Good Sunday to all. Terrific weekend of college football.
My Top 25 vote:
1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma
3. Clemson
4. Penn State
5. USC
6. Michigan
7. Wisconsin
8. Washington
9. Ohio State
10. LSU
11. Florida State
12. Georgia
13. Oklahoma State
14. Louisville
15. Virginia Tech
16. Miami
17. Kansas State
18. TCU
19. Auburn
20. Stanford
21. UCLA
22. Florida
23. WVU
24. Washington State
25. South Carolina
Join Gazette-Mail WVU reporter Mitch Vingle right here for all the action as the Mountaineers open their home schedule against East Carolina.
Saturday afternoon the West Virginia Mountaineers open up the home slate at Milan Puskar Stadium when they host American Athletic Conference opponent East Carolina.
Both teams are coming off losses to open the season, and ECU certainly did not get the result it was looking for, suffering a twenty-point loss to FCS opponent James Madison.
Here’s a look at the Mountaineers opponent.
Last Week
East Carolina was defeated 34-14 on Saturday by reigning FCS champion JMU, giving up over 400 rushing yards to the Dukes.
ECU made a quarterback change during the contest, placing Thomas Sirk under center for the second half, which improved the offense’s production.
The Pirates were held scoreless until the third quarter.
Last Meeting
2009 was the last season the two teams met. That game was also in Morgantown.
West Virginia picked up a 35-20 victory behind four touchdown passes from Jarrett Brown. The Pirates scored the game’s first ten points and led after the first quarter before being outscored 28-10 over the next three periods. Noel Devine led the Mountaineer ground attack, picking up 80 yards and scoring the Mountaineers final touchdown.
WVU has picked up the victory in 18 of the 21 meetings.
ECU’s Reputation
East Carolina’s reputation of taking down more well-known opponents was not lost on WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen at his weekly press conference Tuesday.
“They’ve been known to take out Power Five schools left and right as we well know,” Holgorsen said. “They’ve done it consistently throughout their program.”
The Pirates have defeated seven Power-5 Conference opponents since 2010, and defeated Virginia Tech and West Virginia in back-to-back weeks to start the season in 2008.
If ECU is unable to defeat either the Mountaineers this week, or Virginia Tech in Greenville next weekend, it would be the first year since 2012 that the Pirates hadn’t defeated a team from a Power-5 conference.
ECU Offense
The Pirates became more of a pass-happy team in the second half last weekend with Sirk controlling the offense. He attempted 35 passes in the second half alone, totaling 210 yards in the air.
Sirk tried spreading the wealth, targeting eight different receivers. Davon Grayson and Deondre Farrier led the team in receptions with seven.
ECU returned three of its top five receivers from a year ago.
ECU Defense
Pirates defensive players gave up almost 230 rushing yards per game a year ago, and that number was not improved upon in East Carolina’s season opener.
It’s a defensive unit that is replacing a number of players from a year ago, meaning there are growing pains.
Holgorsen mentioned that it’s a defense that gives multiple looks, but does like to blitz often, which is was James Madison took advantage of multiple times to get long plays.
West Virginia is currently a 24-point favorite to win on Saturday.
Seven of the 10 teams in the Big 12 started the season on the right foot with wins last weekend. Arguably the biggest story line from the conference was Texas’ loss at home to Maryland, and that’s where we start this week’s Big 12 Notebook.
Longhorn Defense Anything but Perfect
After Tom Herman said in his Monday press conference that he thought his players tried to play “perfect” in their loss Saturday, almost every available player was asked about that Tuesday during Longhorn player availability.
Although some players denied that the team tried to play perfect, others agreed with the head coach.
“Definitely, it was more a sense of trying to be perfect, trying to be 100 percent on each and every play,” said linebacker Naashon Hughes.
Others agreed that during film review earlier this week, there were plenty of things that stood out.
“We didn’t look like (a) team,” said PJ Locke III. “Just didn’t look confidant, didn’t go full speed, kind of overthinking basically.”
Texas’ defense surrendered 263 rushing yards and four touchdowns on the ground to the Terps. One positive was that the Longhorns limited Maryland to just 3 of 11 on third downs.
Baylor loses RB for next month
Sophomore running back JaMycal Hasty is expected to miss a “minimum of four weeks” with a straight right knee. Hasty carried 11 times for 56 yards before sustaining the injury in Baylor’s 48-45 loss to Liberty, which was playing in its first game at the FBS level.
New QBs shine in Week 1
Many wondered what the status of the Texas Tech offense would be in the first season after Patrick Mahomes.
Early indications show that not much has changed.
In his first career start, Nic Shimonek completed each of his first 14 passes and ended the day with 384 passing yards in TTU’s 56-10 rout of Eastern Washington.
Kansas and West Virginia also saw good things out of their new QBs.
Jayhawk passer Peyton Bender completed 23 of 37 attempts for 364 yards and four scores in the Kansas win.
Will Grier, named Big 12 Player of the Week, was asked to throw the ball 53 times, completing 31 of those throws for 371 yards and three trips to the end zone. He also showed the ability to extend plays with his feet.
Bender’s showing is especially exciting for Jayhawk fans because of this:
Kansas football hasn't produced a 2,000-yard passer since Todd Reesing in 2009. That's astonishing, but Peyton Bender will do it.
— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) September 5, 2017
The biggest news that came out of Dana Holgorsen’s press conference Tuesday was that Marcus Simms’ one-game suspension would be just that. He’ll be available for Saturday’s game versus East Carolina.
