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

Friday Feedback

April 24, 2009 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which again previews an enormous weekend series for the baseball team. This is the one WVU has been waiting for during this either proving process. Now we’ll have all our questions answered come Monday. Same goes for the now-former football players hoping to start a career in the draft. I say White, Insdaner, and Lankster get the call … and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the final two didn’t go at all.

I don’t want to rush through things today, but I’m hoping to get a quick start on the new rules by which I live.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, think these things through!

Josh24601 said:

So long as Ms. Durst does not shoot herself in the face during a game, as Brady Campbell’s predecessor did*, she’ll be fine.

*I wouldn’t have believed it–and would never have heard about it–if I didn’t see it myself; I was only looking his way after a score because earlier in the game he had shot the musket after a missed FG. Thank god I’ve forgotten that guy’s name.

Classic and it’s funny because it’s true.

Continue reading…

Is WVU helping or hurting the NFL?

April 23, 2009 by Mike Casazza

In a manner of speaking, Dan Mozes was one of the 22 best college football players in the country in 2006. In only his second season at center, he was named a consensus All-American. Not bad for a underrecruited kid who was freshman All-America at left guard.

And yet Dan Mozes, who, to be fair, was a little undersized, went undrafted. OK, so college centers aren’t the envy of many, if not most, NFL teams. Then again, Louisville’s Eric Wood and a similar, though not at all superior resume, will be drafted Saturday, possibly in the first round.

The difference? Part rests with the offense. Louisville is a pro-style system, which behooves Wood as it once did quarterback Brian Brohm. Mozes’ offense and the requisite skills didn’t translate as well to the NFL.

It was January 2007. Gruden and his then-Tampa Bay staff were coaching the North squad in preparation of the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. They were putting the players through a simple inside-run period — with scouts and personnel executives from every NFL team looking on — and his quarterback and center could not execute the most fundamental play in football.

“You guys are professionals now!” Gruden recalled railing. “How ’bout getting the [expletive] snap, OK?”

The center was Daniel Mozes, a four-year starter and first-team All-American from West Virginia who won the 2006 Dave Rimington Trophy as the top nation’s top offensive lineman.

Mozes looked at Gruden.

“Coach,” he said. “We were in the shotgun every snap.”

The point was spread offense players weren’t properly prepared for the NFL and Mozes was a prime example why. A center who struggles with under-center snaps isn’t all that different from a spread tight end who can’t block on the line of scrimmage or a quarterback who can’t make a three-step drop.

Just don’t tell Mike Leach.

Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach, in an interview with The Dallas Morning News, was a little less diplomatic when asked about the knocks against his system relative to the NFL.

“You bring up easily the most pitiful NFL cop-out of them all,” Leach said. “How could you possibly look yourself in the mirror and consider yourself an NFL coach and not be able to teach a guy to run back three steps, five steps and seven steps. I can teach a child that.”

The NFL doesn’t want children and certainly isn’t interested in devoting time to the things kids should have already been taught.

Or is it? What was once a problem is slowly becoming a positive.

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Advice to Isdaner was strange

by Mike Casazza

We all remember Greg Isdaner’s supposedly bizarre decision to enter the NFL Draft. The greatest defense was he must have gotten some positive feedback from the advisory committee about his potential.

Not really.

“The exact wording was, ‘You do not have the potential to be picked on the first day as of right now based on game tape,'” Isdaner said.

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Let’s scratch the draft itch

by Mike Casazza

I’ve been putting it off for as long as possible, but no more. Today is NFL Draft day. Maybe tomorrow, too.

You know it’s a strange time when Pat White has been cordoned off by his representation and Pat McAfee isn’t talking because he can’t be reached by phone — let that sink in for a moment. The two Pats are interesting cases for this year’s draft, and wouldn’t you know it, they come from this little old University, which seems to have a knack for such intrigue.

Really, where and how is each drafted and what exactly is his value? Is White a receiver or a quarterback? Or a hybrid? Does a team make a leap because his name is so hot right now? And what about McAfee? Kicker or punter or both? Has the NFL again accepted the value in three-point plays and field position? Isn’t it financially responsible to have a two positions-one contract guy? Does a team reach or does McAfee win a bidding battle in post-draft free agency? Should be fun.

