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

Coming to a T-shirt near you: Don’t break the moxie!

October 14, 2009 by Mike Casazza

Addressing your WVU fashion concerns one item at a time …

I thought if I had just the shirt on, they’d say, ‘What’s he wearing? An Oxford?'” he said. “We had a Nike sweater vest and I said thought, ‘I’ll try it.'”

The Mountaineers won. Stewart reproduced the look for last week’s game against Syracuse. The Mountaineers won again. Expect him to sport the vest against Marshall.

“You don’t want to break the moxie,” he said. “I guess I’ll wear the sweater vest for a while. I hope I wear it for a long, long time. For ever and ever.”

Tony Caridi would like to be left alone

by Mike Casazza

How times change. What was once inconceivable is now a reality and, with a little persuasion from the governor, West Virgina and Marshall are involved in a respectful, albeit one-sided seven-game series that may be renewed if the two sides can come to some sort of an arrangement.

Personally, the series can stay or go and I’ll survive. I just like the tension involved. It rekindles warm memories from a fiery past.

Flashback!

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Stew encourages head-on-helmet violence

October 13, 2009 by Mike Casazza

By now you’ve likely heard about seen the latest sheninigans of our folk hero Owen Schmitt.

One cannot be connected to the other, but Schmitt’s head-banging preceded a 41-o Seahawks win. Naturally, this delighted Seattle and Schmitt is just too good not to play along.

“I was just planning on hitting it three times and running out to meet the offense, but I had an unfortunate accident with the head splitting open,” he told Mahler. “I think that definitely got a lot of the guys hyped up. Everybody was cranked up already, but that just brought it up to another level.”

Schmitt said that will “probably never happen again,” but we really can’t believe him because it’s already happened again.

“(Sunday) was not a temper tantrum. That was an emotional display — ‘I’m ready to go.’ That’s Owen.'” WVU Coach Bill Stewart said. “The only other time I saw him do that was when we ran a little surprise punt here and he hit it off the side of his foot and it went out of bounds. That was a temper tantrum. That was not, ‘I’m ready to go.'”

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Have you heard?

by Mike Casazza

A few things about Marshall:

– For the second straight season, the team is two games above .500 entering the WVU game.

– MU has won back-to-back road games for the first time under Mark Snyder.

– The 31-10 victory at Tulane as the most lopsided C-USA game since 2006 and the biggest winning margin ever in a C-USA road game.

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Third things first

by Mike Casazza

Well, apparently practice does make perfect, or at least something close.

Remember those third-and-short running woes at WVU? Me neither. The Mountaineers did, though, and in the offseason highlighted that a few critical areas that let them down in 2008.

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Stewart name drops

October 12, 2009 by Mike Casazza

I wasn’t there, but I read stories and listened to the interview from Saturday’s postgame. I was on Sunday’s conference call and I again read stories today that made this point.

Bill Stewart had not mentioned Marshall by name and had instead referred to the Thundering Herd as the “team down south” or the “in-state rival.” He even seemed to be going out of his way to do so.

Well, Oll Schembechler was at it again Monday and twice in his opening statement of the Big East teleconference avoided the word Marshall.

The first question asked him if the “team down south” and “in-state rival” stuff was intentional.

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Thursday night league to shine again

by Mike Casazza

The Big East has its first game of the year Thursday when South Florida plays host to Cincinnati. One of the unbeatens will lose and the other will really legitimize what’s thus far happened this season.

Really, wouldn’t you feel a little more convinced about USF d. Florida State if the Bulls can beat the Bearcats? Wouldn’t Cincinnati wins over Rutgers Fresno State and Oregon State settle in if a road win against the Bulls is added?

Then again, the winner will also have a few more big games left with one-loss Pitt, WVU and even UConn to follow. So what’s it mean? Not a lot because it’s possible a two-loss team wins this conference.

Thursday night, though, one leaves with a a loss and one with a big edge. They just so happen to be the top top two teams in the blog’s rankings. Again.

1. Cincinnati (5-0, 1-0 Big East, LW No. 1): Both the Bulls and the Bearcats were on a bye and if there is such a thing as an edge in one of these situations, it then goes to The U.C., which got healthy over the break and enters the game in pretty good shape. Up next: 10/15 at South Florida.

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Texts from Syracuse Game Day

by Mike Casazza

Interesting twist to the Texts from Game Day. My phone inexplicably omitted the times the texts were sent. That makes sorting these chronologically somewhat difficult.

And like the Carrier Dome, the volume was low this week, which was expected because of the live blog as well as where people could and couldn’t watch the game. If you didn’t see it, you missed quite a show by those Mountaineers, who for one half were pretty prolific.

Who’s got the keys to the texts?

Damnit it just occured to me; I’m wearing my gold, Nike, Slaton (err…”#10″) jersey today ’cause my authenic Pat White (errr…”#5″) jersey is dirty….

The last time I wore this particular jersey on a game day? Colorado game of 2008. This does not bode well…sometimes I hate being a superstitious fan.

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Saturday morning question

October 10, 2009 by Mike Casazza

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs and over your neighbor’s dog? What’s great for a snack and fits on your back?

It’s blog, blog, blog. Let’s light this candle. Pregame questions, comments and concerns will be addressed leading up to kickoff. Yackety Sax is in queue in case WVU kicks off to start the game.

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