Not that WVU’s passing game struggled without him. Gary Jennings caught 189 yards’ worth of passes and Will Grier opened his WVU career with a 371-yard, three-touchdown performance. But Simms offers a trait that WVU can’t get enough of in its receiving corps. From Holgorsen:
“He’s got that speed factor. We played [freshman] Reggie [Roberson] about 30 snaps [against Virginia Tech]. He was targeted I think twice. The more he plays, the more comfortable Will will be targeting him. He gives us the speed guy and Marcus gives us the speed guy and we desperately need that.”
It’s not so much the need for Saturday’s game. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Grier’s numbers go down versus the Pirates just because they won’t throw that much. James Madison bulldozed ECU for 410 rushing yards last week. Granted, this is the reigning FCS champ we’re talking about. The Dukes are pretty good. But if JMU can do that, what can Justin Crawford, Kennedy McCoy and company do? And the Dukes still went 17 of 24 for 204 yards passing, so it wasn’t like East Carolina was shutting them down.
No, this is a move that will benefit once the Big 12 season rolls around and football games become track meets/PlayStation games. The more speed, the better in trying to keep up with the rest of the conference in scoring, and Simms will provide plenty of it.
Now he’ll get a couple of games to warm up before WVU really needs it.
With this Saturday marking the first home football game of the 2017 season for the West Virginia Mountaineers, we wanted to remind WVU fans of the new Clear Bag Policy that has been implemented at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Fans entering the stadium can only use clear bags or a small clutch bag.
Clear bags can not exceed 12”x6”x12” if it has a strap, or can not be any larger than one gallon sized if it is ziplock.
Only one bag per fan is allowed. Non-clear bags will not be allowed into the stadium, unless it is a small clutch bag that is around the size of a hand.
Full details of the Clear Bag Policy can be found at wvusports.com/clearbag.
A chipper Dana Holgorsen said during his weekly press conference Tuesday that the first quarter of Sunday’s game against Virginia Tech was an interesting experience for him since he is no longer calling the offensive plays.
Holgorsen laughingly admitted he needed to open up an extra line of communication on his headset with Director of Player Personnel Ryan Dorchester to have someone to talk to.
Holgorsen communication
For clarity, the head coach this had to be done based on precedent that he has had within the program for some time, not wanting to muddy up communications between offensive coordinator Jake Spavital and his group, and defensive coordinator Tony Gibson and his group.
Marcus Simms update
Holgorsen said that wide receiver Marcus Simms is “ready to roll,” when asked about the sophomore’s status for this weekend’s game.
The head coach commented that Simms return to the field definitely helps.
“He’s got that speed factor,” he said, later commenting that speed is something, “We desperately need that at those wideout positions.”
Fewer designed QB runs
Asked about the plans for running quarterback Will Grier, Holgorsen said there will be fewer designed runs for him, but, that Grier has shown the ability to know when to escape instinctively.
“When the games on the line he needs to do everything and anything to get first downs. And he did,” said Holgorsen.
Grier rushed for 52 yards and scrambled for two big first downs late in the fourth quarter to keep the Mountaineer offense on the field.
For his efforts, Grier was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week.
ECU reputation not lost
Holgorsen noted East Carolina’s reputation for taking down Power 5 schools, and that doesn’t exclude the Mountaineers.
In 2008, ECU knocked off Virginia Tech and West Virginia in back-to-back weeks to begin the season.
In this Holgorsen was effectively saying even though the Pirates suffered a loss last weekend to James Madison out of the FCS – a loss that the WVU head coach noted can be looked at as legit based on JMU’s recent success – they’re not a team the Mountaineers can take lightly, especially on a short week.
Morning all. We move from preseason projections to teams earning their rankings. Finally.
After Week 1, my vote:
1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Penn State
4. Clemson
5. Oklahoma
6. Notre Dame
7. Michigan
8. Wisconsin
9. USC
10. Washington
11. Florida State
12. Auburn
13. LSU
14. Oklahoma State
15. Stanford
16. Miami
17. Virginia Tech
18. Georgia
19. Maryland
20. Louisville
21. Kansas State
22. UCLA
23. South Carolina
24. West Virginia
25. Florida
This isn’t an “everyone gets a trophy” article. There was a winner (Virginia Tech) and a loser (West Virginia) Sunday evening in Landover.
VT fans left happy; WVU fans left upset. The trophy went to Blacksburg while only buses went back to Morgantown.
But no matter what side you cheered for, we all won last night – college football won last night.
The one-year return of the battle for the Black Diamond Trophy was a great reminder for players, coaches and fans alike about what college football was built on and should be continued to be built around.
Geographical rivalries have been broken up due to conference realignment (read money), TV dollars (read money) and other external factors (again, read money). Yet last night was a great showing of why college football needs to do a better job of keeping these rivalries in tact.
Over 67,000 fans flocked to FedEx Field, meaning the game would’ve been a sellout had it been played in Lane Stadium or at Mountaineer Field. With both teams ranked as they have traditionally been for much of the time since the last time they met in 2005, it was a nationally televised affair with countless more fans tuned in to watch the thrilling ending.
It was a no-brainer. And you have to tip your cap to the athletic directors and everyone involved for bringing the rivalry back, even if it was for just a day.
Luckily for WVU fans, this sentiment has been heard.
No matter what the college football landscape looks like in 2021, West Virginia will play Virginia Tech again, this time in Morgantown. Then the following year, the Hokies and the Pittsburgh Panthers are on the schedule. After that Penn State and Pittsburgh are both scheduled for 2023 and 2024.
WVU gets it; let’s hope the rest of college football gets it too.
Follow along as WVU reporter Mitch Vingle brings you the latest from the Mountaineers’ season opener against Virginia Tech in Landover, Maryland.
