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

Stewart sensed trap game

October 28, 2010 by Mike Casazza

The West Virginia coach was in a “tizzy” Friday night because he worried his players wouldn’t be ready for the following day’s game.

Box out

by Mike Casazza

A strange thing happened last night. Sports books began taking the WVU-UConn game off the board and you assumed something was amiss. Turns out UConn’s quarterback carousel will continue and Zach Frazer will start tomorrow.

Close the blinds!

October 27, 2010 by Mike Casazza

Rough week for Randy Edsall. The Huskies, who last week remembered Jasper Howard and his death a year earlier, have lost two in a row. The 26-0 loss to Louisville was the first shutout since 2005. In his Tuesday press conference, Edsall was asked to speak to people who want him fired.

“That’s one of those questions that it doesn’t matter how you answer it, so maybe I’m better off not answering at all. People can have opinions, but I need to be careful with the statements I make. If I was Geno (Auriemma), I could probably get away with the statement. People can have opinions and say what they want to say, but the people I need to care about are the players, the people at this university, and myself. I didn’t get dumb overnight. Some years you have enough pieces for the puzzle and some years you don’t. All I can do is work to make these kids all that they can be in every aspect of life.”

Not enough friendly fire? How about intracampus espionage? It happens at UConn.

They will and might practice inside from now on, but not because of the weather. Edsall said that about 45 minutes before the call, his secretary, Joanne Fazio, received an email from a former player’s parent. Apparently the parent had found something online that detailed UConn’s practices well.

“We have an issue with somebody who wants to write what we do at practice watching from the dorm rooms (that overlook the practice field),” Edsall said. “Somebody was giving a blow-by-blow about everything we did at practice. It was pretty descript, I’ll tell you that. Somebody knows something about football.

“Technology nowadays, everybody wants to tell everybody something. It’s amazing. We have one of our own students working against us.”

Somewhere a student with a work-study job in a football office is driving a very nice car, nodding his head and smiling. Allegedly.

Mickey swings a silver-haired hammer

by Mike Casazza

Within find the words miserable, shocking and embarrassing to describe “one of the most pitiful performances a guy in his 65th year of covering the Mountaineers can recall. And that can put a damper on the 2010 homecoming observance when athletes usually perform at their best.”

Apologies to Bill Stewart

by Mike Casazza

There actually is a Ballad of Geno Smith. Who knew?!

Also, I’m not flying to Connecticut until Friday morning, so the weekly WVU sports chat will be where it always is: 2 p.m. tomorrow. Hope you can make it. If not, line up your questions in the queue or in the comments section and I’ll make sure to get to them.

Decoding Bill Stewart

by Mike Casazza

Bill Stewart gets a lot of grief for the sometimes meandering manner of his press conferences. Sometimes we get confused trying to follow along and sort sense from nonsense. Quite often, there’s a good point lost in translation. 

Fortunately, there’s value in Decoding Bill Stewart. This week, WVU’s head coach is asked about sophomore safety Terence Garvin and how he’s come of age so quickly. Stewart illustrates his reply with recollections of walks with Steve Dunlap, club-footed linebackers, Ts and Is and where one can find Sidney Glover.

From Tuesday’s press conference

Question: “Bill, you have a number of linebackers that are really good defenders on your team. Generally linebackers lead the team in tackling. You have a sophomore safety doing that now. Unusual or with him is he a bit unusual in that he’s developing pretty rapidly?”

Continue reading…

Mitchell reinstated

October 26, 2010 by Mike Casazza

Once-suspended shooting guard Casey Mitchell returned to the active roster over the weekend. He’s back practicing with the team.

And if you’re at all interested, I saw Noah Cottrill getting loose with the rest of the Mountaineers before practice this afternoon.

Bill Stewart press conference at 1 p.m.

by Mike Casazza

Busy day with the press conference here shortly, basketball interviews later in the afternoon and football interviews tonight. My eye is on the press conference. It should be most interesting and enlightening.

Stewart has three times already discussed Saturday’s loss — post game Saturday and conference calls Sunday and Monday — and, since it’s worth repeating, conducted himself calmly and responded dutifully. I just think this might be different here in a few minutes. It has to get old after a while … and he has a radio show tomorrow.

I also think you may see one of Stewart’s finest hours, both today and this week. In the time between his arrival on a full-time basis and today, there have been rumblings and grumblings, and the distaste for what’s happening under his roof has fluctuated between mild to severe and often hung around the middle and leaned toward the latter.

Never, though, have the conditions around his program been what they are today.

The back-to-back losses to ECU and Colorado in 2008 could be understood and dismissed since they were his second and third games. A home loss later that year as a ranked team against Cincinnati was easier to get over, as was the loss to Pitt a few weeks later.

Last year the loss to Auburn was so self-inflicted it didn’t bother people quite as much as the more perplexing loss to USF, when the offense was again bullied by the Bulls. The loss to Cincinnati will forever be linked to that replay review decision.

Maybe the most serious rival to the current mood would be after last season’s bowl game when the Mountaineers weren’t very good on offense against one of the nation’s worst defenses and Stewart and WVU went out quietly and almost deferentially to Bobby Bowden.

All of that said, say what you will about Stewart, but the man has a way with words. His teams have been good after losses (8-1 record, collective plus-123 in scoring margin). He can light fires within people and get his guys going in the right direction.

Been that way from the beginning.

I don’t know — and I don’t think — the press conference will be grandstanding, but I trust Stewart will be confident and motivational and pointed and deal with the issues in the best way he knows. Same as he is in meetings and practices and the locker room, I’m sure.

He knows he’ll be pressed and that there is concern and there are issues that must be addressed and cured, but he knows he has to be the general. I’m intrigued by this more than anything else because this week, as a motivator — and especially after what was widely deemed by WVU an uninspired effort agaisnt Syracuse — Stewart cannot fail.

/Cannon fires in the background

Continue reading…

Opinions?

by Mike Casazza

Just to tidy up a few comments and questions from the past few days regarding excuses as opposed to explanations, what I do and don’t believe, excuses and what I actually think, here’s my column today.

Just a reminder, I don’t write columns until Monday-for-Tuesday, so that explains the absence of an immediate reaction. Additionally, I admit I have a hard time being opinionated as a beat writer because I believe my job is to be water. That said, there are things that stand out right now and it wouldn’t be right to operate in a manner that suggests I don’t see and realize them.

(Update: Dave Hickman is in, too.)

Team meeting, then team meets and scores goals

October 25, 2010 by Mike Casazza

With so much being said about performance and how it relates to approach, preparation, expectations and mindset and so many wondering how WVU will respond to Saturday’s loss, this seems like a good time to visit the women’s soccer team and see how that team pulled its act together to win nine in a row at the end of the regular season.

After the team’s Sept. 26 tie to Big East foe South Florida, WVU head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown held a team meeting to re-evaluate the team’s season goals.

Since then, the Mountaineers have won nine games in a row, all against Big East competition.

“It was a great decision on Nikki’s part to bring us all together and reevaluate our goals for the season,” said senior goalkeeper Kerri Butler. “It definitely helped us turn it around.”

Izzo-Brown said it was necessary for the team to decide what it was going to take to win the Big East and play to its full potential.

“As a team, you meet preseason and talk about your goals and what you want to accomplish,” Izzo-Brown said. “Sometimes you need to bring it back and re-evaluate. The girls responded. They executed.”

Hmmm. USF. Bad game. Vow to change. Seems familiar. Remember October!