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Disclaimer: This is not intended to stir up anything or pit one third of the locker room against another third. I just find the point in question interesting to consider.
Who has more pressure right now at WVU? Is it the otherworldly offense or the otherwordly defense? You think about that.
Certainly the defense has its stress right now because that performance Saturday was not a winning performance. It can’t continue and the players know and admit that, surprised as they were to see it happen.
That said, and perhaps you’ve heard this, but the offenses in the Big 12 Conference are going to test the defenses and the defenses are going to have bad nights. WVU has one of those offenses, in addition to one of those defenses, and there has to be a desperate need to perform at a consistently high level in case the defense just doesn’t have it.
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Given all the big plays and touchdowns Tavon Austin has had in his career, he should be better at celebrating. If Saturday’s performance is to serve as any proof, Austin is a terrific player and a troubled cheerleader.
Certainly opponents would rather not see him celebrating. Maybe WVU would be OK with that, too, because he was this close to getting hurt against Baylor. I have no idea what Jordan Thompson was doing at the end, but that move should be reserved for an over-the-top battle royale.
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We’re nearly two full days out of whatever that was we witnessed Saturday and I’m still a little numb. I kept watching the crawler at the bottom of whatever television I was watching Saturday night and I’d see the stats for Geno or Stedman and this little guy in the back of my head would pound on the wall and go, “HEY, THAT’S THE LAST THREE GAMES, RIGHT?”
It was one game.
And poor Johnny Manziel. The Texas A&M quarterback, this gifted little freshman who’s doing silly things in the SEC, was 29-for-38 for 453 yards and three touchdowns. For kicks, he added 104 yards and a touchdown on the ground and scrambled away with a conference record for total offense.
Geno Smith scoffs at this. Oh, four touchdowns? That’s nice, you can borrow some of mine.
It was just ridiculous. I don’t think it’s the norm, but I do wonder if it’s far from reality — like, pre-snap cushion far. There are going to be some shootouts and there is ample ammunition for WVU to survive, but there are also ample landmines on the other side of the ball. Saturday night could be similar, though less spectacular on the grandeur scale .
The sage in bloom smells like perfume deep in the heart of texts. My edits are in [brackets].
9:37 a.m.
Pressing issue before first Big XII game? Which old white men will make small talk on the field!
11:09
Have you ever noticed that Pat White sounds like Cleveland from Family Guy?
11:53
This ain’t intramurals!!!!!!!
11:57
Got to my seat in time to see Trace Atkins’s ass. Priorities.
11:57
Honkey tonk badonkadonk.
11:58
Trace Adkins is big time!
11:59
It worked!!!! This looks AMAZING!!!
12:01 p.m.
Very impressed with striping the stadium
12:02
BOLERJACK AND KLATT scream high profile game
12:04
Random question; how do college athletes who can’t have jobs afford $200+ Beats headphones? ALL OF THEM have em. I mean…come on!
12:05
From the Baylor fan behind me. “Look at the shirts. That’s rad. They take football way more seriously than we do.”
12:05
AP preview leads with Baylor going after 10th consecutive win. That must be why Bowlsby is in the house.
12:05
We have a Petros Papadakis sideline sighting
12:05
Petros? From Petros and Money on the radio?? KILL ME!!!!
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Joe DeForest was not in a pleasant mood after yesterday’s game, which is not a surprise. I’d wager heavily that meeting with the media so that he might discuss the defensive performance was at the bottom of his ideal itinerary.
But that’s our job and that’s his job and we did our jobs — and kudos to him for that because it would have been easier for him to not come out and face the questions. Someone else hid, so why not him?
Yet he was a little feisty and pulled the “You watched the game” card a few times to answer questions that — and I’m putting words him his mouth here — he likely did not want to answer.
It was so bad, a sometimes speechless DeForest, who spent 10 minutes with the media after the game, began turning around and asking his own questions.
(Sorry Joe, we think we know, but we don’t know).
Of course, DeForest wasn’t asking for advice. He was trying to make a point.
“You guys ask me questions, I’m going to ask you questions. Do you look at the No. 1 offenses in the country? Can you list them? It’s Baylor, West Virginia, it’s Oklahoma State. What do they run? It’s the exact same thing. You have to measure success differently in this league. It’s not how many yards you give up, it’s not how many points. Obviously it’s not acceptable to do what we did (Saturday), neither one of those, but it’s the way of life versus those offenses. Ultimately, you have to make one more stop than they do, one more turnover than they do, and you’ll win the game. That’s what we did. It’s still not acceptable, but that’s what we did to win the game.”
