This WVU team happens to be the men’s basketball team, which looked a little like you expected a collection of new and still-young players to look against Gonzaga … only a lot worse.
It feels a little bit like last season, which started with an exhibition loss to Northern Kentucky. But how about this for an opening act encore? Worst loss of Bob Huggins’ career. Needless to say, nobody saw that coming, though.
Continue reading…
Trying times lead to difficult questions and sometimes illuminating answers. We got a bunch of it all Saturday evening in Stillwater, Okla., after WVU’s fourth straight loss — and one that pushed the point differential in those games to 98 points … despite a one-point double-overtime loss.
Clearly, the Mountaineers are not happy and a few of them are not afraid to explain why.
“Sometimes I look at the game from the sideline and see things happen and question it, like, “Come on, man,'” Bailey said. “That’s what makes me question effort sometimes.
“Sometimes our demeanor, when I look from the sideline, sometimes I see things and it’s just crazy. Some of the plays that have been happening this year have been unbelievable.”
So how about Sunday evening at WVU? Come back to the team headquarters, do a little film, have a few meetings, go out to the practice field — six days before playing host to Oklahoma, in the tenth game of the season — and work on special teams.
“I sat here a week-and-a-half ago and thought we played really well on special teams, other than executing the snap and executing the kick, whether it was a kick or a punt,” Holgorsen said. “So we worked hard at that all week, and if you look at the execution of the snap and the kick, they were really good (Saturday). Both snapping and punting were excellent.
“(Punter/kicker) Tyler responded and had probably the best day he’s ever had here. John DePalma snapped and did his job running down the field with a tremendous amount of effort. With that said, everything else was bad. Everything else I said was good turned bad.”
All that and plenty more in the head coach’s weekly press conference.
Immediate Good goes to Paul Millard and his solidarity. The visor preserves the backward hat quota on the sideline. Millard was the highlight of the game with his cameo passes — camethrows? — and his celebrations and his ” ‘Sup? Threw a touchdown. It was fourth-and-56. Spiral between six defenders. I’ll do it again.” demeanor on the sideline. I really want him mic’d up for a game.
But when the backup quarterback is the highlight of the game, or at least in the running, that’s not Good, right? Are things this Bad? Four straight losses seem to suggest as much and a fifth might be rumbling in boomer sooner than you’d like.
How’d we get here? Let’s take a look by evaluating the good and the bad of WVU v. Oklahoma State.
Good: Arlia, Nehlen, Clay, etc.
What if I told you in September, when WVU was doing things with the five-receiver sets, that the Mountaineers would go to Stillwater, Okla., and use the set in the first quarter with Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jordan Thompson, Ryan Nehlen and Connor Arlia?
That happened.
Such is the state if affairs at WVU that Dana Holgorsen, searching for guys who want to make this work, is running Arlia and Nehlen out there. He’s putting Cody Clay at tight end and asking him to block the edge when Tavon is running end-arounds. Cecil Level is moving from the deepest part of the cornerback depth chart to a starting spot at safety.
Those guys were good Saturday and, if nothing else, set examples. Level patrolled the secondary and had good moments. Clay blocked well. Nehlen stretched the field and provided a target and caught a touchdown. Arlia made plays as the second inside receiver, which is something that position has lacked most of this season.
This is a tough play and one you probably don’t expect him to make. He has to — that’s why he’s out there — and he does. K.J. Myers, who has a scholarship, let a pass on an out pattern go through his fingers earlier in the game. Dante Campbell, who started against Texas Tech, hasn’t played since. Arlia moves the chains and WVU ends up kicking a field goal.
Expect to see more of these guys.
Continue reading…
… I was not. WVU and Gonzaga opened the annual ESPN college basketball marathon. It probably only felt like a marathon for the Mountaineers.
They began what was supposed to be, and still might be, a much-improved season. They instead took the worst lost in the five-plus seasons with Bob Huggins — and it was never that close.
“We didn’t compete,” Huggins said. “That’s what bothers me more than anything.”
If you didn’t watch, you win. It wasn’t pleasant, and I know this because I watched. For you. Re-live it after the jump.
Continue reading…
Nevertheless, the rock tumbler opens and pours out the stones that were smoothed and washed last season. The opponent offers an intriguing bit of symmetry.
