have freshmen backing up at defensive end, cornerback, and left guard, plus a freshman — 6-foot-6, 320-pound Cam Robinson — starting at left tackle.

“I figured out he was the No. 1 player in the country and he was there all spring, so I don’t consider him a true freshman,” Holgorsen said.

According to Rivals.com rankings, the defensive end, Da’Shawn Hand, was No. 1 at his position. The cornerback, Tony Brown, was No. 4. The left guard, Ross Pierschbacher, was No. 8.

Dana Holgorsen: Alabama week

August 26, 2014 by Mike Casazza

There’s something in here that’s totally illogical. I’m curious if you can spot it.

Dana Holgorsen speaks at 1 p.m.

by Mike Casazza

Don’t watch it live. I’ll post the video here later.

Anyhow, I wrote about the head coach’s perceived growth and development for today’s newspaper.

“I think the way he sees the overall picture now is different,” Dawson said. “When a guy is an offensive guy his whole life — like he was and like I’ve been — typically your focus is on that side of the ball when you become the head coach. He looks at all three sides of the ball, and that probably makes his view of the offense a little bit different than what it was in the past.

“In the past, he was probably just worried about scoring points and playing as fast as he possibly could and he never took into account how that affected the other two phases of the game.”

I could have done more, and you know me: When I go deep, I go really deep. Yet for some reason, I didn’t get into the thing that intrigues and impresses me most.

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Insert baseball team name here

by Mike Casazza

So Granville, Morgantown, North Central West Virginia and/or West Virginia will indeed have a Class A – short season baseball team in June and 38 home games through September. The team will call the new ballpark at University Town Center its home and that ballpark — described in a press release as “yet-to-be-built” — will be completed in time for WVU’s season and all it’s non-conference and Big 12 games.

What’s truly neat and important to the people who get involved and invested in these things is the team will be in the Pittsburgh Pirates family, which a low has Class A team in Charleston and a Class AA team in Altoona. Pirates fans can track future stars from their beginnings and catch most of it within their region.

But here’s the biggest unresolved issue and the best part yet: The team doesn’t have a name, and that duty will belong to the public sooner rather than later.

“That’s going to be job one,” said Bob Rich, the chairman of Rich Products Corporation and the new team’s owner.

That top priority, though, will be belong to the people and not the brass. Rich said the team will have a naming contest and accept suggestions on Facebook (Facebook.com/MorgantownBaseball) and Twitter (@MorgantownBall) and by email (MorgantownBaseball@gmail.com.)

“It gives us a good way to start our outreach efforts and to hear from the community about what kind of names they like,” Rich said. “As the owner of a club, you don’t want to just pick a name out of a hat. We want this team to hit the field running with a name people can feel proud of.”

Rich owns three teams and is in the habit of letting fans name their teams after one forgettable-if-not-so-memorable story from 1987.

“That,” Rich said, “was the last time I was ever going to try to name a baseball team.”

Season-opening depth chart

by Mike Casazza

Take this for what you will, assuming you’re likely going to spend more time on it than the coaches did and that you might attach much more permanence, too.

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Just a warning … 50-inch story time!

August 25, 2014 by Mike Casazza

We know Oklahoma and WVU are alarmingly alike on offense. We suspect they’re going to be structurally similar on defense.

We remember Oklahoma beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and we’re very aware the Mountaineers’ 2014 season begins in the Georgia Dome against the Crimson Tide.

What we wonder, though, is what the Sooners would tell WVU about the opponent, what Oklahoma says the Mountaineers should expect.

Wonder no more. I asked and the Sooners shared their thoughts. And, yeah, that’s not a story as much as it is a opus. Sue me.