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

Who is the dissenter?

July 17, 2014 by Mike Casazza

As expected, WVU found itself in eighth place in the Big 12 media’s preseason poll released Thursday. Two things here to discuss:

1) [REDACTED!] [Cripes, the title doesn’t even work now…]

2) WVU was 127 points out of seventh place, which was only 80 points out of third place. That’s amazing and also concerning.

I wrote a little about this in Tuesday’s paper — “Placing is important, but point totals matter, too.” — because realistically the preseason polls and teams are about perception. Placing reveals the perceptions six weeks before the first game, but the point totals allow you to read between the list’s lines.

So the concern here is that not merely that WVU is in eighth place, for a second straight season, but that WVU is perceived to be alarmingly outside even the rather large middle class right now. That’s not a good thing in the third year of this deal.

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Time is ticking for Wendell Smallwood

by Mike Casazza

The West Virginia running back will be extradited to Wilmington, Delaware, today, where he’ll be charged with an act of intimidation for allegedly threatening a witness to a 2012 murder. He faces a maximum of two years in prison.

This, it seems, is not his first brush with the law.

Where things here go from there is yet unknown, but Dana Holgorsen has sat quietly for a few days now, monitoring the situation and waiting to “take action at the appropriate time,” as he said. That time is coming. Nothing has really changed from Monday until now, but a felony charge for a rather unbecoming act is officially something and it would be inconsistent with Holgorsen’s past decisions to let that happen without action.

What skills did Staten acquire?

July 16, 2014 by Mike Casazza

Juwan Staten, as you already know, was back at the LeBron James Skills Academy last week, one of 30 college players four years after he was one of 80 high school players invited to the event. That’s an estimable achievement when one considers the many moves Staten has made and the way his career arc has dipped and peaked.

But we know that he can play the game. It is fact. Science, even. He led the Big 12 in scoring and assists, something only done once before. He topped 500 points, 150 rebounds and 150 assists, something never done before at WVU. He was first-team all-conference and made the all-defense team. He is robust.

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Preseason all-Big 12 team announced

by Mike Casazza

I misspoke earlier. The preseason poll comes out tomorrow, which means the preseason all-conference team came out today.

Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty is the preseason offensive player of the year, TCU defensive end Devonte Fields, who took a medical redshirt last season, is the somewhat surprising preseason defensive player of the year, and Oklahoma State’s speedy receiver Tyreek Hill is the preseason newcomer of the year. Charles Sims won that award last season.

A year after having no one on the preseason all-conference team, the Mountaineers managed but one this year in safety Karl Joseph.

Petty was of seven players on the all-conference team. That led the league. Kansas State had five, Oklahoma four, TCU and Texas three and WVU, Kansas, Iowa State and Texas Tech one. Oklahoma State, believe it or not, had none.

A wondergul game contract

by Mike Casazza

I’m running around for various reasons this morning, but a few things are brewing. The Big 12 will release the media’s preseason poll at 11 a.m. EST, and I believe the buzzless Mountaineers will be picked eighth.

We might also hear a little more about the Wendell Smallwood story, or at least something to forward the story more than we did yesterday, when we went forward and backward and forward again. He’s headed back to Delaware soon (likely in a matter of days) and he’ll have a class G felony charge waiting on him and a looming penalty of up to two years in prison … if convicted.

We can’t stress that enough right now, for reasons laid out so masterfully in the comments yesterday. For now, Smallwood remains an active member of the WVU football team.

That occupied my time for a large portion of what was already a busy Tuesday, so much so that I never got around to the WVU v. Virginia Tech series. We were talking about this late last season — in the newspaper, I think, and not here — but it’s official now, and I have to think it was expedited a but because of Whit Babcock.

(Aside: An announcement for WVU v. Tennessee “won’t be long,” I heard yesterday. I think the final non-conference matchup for 2016 is coming, soon, too. I’m not sure about the opponent. I was, but WVU, which has BYU at FedEx and Youngstown State at home, wants something bigger.)

Anyhow, I got a hold of the game contract Tuesday and it’s wonderful, replete with little perks and provisions that maybe only I find interesting. I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder, but, please, behold the details.

More on Wendell Smallwood

July 15, 2014 by Mike Casazza

The West Virginia Regional Jail & Correctional Facility Authority website says Wendell Smallwood is still an inmate in Doddridge County — but that might not mean much. The Delaware attorney general office told me it is a security policy to keep extradition details under wraps, which makes perfect sense. Smallwood might be gone, for all we know, and the system will catch up later.