As for White, though, he’s got an incredibly high profile for a second-round pick.

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Jock still strapped

April 22, 2009 by Mike Casazza

One of the biggest stories in that it wasn’t a big story during spring football was the absence of Jock Sanders. Marks Rodgers and especially Ryan Clark made appreciable strides as running backs and Carmen Connolly, Brad Starks and obviously Wes Lyons did well for themselves as slot receivers.

Why, there was even talk about guys like Tavon Austin coming in in the fall and getting a shot in the backfield and in the slot.

Jock Sanders, you probably know, is a running back-slot receiver who caught more passes than anyone else for WVU last year. He was suspended in the winter following his second arrest in a year and hasn’t been reinstated. It may be a while still, according to Bill Stewart, though not for a lack of effort on Sanders’ part.

“The Judiciary Committee, which meets every week, tells me he is living a role model-like life,” said Stewart. “He has missed no classes since then.”

While unable to work out with the team this spring, he was working at Pro Performance, and Stewart said he has been exemplary there, too.

“They tell me he has been working tremendously hard there,” Stewart said, “pushing himself at times until he throws up.”

On Durst’s debut and detractors

by Mike Casazza

New Mountaineer and, um, Internet sensation Rebecca Durst did lead the team out of the tunnel for Saturday’s Gold-Blue Game, but at least a few observers thought she went toward the wrong sideline before slightly adjusting her course and veering back toward the home sideline without much panic. Grace under fire, right?

There was nothing embarrassing about her debut, which had to upset some people, but pleased many others.

Senior Industrial Engineering major and Facebook group member, Brian Combs, said that the Mountaineer mascot is a male position.

He pointed out that all of the emblems portray a male Mountaineer and that it’s traditionally been a male.

Combs said although he was initially upset, he has since warmed to the idea.

“She did the push-ups and everything (at the Gold-Blue Spring Game), and I was impressed,” Combs said.

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Your son can’t wear No. 11 at LHS

by Mike Casazza

Linganore High, in Frederick, Md., will retire Joe Alexander’s number AND jersey in May.

Alexander played varsity basketball for Linganore , which he led to the Class 3A state semifinals in 2004, and continued his basketball career at West Virginia University before turning pro. 

After a nice little surge to end his rookie season, this is a nice way to ring in the offseason. Perhaps that gets through to those addicted-to-excellence Bucks fans.

‘You the man!’

April 21, 2009 by Mike Casazza

First impressions do last forever.

The two were introduced by local photographer Dale Sparks.

“I didn’t realize that they had never met before,” Sparks said. “I figured I better get them together and get a picture of them. When they first met they both said to each other, ‘You the man!’”

To be the man, he has to be Manning

by Mike Casazza

So says Jarrett Brown:

“I want to be like Peyton the way he calls his own plays,” Brown said. “Just call what I want as long as it’s high-percentage and we get completions. That’s what Coach Mullen wants.

“I think eventually we’ll be there when he’s comfortable with me doing it. I’m going to keep asking him questions and keep learning.”

Here’s your consensus

by Mike Casazza

Even Oll Stewart agrees these retirement requirements are a bit much.

“Whatever the criteria is that was made for such a prestigious honor, I’m sure it was well thought out and very well planned,” Stewart said. “But maybe we can make an exception some day for a guy who won four bowls and was the MVP in three.

“I’ve said this before, and in my opinion, Pat White was the greatest winner in college football today. Now does that open a can of worms or whatever for other guys with accolades? Maybe, but certainly no one has the accolades like this guy.”

Certainly, which is why you just know No. 5 will be honored in some fashion. It’d be unfair to the school — and also to Pat — not to recognize what they did together and what they meant to one another. There are different angles in play, most of which people are failing to see.

Not here, though.

Mack said:

Why do they have to “retire numbers”? They should just put their name on a wall in the stadium in recognition of being a great player.

Or, how about, retire their numbers by painting the seats such that there would be a number “5″ when they’re all empty… or whatever.

And not in the Puskar Center, either.

“You don’t have to have a jersey retired,” Stewart said of the No. 5 that wasn’t used in spring practice, “to not have a number used.”