… but I felt I owed it to Joe Mazzulla to pass this along. It was very kind of him, the former WVU guard and current Glenville State assistant, to call and congratulate me on the book (buy it here … paperback and Kindle!).
Perhaps you’re hardcore enough to recall P.J. Shirdan. Big-time prep player from the Philadelphia area who ended up at WVU because of circumstance. What circumstance I won’t say because, for one, it takes away from the story he has to tell. But greater than that, it’s merely a footnote to what life has been like for someone who knows how valuable life ought to be.
By the way, he’s now a boxer. Watch my man switch up his styles.
Once with dreams of playing for Florida State and then destined for Rutgers, Marquis Lucas is now at peace at WVU and in place at left tackle behind supposed starter Quinton Spain. Quite a tale about how it all went down for the large lineman and how he wrestled with picking the right school for him, but not nearly as interesting as hearing about his worst worries from when the coaching change took place last year.
“I had a bad feeling I wasn’t what they were looking for,” he said.
Lucas is the redshirt freshman offensive tackle who this spring is working behind sophomore Quinton Spain on the left side. Lucas was wooed by the old Mountaineers coaching staff out of a commitment to Rutgers, but was later concerned that he might not fit with the new staff that arrived in January 2011 – and in particular offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh.
“Before I talked to him for the first time, I did a little research on him and I checked out some of the tackles he had at Arizona,” Lucas said. “I’m seeing guys, like, 6-7, 6-8, and I’m thinking, ‘Man, I might not be this guy’s type.'”
The two eventually spoke and Lucas learned Bedenbaugh had done his homework, too. They agreed there was a future together.
“He told me he loved my feet and loved the way I move,” Lucas said. “That pretty much sealed the deal.”
A few schools wanted Lucas to play guard, but he prefers tackle and that’s where he’s at now and where he thinks his “undersized” nature will actually help. Again, he’s behind the more mammoth Spain, but who knows for how long? Remember, neither Spain nor Pat Eger could hang on at right tackle last season and Lucas said he can play the right side, which is also where Spain moonlighted a year ago.
Here are two, I think, stunning statistics from WVU’s NCAA Tournament loss to Gonzaga. The Mountaineers committed just 10 turnovers in a 23 point loss. The Bulldogs had nine steals.
Yikes. WVU was basically throwing the ball to Gonzaga. The only turnover that wasn’t stolen away was a jump ball, and even then Gonzaga managed to tie it up and get possession after WVU secured an offensive rebound.
Now, a lot of that 10/9 stat is guard play and sloppy possession, careless decisions and poor entry passes. But some of that is teammates — ie, forwards — not getting open or not getting others open. This was something Bob Huggins dealt with all season, right to the very end, and something he had a really hard time curing.
In essence, his players were working with a net. WVU was so limited because of injuries and so needed bodies that Huggins couldn’t bench someone for those type of errors. One development that really hurt? Well, a few players said it after a few of the games late in the season, and most were unprompted or used it as part of a separate answer. Huggins let it fly after Gonzaga the loss.
“We’re a whole lot different team. We lost eight of our last 12 (entering the NCAA). When we started losing games is when Kevin Noreen went down. Kevin’s not a great athlete, but he knows what he’s doing and he screens and he rebounds and he guards, and he passes the ball. We were so much better offensively when he was in the game. He knew how to play.”
If you thought Bruce Irvin didn’t have a very Bruce Irvin-like season in 2011, you likely overlooked Josh Francis. Now that guy didn’t have a Bruce Irvin-like season.
While Irvin V. 2011 battled the double teams and the game plans that were byproducts of Irvin V. 2010, Francis just battled himself during his first Division I season. It was he who arrived last spring and, because he’d been a junior college All-American at Lackawanna (Pa). College, was immediately cast as the next to do what Irvin had done in 2010.
Yet while Irvin was slow out of the gate and then explosive from the quarter-mile marker to the finish in 2010, Francis stumbled and never got right: eight games, one start, nine tackles. Reason being? He’s remarkably honest about it.
“I could say it was extremely hard for me,” the 6-foot-1, 220-pound Francis said. “I never gave football a rest. I felt myself bringing it home with me and then thinking about it way too much.”
Francis was like all the other junior college transfers. He was eager and anxious and he knew he only had so much time with which to work. He wanted success fast and had a hard time coping when it didn’t happen.
He was used to doing things his way at Lackawanna and raking in the rewards.
He wasn’t used to doing things a new way – the 3-3-5 way – at WVU and having nothing to show for it.
Simply put, the season progressed and Francis didn’t.
“I really didn’t deal with it well,” he said. “It wasn’t until after everything had settled when I was able to understand that I was wrong in the was I was going about things last year.”
Everything around him is changing in spring practice: the defensive scheme, the way an outside linebacker like him is to be used and, most notable, who isn’t in front of him. Jewone Snow, the depth-chart topper, is out rehabbing a surgically repaired shoulder, which means Francis gets the first crack at this new Buck position.
Continue reading…
Source: You. Season tickets are going up beginning next season, according to an Oliver Luck email.
The fist of the 1,000 to come to mind? Seething. I’m sure you’ve read exactly as much as you wanted to read those morning — Aside: Read the last Bob Huggins press conference of the season and see one more shovel of dirt thrown atop his Mountaineers. — so I won’t add on. That’s just a great picture, I thought. Says everything.
As for me, I went to the Texas School Book Depository yesterday and, well, let’s just say they had no interest in the crate of books I brought with me. Guess I had the wrong idea.
Nevertheless, Amazon says we’re doing pretty well. No. 1 in mountaineering! If you’ve already helped, thanks so much. If you’ve yet to help, please let me unseat Mr. Tebow.
… hard copies are available now. http://amzn.to/xaHWqF
Mike had to go to a wedding, and JackBo is at the Gonzaga game.
So, for your live social media pleasure, we got these rank amateurs to live tweet the game. Enjoy!
