The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Happy Pitt week, everyone

November 21, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Here’s a little pep fodder for your step this morning: This won’t be the last Backyard Brawl. Not if everyone involved has their way. Soon. They play for the 104th time Friday. Where and when they play No. 105 — could be next November in Heinz Field in a Big East Conference game, could be the season-opener in 2015, could be  Thanksgiving 2013 at Consol Energy Park — no one knows.

What we do know is WVU and Pitt are already talking and working to get this thing back on track.

“I can tell you that (Pitt Athletic Director) Steve Pederson and I have spoken about it more than once,” West Virginia AD Oliver Luck told me Friday, “and I think our views on it are very similar – which is to say pretty much identical.

“We both have a strong desire to maintain the rivalry. Now, we know we face questions about the next couple, three years, but it’s safe to say we both want to continue playing each other as soon as we can.”

Given the way matters like this are put on the back burner as parties involved deal with larger issues — and there are larger issues for both parties involved here — at least you have an assurance this is somewhere on the forefront. At least you know it’s not going to be overlooked and won’t be compromised because it got lost in the shuffle.

Just because …

November 19, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Inspectah JackBo said:

I bomb isosceles, Bogaczyk’s philosophies
and hypotheses can’t define how I be droppin these
mockeries, editorially perform head-linery
flee with the cardigan, possibly they spotted me
battle-scarred shogun, explosion when my pen hits
tremendous, ultra-violet shine blind fashion-sense
I report to you, through the Future-Sweater Millenium
Daily Mail sold fifty gold-sixty platinum
shacklin’ the masses with drastic Blog tactics
graphic sweater displays melt the spectrum like blacksmiths

If you’re here for WVU stuff, Cincinnati’s loss was one thing WVU needed to have happen in order to get to the BCS. The Louisville loss did not happen. Nor did the two wins also required by the scenario. But one down, three to go, if you’re keeping score.

There are plenty of tiebreaker scenarios to consider that can include two, three and four teams and different teams making up those ties, but it’s all speculation now. If you need a reminder on how the tiebreakers work, here you go.

Friday Feedback

November 18, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which doesn’t have a problem with what Geno Smith said.

I don’t necessarily encourage speaking out against officials, but I don’t think his words were so bad that he has to apologize — and I hope he doesn’t. I really don’t think anyone is to blame here. I don’t blame anyone asking the question. I don’t blame Geno for replying honestly. I don’t blame people for writing it. I don’t blame the Big East for enforcing its rules (How about that? The Big East got WVU to follow the rules!). I don’t blame Oliver Luck for his reprimand that didn’t really say anything more than what was required of him.

I covered all the bases there, I know, but I do think it’s silly to keep people from speaking their minds. That’s probably a product of my chosen profession, but I guess I do understand rules are rules, even if they’re dumb rules. And I guess I don’t want a world where we’re inundated with people sniping at the officiating.

But let’s be honest: The officiating is a story. If you’ve got a tin foil hat, you can speak to the idea the Mountaineers might be prejudiced against by the Big East because of its move to the Big 12. If you have two eyes and a television, you can speak to the fact officiating has been bad. I think it’s very fair to ask and report the question and I think Geno is fine with that reply. And the Big East is entitled to ask for a reprimand.

It just can’t stop there.

Here are seven names I want you to remember: Tracy Jones, Greg Brenner, Tom Considine, Tod Reese, Jonah Monroe, Jim Smith and Bruce Williams. There will be a quiz at the end.

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Alcorn State v. WVU: Reprimanding myself for first title

November 17, 2011 by Mike Casazza

5:23: Football lords over everything, even on a basketball night. Oliver Luck has issued a statement regarding Geno Smith’s comments on the officiating following Saturday’s game:

“WVU adheres to the code of conduct and sportsmanship policies adopted by the BIG EAST Conference, which includes commenting on officiating.

“We have addressed this with Geno Smith, and he has been reprimanded for his comments, regarding the officiating following last Saturday’s game with Cincinnati.”

More on this tomorrow in the Friday Feedback, but Luck seems to be saying, “We agree with the policy, but we neither agree nor disagree or the comments and we are doing this because we have to.”

Here’s the comment in question, by the way.

“All year we’ve been getting bad calls and today was one of the worst I can remember. It’s getting out of hand at this point,” Smith said after the game.

It was almost as if the officials were trying to make WVU pay for leaving the conference.

