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

Today in Geno Smith missteps

June 17, 2013 by Mike Casazza

You’ve probably noticed this if you’ve been around for a while, but we don’t do a whole lot here on former players. The thinking is they are former players and this space is better used for current players, teams, stories, issues and the like.

There are deviations and exceptions, but mostly we toe that line.  I really like to cook. When I cook barbecue, I don’t also cook chicken wings. Make sense?

All of that said, I can’t pry my attention away from Geno Smith. Every time I turn around, it’s something new and unusual with him. Have you heard of Jets West? Well, neither had the rookie Jets quarterback and that’s when things started to get a little awkward. Not much later, there was a better response and a more acceptable explanation, but not before Mr. Smith had taken another one off the noggin.

Folks, we’re way beyond bump, set, spike

by Mike Casazza

We’re embarking on a summer series today that takes a look at how technology is shaping the college sports we play, watch and cover at WVU. The ideas are all around us and they range from very modest to very expensive, but they’re all, on some level, extremely important to players, coaches and whole programs.

We begin today with volleyball. Coach Jill Kramer does a little of the modest and the expensive stuff — the modest being her own design, the expensive being a requirement in the Big 12, if you’re counting pennies at home.

Begin today with Data Volley. It’s hard to explain exactly what Data Volley does, but know that it tracks and grades every touch during every match and produces everything from expected outcomes to scouting reports.

It’s an irreplaceable asset.

With the help of Data Volley, the Mountaineers distribute and digest very detailed scouting reports that show statistics for serves, attacks and blocks and diagrams illustrating where a player is known to go with the volleyball.

“There is nowhere to hide anymore and there are no secrets,” Wade said. “When we start a match, our weakest passer is getting served every single ball. They know, especially as the season goes along and we have 20 matches of the team passing volleyballs. They take the stats and they use them. They look at it and say, ‘Well, who’s the weakest passer on the team?’ Then when we put six kids on the court, they can say, ‘That’s the weakest passer, serve the ball at her.'”

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Bad idea or worst idea? Fine, OK. Good idea?

June 14, 2013 by Mike Casazza

You make the call! This is, um, interesting.

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan says he might have rookie quarterback Geno Smith run some read-option plays if he doesn’t win the starting job — even though that experiment failed miserably last season with Tim Tebow.

“I know what everybody’s thinking if we did that: Didn’t we try that last year?” Ryan said. “I think certainly that’s a possibility. To probably make assumptions now probably isn’t the thing to do but we’ll let this thing work out and pan out and we’ll see.

“We never knew a whole lot about (Colin) Kaepernick and then when he came in there they started springing that stuff on you. He made some huge runs in that game against us,” Ryan said.

Oh boy.

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This will raise a debate

by Mike Casazza

Let’s understand one thing before we start: Everyone here, writers and readers included, understands the game we’re about to play. We now that while the athletic department is West Virginia University’s athletic department, they exist in separate quarters. They live and thrive independent of one another.

The athletic department pays its bills with money it generates.

With the exception of an annual $100,000 appropriation to fund the rifle program that comes from the state — and the one that should be much harder to justify as a full-fledged member of the Big 12 — WVU’s athletic department operates on its own.

We’re all clear on that, right? Because we have to be if we’re going to proceed.

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Here’s something that makes no sense

by Mike Casazza

No Friday Feedback today, but I have some things that yearn for your feedback. First up is this one absurd piece of NCAA legislation.

Shocking, I know.

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He went and designed

June 13, 2013 by Mike Casazza

You are looking live inside the WVU Natatorium at the new locker room for WVU’s men’s soccer team: Leather furniture, three flat screen televisions, 30 lockers and more to come, like speakers in the showers and a projector for film sessions. Everything is wireless, meaning people can control the volume on the speakers or change the channel on the television with their phones.

They’re still a few weeks away from being completely done, but seeing as though they’ve been waiting since, like, 2007, the Mountaineers will gladly wait a little longer.

