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

Friday Feedback

August 26, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which is brewed right here in this little pocket of Morgantown, but keeps coming at you free of charge. Finally got some details about which beers cost what and how they’ll be served at Mountaineer Field. Here’s what we now know:

$7: 16-ounce plastic bottles of Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors products.
$8: 16-ounce plastic bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade (!) and 20-ounce plastic drafts of Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors products.
$9: 20-ounce plastic drafts of Morgantown Brewing Company products and Blue Moon. Check back later for the exclusive announcement about orange wedges!

Call me crazy, but that’s entirely tolerable. It’s not cheap, but it’s certainly comparable to what you would either expect here or experience elsewhere. And thus ends the preliminary phase of the beermageddon at WVU. All I wanted was an A or an F. Either this thing was going to work or it was going to fail spectacularly … and trends make you tend to believe the former more than the latter. But what if, for example, WVU was pouring Old Milwaukee products and slinging Natty in the stands. What if the prices were through the roof for what they are selling? What if all the details hadn’t been covered?

As it stands, you’ve got the beers of the masses, as well as a really good local brewery, and the minutia has been mastered, right down to offering people a free soft drink if they serve as designated drivers. Really, all that’s left is figuring out how to profit off the plastic bottles — 10 cents in Michigan!

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, police yourself.

Homer said:

Just so I’m clear: the two biggest stories in college football the last two weeks involved or were originated by Doug Gottleib and Teddy Dupay. Right?

It was a bad time for the empire.

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Can you name that tune for Bob Huggins?

August 25, 2011 by Mike Casazza

So Jabarie Hinds must lay and wait in the cut no longer and that, one would presume, despite his repeated patient insistences that Hinds would be just fine, has to make Bob Huggins a happy man.

How happy? Hard to say, but suppose he’s feeling Wright … as in Jay Wright. The Villanova coach popped up in a flash mob recently. Check my an out at around the 2:10 mark. Interesting stuff and it made me wonder. If Huggins was feeling it, what would be his flash mob song of choice?

Oliver Luck continues to cripple local businesses!

by Mike Casazza

How dare the athletic director? Who does this swashbuckler think he is? The critics were right. The platitudes were on point. This is really getting out of hand.

Last week we learned Sodexo, WVU’s longtime concessionaire, selected Morgantown Brewing Company to provide craft beer at home football games. Today we learned Sodexo has placed an order for 50 kegs for the first home game. Fifty! That’s 25 kegs each of delicious Zack Morgan IPA (6.7% ABV) and palatable Old Morgantown Pale Ale (5.8).

Poor Art Gallagher, the part owner of the brewery that’s barely two years old and has never had an opportunity like this, but probably got into business to do good business. Still, he’d never had a single order as large. And now he’s going to get six others and, who knows, but they may get larger. Not only that, but the unfortunate entrepreneur may have to diversify and offer additional brews and thus spread the word about the variety at his brewery, which, at present, touches Morgantown and parts of Elkins and Canaan Valley.

It’s just so unfair to that local merchant. I mean, what if this takes off? What if Mr. Gallagher stands to gain and grow from this? He’s already had to purchase larger fermenters and additional kegs so he can keep up with his ordinary operation and honor his commitment to Sodexho … and maybe even expand. Mr. Luck better be careful about the way he’s treating the local economy. He’s really threatening to benefit  the Morgantown Brewing Company.

(P.S. Anheuser-Busch will sell Bud, But Light and Michelob Ultra. MillerCoors couldn’t be there, but my sources say they’ll provide Coors Lite, Miller Lite and, if you’re lucky, Olde English 800 and Magnum.)

Do not suggest Shaq Rowell is spoiled

by Mike Casazza

For one, he’s 6-foot-4 and, depending on when you catch him, a little over or a little under 310 pounds. And I’ve seen the kid move — he’s impressive. Good burst, nice balance. He would catch you, I’m certain.

But above all else, Rowell, who signed to play for The Ohio State in 2008, only to find out he didn’t make the grade and would have to do 18 months in a junior college, used to think Division I guys were spoiled. That’s a little of what helped get him here today, where he’s one of the three guys who could play nose guard for the Mountaineers, though he’s also played a little defensive end in camp, too … which is intriguing.

Now that he’s among the free cleats and gloves, the top-shelf strength and conditioning programs, the buffet style meals for which he never has to pay, Rowell has changed his tune ever so slightly, but not the tone.

“They coach you here on technique,” Rowell said. “In junior college, you pretty much play on your own strength. Up here, they tell you exactly what to do and how to execute the plays. In junior college, they might tell you a couple things, but it’s mostly on you.”

Kirelawich likes a guy who can handle himself and take on the double-teams that are a constant for the nose guard. He trusts and prefers those with the mental drive to make it happen.