I’m still digesting what to think of the defense — and certainly I’m as attuned as anyone about the flashy offenses and the changing way success is measured, given the amount of extrapolations I’ve scooped up and written.
Probably the most reasonable thing I’ve come up with is this: What WVU’s offense did to Baylor’s defense is what happens when the very good meets the very average in this league. No one is burning down the Baylor defense right now, so it’s likely fair to extend WVU’s defense, and Baylor’s offense, the same courtesy.
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(Update: WVU 70, Baylor 63: “To say the defenses didn’t play very well would probably be an understatement,” Dana Holgorsen said.)
One of my favorite parts of walking to the stadium is strolling past the practice field and seeing the event staff receive its pregame instructions. I like to imagine different scenarios every time. One time it was the “Inches” speech from “Any Given Sunday.” Another tie it was Billy Pullman’s monologue from “Independence Day.” Today it feels like this.
But then I change it up and instead of Mel Gibson on the horse, it’s Dan Hawkins.
Things get sillier in the live post. Click to continue.
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That’s your Big 12 Conference commissioner, Bob Bowlsby. He commuted north last night from Charlotte, where he and the SEC were working on some Champions Bowl details for the five cities which are finalists — and though it’s not mentioned, I do believe that includes New Orleans, Atlanta, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas.
Nothing terribly new out of the press conference, though Bowlsby, who has probably given some rendition of this speech umpteen times, manages to squeeze new stuff out of old questions and sprinkle in just enough depth and detail in other responses to keep you alert and leave you affected.
Probably the most interesting stuff from the above overlaps many of the 30 minutes, but we and Bowlsby were most interested in the selection process for the playoff and the formulation of some sort of RPI type device to assist the selection committee.
Clearly, Bowlsby wants his teams to be there at the end, so that means taking the start of the season more seriously and scheduling in such a way that what his teams have done in September is weighed heavily two months later.
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, there’s no dogging it.
NCMountaineer said:
I’m also not overly concerned. A win is a win and this was a definite trap game with the beginning of conference play on the horizon. What this game showed me was that we REALLY need our big backs healthy and ready to roll. Buie and Garrison are nice change of pace backs, but Alston is a bruising runner that almost always gets positive yardage. This game also showed how important Clarke is in this offense. I bet Geno stays cleaner with those two at full strength. Hopefully they are ready to go next week. I now wonder if Clarke gets some carries after our smaller backs were so ineffective Saturday and its been proven that big backs can be good in this offense.
Yeah, talk about unintended consequences. It would appear to me a defense has to be forceful to contend with WVU so it can disrupt the blocking and the routes and the pocket. That would also be the best way to deal with Alston. Remove Alston — and then Clarke — and that’s a bad formula for the Mountaineers. Not much they can do about that.
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By now you know Baylor’s offense goes fast. Calling the Bears fast merely limits their capability, though. You likely haven’t seen an offense go as wide as Baylor, but get ready to see a lot of that Saturday afternoon.
I’d never seen teams put receivers that far outside and I was not alone. The field is 53 1/3 yards wide — 13 1/3 yards wide inside the hash marks, 20 yards wide outside the hash marks — but Baylor makes it feel much bigger.
No one who plays defense for the ninth-ranked Mountaineers could believe what they saw in preparation for Saturday’s noon game against No. 25 Baylor at Mountaineer Field (FX telecast).
“I didn’t realize how big the field was until we started to practice against it,” inside linebacker Doug Rigg said. “When I saw it, I thought, ‘Wow, this could be a big problem.’ “
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Good times in the chat today and several people had a fixation on the running back position — and I guess Shawne Alston’s effectiveness the first two games and absence in the third, where WVU ran 19 times for 41 yards, will do that to people.
Never fear, though, for the Mountaineers feel very secure in that position.
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The chat is back at 11 a.m. Get excited about WVU’s Big 12 Conference debut and find out what type of breakfast food Stedman Bailey likes most. The engine is running, so drop your questions in the queue right now.
We’re back with Cover It Live today, so to gain access simply click here. If you’re on a cell phone, try this.