“I can’t speak to that,” he said. “When there’s obvious things that happen, it’s hard to overcome it as a team,” Smith said.

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Would you believe WVU special teams aren’t awful?

by Mike Casazza

This came up in today’s chat (transcript right here) and the weird truth about WVU is, overall, the special teams are decidedly not terrible. Kicking is unreliable. Punting is worse. But that’s only two parts of the entire operation, one that is actually … OK … this season.

The punt return defense is ranked low nationally, but because of one return by Marshall — and a lot of Corey Smith’s or Mike Molinari’s punts weren’t or couldn’t be returned.  The kickoff return defense is also ranked low, but has gotten a lot better. WVU is also the best in the Big East in punt returns and No. 3 in kickoff returns. The Mountaineers rank in the top 20 nationally in both.

Surprised? I thought you might be. So new talking point: Special teams … not too shabby?

“That’s the thing about special teams: If it doesn’t look good, everybody complains about it, but if it looks like it’s supposed to look, everybody ignores it,” Coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Referring to when things didn’t look good on the kickoff team, everybody wanted to talk about it. Now that it looks good, nobody wants to talk about it.

“Give those guys credit. The effort was good, and we played well. We had guys step up.”

“Bunch of bombs in the air …”

by Mike Casazza

If you find out that Enrico Pallazzo is singing the national anthem at tonight’s basketball game, do not be alarmed. If you notice someone who looks vaguely similar to the guy in the newspaper is an official tonight and he’s checking out the players and their shoes and the tucked-inedness of their jerseys before the tip and realize it’s 7:22, don’t say a word.

Everything is fine.

No one is stalling.

Of course, the men’s soccer team has a match at home against Xavier in the NCAA Tournament at 5 p.m. That’s two 45-minute halves with a 15-minute halftime. It’s a five-minute walk from the pitch to the Coliseum. It would be pretty easy to double dip tonight. Even the students don’t have an excuse. There are so few left in town that there won’t be great competition for seating in the student section at the basketball game — and that assumes the ones in town haven’t hopped off the bandwagon and are waiting until it swings back around in January. They can file in at 6:55 and get a good bleacher.

The only hindrance is overtime in soccer, in which case Mr. Pallazzo and the curious official have your back.

Speaking of having your back, the 11 a.m. WVU sports chat is back. Here is your link. See you there.

Has WVU kissed attitude problem goodbye?

November 16, 2011 by Mike Casazza

No clue if it came across clearly on television because I couldn’t record the game and watch it afterward, but from where I sat Saturday, it was unbelievable how animated WVU’s sideline and players were throughout the game.

I’m not sure the Mountaineers were more excited than LSU was earlier this season or Louisville was the week before, but they were more into that game than they were in probably any other this season. And they won despite a list of things that may have caused them to do something Dana Holgorsen said he’s seen them do at times this season: Quit.

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Unlike the basketball, there’s plenty of blame to be shared

by Mike Casazza

For starters, why didn’t anyone tell me how screwed up yesterday’s game blog was? Wait, wait. I know this. Because the comments were inexplicably turned off for part of the second half! I have no idea how or why that happened, but I’m sorry that it did.

I don’t know why two pictures didn’t post or why at halftime half of the entire first half disappeared, but I have a hunch. Even with only 5,600 people inside, the Internet in the Coliseum can be shaky and that can lead to uploads crashing and updates stopping, which then leaves you without pictures or without a majority of the post.

I won’t make any promises on typos in the game blogs because things happen so fast — and it’s doubly immediate in basketball, which cuts down on how much I say and how often I say things — but there’s no excuse or explanation for the other errors other than I was moving too fast to notice it. Looks like the Mountaineers weren’t the only ones who had a hard time yesterday morning.

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Bob Huggins is concerned about ball security

November 15, 2011 by Mike Casazza

The WVU men’s basketball coach was a little insipid after Tuesday’s loss — 38 turnovers for 37 points the other way in two games will do that to you — before he got really inspirational. I’m ready to run through a basket support right now. You with me?

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Kent State v. WVU: I’m told this is an early start

by Mike Casazza

You are looking live at the dashboard of my Chevy Cavalier when I got in this morning and headed to the Coliseum. No traffic. No chaos in the parking lot. Relatively empty press room. Filed and finished for the day by 2 p.m. Exactly what is wrong with this?

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