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Let’s go design

by Mike Casazza

That whole matter of trying to win the Big 12 while winning over new and old fans with class and kindness now in the rear view mirror, Randy Mazey can pull himself from the 2013 season and begin to look ahead. Most major matters that concern the future concern the unnamed baseball stadium that will rest atop the University Town Center.

We’re nowhere near seeing shovels in the ground yet, but the process starts in earnest today when Mazey and a host of others meet for the first time to discuss the design.

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EA Sports wins

June 12, 2013 by Mike Casazza

As a party to a stimulating lawsuit levied by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, EA Sports has been accused of being a little bit too realistic. A little bit too in the game, so to speak. It’s a long story, I promise, but it might flip a few things upside down when a judge rules later this month.

Perhaps as a consequence, it seems the NCAA Football folks, friends of the blog and of WVU, are maybe a little too loose with reality. Offense, defense and overall ratings for NCAA Football 14 found their way onto the worldwide web yesterday. WVU is an 84 overall with an 83 for offense and — are you seated? — an 87 for defense.

Teams with better offenses? Boston College! Ball State! UConn! Freaking Kansas! Purdue! Rutgers! Toledo! And guess who has an 83? Syracuse! Only slightly less entertaining, look at teams WVU has a better defense than: Mississippi State, Nebraska, Penn State, TCU, to name a few.

Don’t yawn: It’s the APR

by Mike Casazza

On the surface, the Academic Progress Report probably seems boring and intimidating, what with it being such a vast collection of academic data. Those variables do not send the heart racing, unless you’re on the wrong side of them.

In truth, it’s a pretty simple thing: A student-athlete on scholarship can get a school four points per year (one for staying eligible and one for remaining enrolled in both the fall and spring semesters). Now take the sum of all the players and divide that by the total possible sum for all of that team’s players. Multiply that number by 1,000 and there you have it.

For example: There are 13 men’s basketball players. If each is eligible and in school for both semesters, that’s a 52. Divide 52 by the team’s possible sum, which is also 52, and you’re left with 1. Multiply that by 1,000 and the team’s annual APR score is 1,000 … which is exactly what men’s basketball did in the most recent report, which was released Tuesday and which evaluates the 2011-12 year.

The four-year APR is the true measurement as far as the NCAA is concerned and WVU was just fine there with a 973, a point below the national average. For a third straight year, nobody earned APR penalties … but that could be changing next year.

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All your reseating queries answered

June 11, 2013 by Mike Casazza

Trust me when I say there’s a time and a place for Bruce Barton. Fortunately, this is one of those. No more will he be the man that nobody knows around here.

WVU’s 2-year-old plan to reseat the Coliseum takes hold next season and ends a lengthy period of confusion and stubbornness among many who didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand the concept.

In short, the Mountaineer Athletic Club wanted a clear and fair way to allocate season tickets by giving the highest bidders the first shot at seats. Consequently, longtime buyers of season tickets might be displaced by someone who hasn’t been around as long, but who is giving more.

Right or wrong, the loyalty element isn’t as valued as the monetary element today. That’s the name of the game. The funny thing, though, is that it seems to be working for the Mountaineers. Requests and thus revenue are both trending upward.

There’s widespread contentment and approval of the new plan, which for the first time assures the highest-level donors their choice of seats at the Coliseum, which has a capacity of 14,000.

As of May 31, the deadline for Mountaineer Athletic Club donors to return their season-ticket intent forms, 1,352 new and returning donors submitted the necessary paperwork. Last season, 1,220 MAC donors requested season tickets.

The donors who sent in season-ticket intent forms for this coming hoops season requested a total of 5,718 tickets, an 8 percent increase from 5,131 for the 2012-13 season.

The uptick in MAC donors and number of tickets requested is obviously encouraging and will provide a revenue boost for the athletic department, but it should also help generate more money through gifts for WVU at a time when dollars are needed to keep pace in the Big 12.

The surge also reinforces the notion that the reseating plan was, in fact, necessary.