Scott Andresen, a sports law expert and an adjunct professor at the fine Northwestern University, is a touch worried about what might be of these dueling lawsuits between WVU and the Big East. Specifically, Andresen frets about the effect on WVU’s scheduling.
“It could end up being a real big hot mess.”
Continue reading…
Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which is back this week, gone next week and then back again the week after next. I’ve got vacation days I have to take next week, but I’ll be on the ground in Florida Dec. 28 and with the football team through the Orange Bowl. I’ll keep this place rolling throughout bowl week, promise.
One more date to keep in mind, since it is bowl season: Grades are due Dec. 19 and the team will know Dec. 21 who isn’t eligible. Hearing rumblings already, though the larger concern is for next year and the new rule that requires players to pass nine hours each fall. Seriously, four-game suspensions!
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, double-check your work.
pknocker40 said:
“There were 12,000+ there Saturday. Most have smart phones. That kills the WiFi and causes me and others trouble on press row…. I don’t know what to do, but I’m obviously discouraged.”
Huggs never puts up with this: [I]f you come try to steal my bandwidth, I’ll bust you in the mouth. You’re not going to take my bandwidth. That bandwidth’s been too good to me. To walk into my house and to try to take my bandwidth? That ain’t going to go very well.
Continue reading…
The docket is cleared, my verve is formidable and the time is coming to once again answer all your questions and maybe, just maybe, cover some WVU sports along the way. See you there?
P.S. All I want for Christmas is for you to tell your friends. Talk about last minute shopping …
That would be West Virginia’s defensive coordinator on the left (“IF”) and that would also be WVU’s cornerbacks coach David Lockwood four to Casteel’s left (“BE”) taking part in a contest for Bill King’s radio show. And for the record, that picture won the grand prize and approximately $1,019.95.
WVU arrives in Florida Dec. 29 and will practice five times there before the Orange Bowl as Coach Dana Holgorsen tries to make sure he has his players peaking at kickoff. “Once you get down there, it is a reward and you want them to enjoy it and you don’t want to do so much that they’re tired and worn out and are ready to go home. It’s a tricky balance,” he said.
The opposition? Dabo Swinney has his own plan and it is not like what the Mountaineers will do.
Clemson does not officially report to its team hotel for the Orange Bowl until Dec. 29, but Swinney said the team will arrive three days prior to check-in and hold three intense days of practices, what the Clemson coach dubbed a sort of ‘mini-camp.’ Swinney said most players will be on a team charter flight to Miami.
Talked to the cornerback Friday and had a really fun 10 minute conversation, just him and me, about all sorts of things about this season, this bowl game and this ride he’s been on for three years now at WVU. I walked away thinking, “Man, I had no idea. I should have been talking to him all along.”
And now I’m doubly disappointed in myself. Say I had been talking to him throughout this season. Say it was two seasons. Surely I get invited to this spectacle …
Continue reading…
Sorry, sorry, sorry … but I feel like you needed to hear this:
“It did get to us,” Goode said. “Football is as much mental as it is physical and that messed us up mentally. We had guys last year who could just go out and play, but you started to see at the end of the game, at key points in the game, something you’re normally focused on gets messed up and it’s not because of the day of the game, but the practices before when we didn’t get a chance to go over it.”
Also, if you ask nicely — and by that, I mean bombard his email or send him a sweater — I might be able to talk the Argyle Exemplar into a chat down at the Orange Bowl.
… you’ll remember last season when WVU made a mess of its bowl preparations.
Instead of any semblance of crisp play or noticeable growth, there was a stumbling offense and a season-high five turnovers. Two more and the Mountaineers would have matched the number of practices they had before the bowl – and believe that was an issue.
How Stewart could practice seven times – five indoors on campus and two outside here – over 16 days and ignore a lot of opportunities to simply try to get better is truly bizarre. The guy who preaches about taking the bat off his shoulder never left the on-deck circle.
A lot of people thought that was a big deal — and that included players — and many accused Stewart of not making the most of the 15 practices he’s allowed before a bowl. And then Friday Dana Holgorsen said he would practice the 15 times “because that is what we are allowed” and a lot of people celebrated him and what he said and what he would do.
Admirable, but not accurate. The only regulation in place for postseason practice (and that covers last year, too) is the one that exists for the regular season: Four hours a day, 20 hours a week.
I think we can say this now and with complete agreement: The beer sales policy worked. Our ethics and opinions may differ, but it worked.
The net income wasn’t as high as the far end of the projection suggested, but it was below the low end. Mix in the ad revenue and the pouring rights money and, in all, the final figure is right in the middle.
There were no brawls. There was no singular incident that made you say, “Sheesh, this is what happens when you sell beer in the stadium.” I don’t even think it affected the crowd one way or the other — and remember, Dana Holgorsen called out his fans early on in this season.
So it is what it is — a profitable venture and one I bet continues in the Big 12. Whether a school is allowed to sell beer isn’t covered in the league’s bylaws and appears to be something the school and the conference figure out themselves. WVU makes money off of this, which is good for the school, and the practice hasn’t embarrassed anyone, which is good for the Big 12.
Basically, nothing went wrong, which means it will go on.
The number of police cases at the school’s first four home games dropped 64.5 percent, to 24 from 68, from the same number of contests last year, according to WVU Police Chief Bob Roberts. He estimated that the decrease was about 35 percent in incidents specifically related to alcohol use.
Calls to police dropped 15 percent, to 149 from 176, and arrests dropped 20.5 percent, to 62 from 78, Roberts said.
Other athletic directors and a state legislator have called to inquire about beer sales, Luck said. He declined to identify them.
The next challenge? How to make more money off of it … and you have to wonder if sales in the Coliseum are on tap.
Don’t look now, but Deniz Kilicli is shooting 50 percent from the floor thanks to this recent run where he’s made 26 of his last 44 shots. He’s been very assertive the past two games — he was onto something against Kansas State, but the fouls added up quick early in the second half — and has been pretty reliable the past five games after starting 10-for-33 and totaling 31 points the first three games.
Continue reading…
