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Credit on the diagram to Chris Brown at smartfootball.com.
This is a play that you’ve seen a whole bunch before. It’s a run. And a pass. Actually, it’s a run or a pass, and though you may say, “Wait, a run or a pass? I think I’d remember this chameleon of which you speak. I’ve never witnessed such a thing,” just trust me. You have seen it, even if you didn’t know it.
It’s Dana Holgorsen’s stick/draw play, which affords the offense, and Geno Smith in particular, the ability to run two short and quick pass plays or a slower-to-develop draw play. And as you might imagine, it’s one of WVU’s favorites.
“I don’t know about it being our favorite play, but let’s put it this way – last year, it was a very good play for us,” said offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, who presides over a lot of plays that were very good last year. “Throughout the course of the season, I don’t know how many times we ran it, but that play was successful over 90 percent of the time.”
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At this very same time last season, Marshall named the true freshman its starting quarterback for the season opening game against West Virginia and at Mountaineer Field. Tricky spot, to be sure, though Cato seemed least worried of all.
“That’s not a problem for me,” said the 19-year-old true freshman, who Tuesday was officially declared as Marshall’s starting quarterback for the season opener at No. 24 West Virginia.
“I don’t care how many people are there — 60,000 … a million … a billion. I don’t care. I feed off the fans.”
You know who cared? The 60,758 in the stands that day who were offended by such confidence and who tried to loudly introduce themselves throughout the game.
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Dana Holgorsen was asked Monday about the status of his sophomore running back, who happened to be the team’s leading rusher last season. Holgorsen said Garrison had a setback last week and needed a few days off because of soreness.
This is not good news for Garrison. The coaches and the athletic trainers knew this was a possibility and they were prepared for it toward the end of camp, when he might wear down or the knee might act up, so it’s not totally surprising. It’s just not an ideal development, especially with Torry Clayton up and leaving over the weekend.
“With his style of running, he’s going to get banged up,” Gillespie said. “He needs to be able to take more of the bumps he took last year and he has to have the endurance to play the whole game.”
This is all new to Alston, whose 20 carries in the Orange Bowl in relief of Garrison were a career high. He only had double-digit carries four times before that. Alston was good for about 12 to 15 carries a game and maybe twice as many total snaps.
Gillespie said Alston’s offseason and preseason preparations have him ready for handle at least 10 more snaps a game now. More important will he his ability to stay on the field and not have to take a break because he’s taken a hit or taken the ball a number of snaps in a row.
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Four-star defensive tackle De’Asian Richardson “committed” to WVU last week and said he’d still take his official visit to WVU and Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri and Mississippi State.
Speaking Monday on the Big 12 coaches’ teleconference, Stoops was asked if a player is “committed” when he “commits” and says he plans to take other visits.
“He’s not committed if he’s taking visits. We tell them that and say, ‘If that’s the case, then you’re not committed to us and we don’t accept that commitment and we’ll keep recruiting guys at your position.'”
Fair enough, though if that wasn’t easily understood, Stoops offered this as a real life application.
“In the end, you’re kidding yourself if you think that’s a commitment. I’ve always kind of equated it kind of like — just envision you tell your wife you’re going to get married in February, but until we do, I’m going to date these other three girls all through September, October and November until we get married.
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And away we go. Figure that a lot of stories this week will be about the future of the WVU-Marshall series. Here’s a preview: There is no series and there might not be a future.
West Virginia has no room on its football schedule before 2016. Marshall falls off that schedule as of Saturday. Thundering Herd athletic director Mike Hamrick would obviously like to see his team on the WVU schedule as soon as possible, but the Mountaineers have very different ideas.
They want to rekindle older rivalries and engage in short non-conference series. One way or the other, WVU doesn’t sound as though it wants to get into a long contract and/or play someone the fans have seen a bunch already. There are too many options and the variety is too strong to ignore, especially when put aside a series that hasn’t been too compelling and may not offer much incentive than other “Hey, we’re in the same state.”
“I don’t know if who wins or who loses should be a determining factor of whether these two programs play each other in football,” Hamrick said. “I’m a native West Virginian, I left for 30 years and I came back three years ago and wasn’t caught up in all the politics of the game.
“For me it’s just ‘why not play?’
“Put the politics aside, put the everything to lose and nothing to gain mentality aside, put the big alumni aside. Throw all of that out.
“It’s a good game for the state of West Virginia and it should be played.”