Let’s be honest (feels so good to say that in basketball season), there were times last season WVU was bullied and exposed, especially in the backcourt, and that was a major factor in the 19-14 record.
Included in all of that was the rather one-sided loss in the NCAA Tournament to Gonzaga. That being the last game, and the sort of performance that really bothers Bob Huggins, it was kept and presented as a reminder throughout the offseason.
The 2012-13 Mountaineers, older, presumably better and likely tougher with Juwan Staten and Matt Humphrey, in the backcourt open things up at midnight against … Gonzaga.
… this WVU football team is now something very different. WVU announced this afternoon that Ivan McCartney has left the team. That’s probably a big deal, depending on how you want to look at it. That’s two receivers in less than a week that decided they didn’t like life at WVU — and this is supposed to be a receiver’s offense. And both kids had started during the four-game losing streak, when the coaches were looking for anyone who wanted to do something with an opportunity.
Travares Copeland, who preceded McCartney in bursting through the fire exit, was a pretty enticing recruit who, we all thought, the coaches liked. That candle burned very quickly and it is another blow to recruiting, which already took a sizable hit when Deontay McManus didn’t make it over the summer.
McCartney’s wick lasted longer, but this was happening all season. He absolutely thought about leaving in August, but was given a weekend and decided not to go. Timing is probably not a strength of his because a kid whose freshman season was basically squandered and did very little with this junior season will have to sit out next season if he wants to stay at the Division I level.
And there’s also a relationship with Miramar High to remember here, though every indication suggests this is an individual development at WVU and not an institutional one.
Yet the questions are out there … with all the other ones. And that leads to this: I say it’s “probably” a big deal, but, really, isn’t is just the latest headline in a season gone wrong?
“We’re clearly not getting through to our players that you need to go out there, play at a high level and not make junior high mistakes 100 percent of the time,” Holgorsen said.
So we’re at that point now where we no longer flip through record books for record-setting offense, but for recent fits of futility. The numbers are what they are and, oh, what they have not been for so many years at WVU. You wonder what happened and think crazy things, like, “What if the center didn’t snap it past David Ash?”
But don’t do that. It’s in the past (!) and you now look at a three-game season … which, you’ll remember, is part of a five-game season that has thus far flopped. Oklahoma won’t be easy, though I need not tell you that now. Not after watching the previous four losses.
After that, though, are two of the so-called easier games on the schedule, games against teams actually below WVU in the Big 12 Conference standings. Not to say anything should be taken for granted when it includes going to Iowa State on a short week after whatever happens against the Sooners and then playing at home for about 48,000 people against a Kansas team that just won’t go away and so desperately wants that one conference win.
But this is supposed to be fun. Some nights, it has been. There haven’t been many of those nights lately, though you have three left. Won’t you join the Mountaineers in their quest for bowl eligibility?
I was never one to believe the hype, save that for the black and white. I try twice as hard and I’m half as liked, but here they come again to text my style. My edits are in [brackets].
(Also, I’ll put it out to a vote: Should I do the Good and the Bad? I’ll hang up and listen…)
3:34
Dear Lord, please help the Mountaineers not look ridiculous. Thank you. Amen.
3:39
Just like we drew up the first offensive series. Well done.
3:42
No iMac. No defense. This staff is starting to infuriate me.
3:42
Gonna be a long [football] game.
3:44
And so it begins……we go down, Geno panics, chaos ensues…
3:45
I think this staff works harder at keeping secrets than actually coaching. F this.
Continue reading…
Welcome to Stillwater, Okla., where West Virginia plays as a 10-point underdog against Oklahoma State, which has won 11 of 12 at home. The Mountaineers haven’t been double-digit underdogs, at home, on the road or in a bowl since 2003. You’ll remember that as an attitude shifting 22-20 loss to Miami still early in Rich Rodriguez’s tenure.
Never once in the 120 games that followed had WVU been as big of an underdog.
This spread, mind you, comes with Oklahoma State’s totally uncertain situation at quarterback, where junior Clint Chelf will now start. That’s three starters for the Cowboys this season.
The Mountaineers are not without personnel notes, either, and we’ll discuss those inside.
Continue reading…
Interesting and encouraging words from quarterback Geno Smith as he explains the offense’s recent struggles and how WVU will get it right again.
That’s all for today. Live game post tomorrow. Come strong with your texts from game day. See you tomorrow.