Smallwood has acquired legal representation in West Virginia, but he also signed his extradition papers yesterday.

That office also said Smallwood will face a Class D felony charge for an act of intimidation. It is punishable by up to eight years in prison. It’s also the lesser of two available felony charges for witness intimidation. A charge for an aggressive act of intimidation is punishable by two to 25 years in prison.

What’s interesting to us, I bet, is that that’s the language proposed and passed in Senate Bill 177 that reclassifies felony offenses. I’m efforting an official explanation, but someone I know up there whose work involves such matters said the attorney general office does that, and can do that, because the charge came after the law was passed.

UPDATE: The spokesperson at the Delaware attorney general office now says Smallwood will be charged with a Class G felony that is punishable by up to two years in prison. It would appear someone passed along charge of “act of intimidation,” someone looked it up and saw the current classification and penalty and didn’t account for the change in the law. Diligence!

The story behind the #EpicSelfie

by Mike Casazza

Click the link in the tweet. That’s Juwan Staten and the newest addition to the Cleveland Cavaliers roster. It’s tremendous and there’s a great story behind it, one that begins five years earlier.

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Wendell Smallwood arrested

by Mike Casazza

An incident from the running back’s past has jeopardized the promising sophomore’s future. Smallwood was arrested Monday by the University Police as a fugitive from justice.

The immediate word was that he was wanted for something that happened in Wilmington, Delaware, where Smallwood is from, but details were difficult to collect except to say that it was serious — serious enough to be held in the North Central Regional Jail without bail awaiting extradition.

Late Monday night, Wilmington’s News Journal revealed just how serious it was: Smallwood will be charged for intimidating a witness to a 2012 murder.

On multiple occasions in March and May 2013, Ivey said, Smallwood “called to try to get a witness to come and make a false statement to police recanting previous statements” that implicated Lloyd.

Police did not disclose how Smallwood was identified in the alleged witness tampering attempt or how the matter came to authorities’ attention.

I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but witness intimidation is not a small matter, and Delaware lawmakers proposed strong legislation two months ago to combat it. House Bill 177 was signed into law May 28.

The University Police Department is to comment this morning —  a message has been left already — and Dana Holgorsen, who Monday said he has been briefed on the arrest and would act when appropriate, should probably act soon. He’s been pretty consistent in handing out indefinite suspensions for like matters in the past, and he certainly does not want this following him to the Big 12 media days next week.

UPDATE:

Before you ask: SAGO is state attorney general office. The extradition paperwork was started yesterday, which means Smallwood is headed back to Delaware soon. At 11:07 a.m., the NCRJ site still classified him as an inmate.

A follow up

July 14, 2014 by Mike Casazza

You can decide if it’s a busted myth or not. Whatever the case, the trigger was last week’s piece that WVU has a negative impact on attendance at road games.

WVU effect on road prices

This led to a logical conclusion: Realignment will do that to a team like WVU. A new conference will lead to fewer travel parties and shrinking masses of supporters in the fans, but it will also put a team like WVU in the company of schools that are closely bunched and can thus expect to see their fans make manageable trips to road games.

There’s nothing wrong with that, even if it doesn’t make any sense of Iowa State being 3.9 percent better than the Mountaineers. Anyhow, I said it was the total opposite of what was bragged about, advertised and expected upon the move to the Big 12, which is true, though perhaps a touch unfair without context and comparison.

I give you context and comparison. Thanks to VividSeats.com, here are the 2014 numbers for teams that have recently moved to a major conference.

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Myth buster?

by Mike Casazza

We’ve had some interesting stories and conversations here lately, and it’s made me ask some questions and search for some answers. I found this nugget to be, I dunno, surprising. Disarming? Debatable? Probably all of that. Actually, it’s certainly all of that and more.

Anyhow, people make a lot of noise about WVU’s recruiting base and how it has to be broad because there isn’t a reliable talent source within the state borders and there’s a bunch of competition in the border states.

That’s true.

We also know WVU thrives in and relies on Florida and really doesn’t do much in the Big 12 states or against conference rivals, apart from the occasional battle for a junior college target.

Still, there’s been a crutch, of sorts, handed to WVU because it has to go so far to recruit players. There’s a reasonable competitive disadvantage to project there, and people do factor that into their expectations for, the comprehension of and their patience with the Mountaineers and their performances.

Well, it tuns our there are quite a few Big 12 teams that go farther for players on the roster and for players n the most recent recruiting class.