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I think the picture justifies it. There are so many things going on, and, obviously, everyone wants to celebrate. Yet there sits Nikki Izzo-Brown, the architect of this euphoria, balled up in her signature stance, and it looks as though she’s hiding a smile. What fun that must have been.
The Kicking Nikkis did something yesterday that hadn’t happened in 64 matches and almost four years. They beat Stanford in a regular-season match. The top-ranked and defending national champion Cardinal hadn’t lost one of those since October 2008. They were sufficiently frustrated by a WVU team that defended well against some of the country’s best skill. The Mountaineers allowed one shot on goal all game. Stanford had scored at least one goal in 25 straight matches. Nice moment for the team that started the season ranked No. 18, but had not played to that level before Sunday.
This was cause for a celebration on campus Sunday evening.
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Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which hears it calling far away, tearing through my soul. It just can’t take another day. Who’s to blame?
If you can soldier through these next three days, you’ve made it through the offseason, which I sense has never been equal parts fast and agonizingly slow for fans of WVU like this.
But you know what? Pretty good offseason.
Recruiting went mostly well, and though not everyone made it, a lot of the newcomers will play, or project to help as soon as next year. The coaching staff transition wasn’t ideal, but you netted two defensive coordinators — and people from around the game tell me Keith Patterson is a sleeper/keeper. The roster is in tact. The players are healthy, save one exception. The arrests were of the college variety and not the violent and troubling variety. The coach has a contract. The AD should have one soon. The star quarterback missed practice for wholly understandable reasons.
It wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think you can get perfect these days. You had all the potential for pratfalls you see here and anywhere in the offseason, but this was the difference between me running the hurdles and K.J. Dillon running the hurdles.
Now I say that and … never mind.
Housekeeping: Texts From Game Day, Lord willing, will return. New phone in the offseason — see, there I go — but it looks like last year’s fix will apply again. That’s neat to see. I’m going to roll out another recap feature on a trial basis and see if it’s not too much work. But realistically, it shouldn’t be because I’m not writing a book during the season this season.
Now, the chat. I can’t promise anything. Cover It Live was purchased in March and then decided to go to a subscription service — get used to that idea. Frankly, there are free ways that are available. I just can’t find one that will work and that I like. Some of the video stuff can’t be replayed if you missed the live edition. All of the video chats require me to be dressed presentable at noon on a Thursday.
Some chat engines are free, but allow for limited click-ins. Others don’t let me moderate comments, which is not only a fiasco waiting to happen, but also my pink slip waiting to happen. A few require Facebook or google+ access and I don’t want to require that of readers, some who can’t access those sites while at work.
I’ve solicited ideas and workshopped all them and I’m not optimistic. We threw a Hail Mary last night and I’m crossing my fingers, but realistically, Cover It Live was tremendous and I can’t guarantee anything unless sponsors materialize and “Welcome to the WVU Sports Chat sponsored by Renovators WV.”
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, welcome to the Big 12.
(P.S. Dear Liverpool,
Marlon LeBlanc kicked me out of practice yesterday because I didn’t have an Arseanal T-shirt on.)
Level has gone from a position that the casual fan will probably never criticize you (special teams . . . and walk-on for that matter) to a position (cornerback) where the casual fan is likely to get so angry that they type horrible, hateful things about you and your mother (in all caps no less).
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Twitter did what Twitter does yesterday and didn’t as much exacerbate a situation as it did fabricate a situation. By mid-afternoon, Ivan McCartney had walked out on the team and was transferring to Miami and why the heck wasn’t anyone reporting it?
Well, because there was problem: McCartney was at practice Wednesday.
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Mr. Gerun is apparently either in town or en route and simply waiting for the call, but WVU has indeed actively recruited the 6 foot, 9 inch outside-in power forward from the Ukraine — which is not weak. Ask Gerun contemporary Alex Len.
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… I’ll share probably the only thing I’ll print on Dakich v. Hardesty, unless it escalates. I’m sure we’ll harp on this in the F Double, but that’s different than me giving any more inches to what I find to be shallow and pedantic (seems that is among the cuts from the column). So important is this topic and are these words, so disinterested am I in this nonsense, that this actually ran yesterday and I didn’t even post it. Nevertheless, there remains an issue that has to be addressed as well as an common interest that, I suppose, must be served. People do ask me about my two pennies, which is fair, so without further belaboring, please enjoy.