“I had to go to junior college in order to get where I’m at now, so I don’t think I’m spoiled at all,” Rowell said. “These guys earned their way up here, too. They’re really not spoiled. That was the perspective I had before. I just think junior college just makes you want to play football more.”

Oh, and, yes, Jabarie Hinds was cleared by the NCAA Eligibility Center last night and the candlelight vigil at the Coliseum dissipated. I thought the earthquake and Irene were sufficient signs it was happening. Thank you for delivering the news in the blog.

I may have posted that last night with my cell phone and it may not have worked. I may not have discovered that until this morning and I may have said a few things not fit for print here. Maybe.

Dana Holgorsen press conference at 11 a.m. Notes and  news to follow … that is, unless you don’t get to it first. (Northside advertisement on the WVi link … discuss).

Y’Lou feel good about Devon Brown this season?

August 24, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Maybe you like the fact he’s caught a lot of passes in college football and is now playing for a college football team that’s going to throw a lot of passes. Perhaps you appreciate the value of depth he provides the return game, where he can return kickoffs and punts and cover both. It’s possible you even like the Ryan Mundy-like potential of mature kid who understands this his last shot and who wants to make the most of it.

As for me, I like the kid because he’s fond of Manassas, he’s pursuing a master’s in journalism and he told me a secret about his nickname.

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Dana Holgorsen making his rounds

by Mike Casazza

Tonight the WVU football coach will be available for a meet-and-greet at 8:30 in the Blue and Gold Room located in Bennett Tower — and, yes, it’s the Blue and Gold Room.

Sunday Holgorsen is the guest speaker at “Countdown to Kickoff,” hosted by the University Chapter of the Alumni Association. Typically assistant coaches go to this thing because it’s easier for them spare the time to talk and snack, sip on a beer and play some corn hole. Bill Stewart committed to the event before his first game in 2008, but didn’t show up. Insert joke … here.

But what about the local merchants?!?!

by Mike Casazza

The Capital Classic is now a two-night event to be played Jan. 17 by the women’s teams at WVU and Marshall and then Jan. 18 by the men’s teams at the respective schools.

The two-decade-old doubleheader tradition is no more and I’m curious how someone is going to blame the demise of women’s basketball attendance and the waning cocktail hour at the Embassy Suites on Oliver Luck.

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CSI Tandy continues good works

August 23, 2011 by Mike Casazza

About a month ago, the WVU senior quarterback was nominated for the 2011 Allstate AFCA Good Works
Team, which regarded itself as the most prestigious off-the-field honor in college football. Tandy earned the nod because of his community service work that includes mentoring for the Boys and Girls Club, talking at local schools and camps about the importance of education and living drug-free and by visiting patients at the WVU Children’s hospital.

He’d just as dedicated to the team off the field, as well, which is making him even better when between the sidelines.

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Ryan Nehlen is not going anywhere

by Mike Casazza

You kind of get the feeling as the clock ticks us closer to the start of the season that you can actually hear time running out on Ryan Nehlen. He is, after all, the walk-on receiver from the local high school, the one with the familiar surname, the one with the story and the spring success we’ve seen a lot of kids try to take and turn into something good, only to see it end so unspectacularly.

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Steve Dunlap and the nuclear option

August 22, 2011 by Mike Casazza

When WVU’s safeties coach was the defensive coordinator back in the 1990s, he commanded the nation’s very best defense in 1996. A year later, things were different as the Mountaineers tried to replace a bunch of starters and regulars. Fast-forward so many years and Jeff Casteel is walking in the same shoes and working late to come up with the best combinations across the field.

That isn’t necessarily the continuation of Casteel’s frustrations, of his consistent search for consistent players, but it is nevertheless emblematic of how he’s getting creative to get the right lineup.

Don’t panic, though. The deadline to figure out who goes where before the first game is artificial, mobile and actually nonsense. Dunlap dealt with the same type of thing back in 1997.

“We had a bunch of veteran players, juniors and seniors (in 1996) and I think we lost seven starters off that team,” Dunlap said. “The next group thought they’d just go out there and everything would be OK. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to earn your stripes every day.

“In 1997, three games into the season, we took a third of the defense out. They couldn’t handle it. They were making so many mistakes we couldn’t handle it.”

The Mountaineers allowed 79 points in the first three games and gave up 31 points twice. They were 2-1, but Dunlap had seen enough.

“I just thought that the players that were playing behind (the 1996 team) thought they would step in and everything would be the same, but it was mistake after mistake,” he said. “It’s a mental game as much as a physical game, but it was a ridiculous amount of mistakes we made.”

In the next four games, WVU allowed 17, 0, 14 and 17 points and won all four games.