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

Grab your umbrellas

November 11, 2008 by Mike Casazza

This is probably going to rain on your parade. Pat White needs but 198 rushing yards to become the NCAA all-time leader among quarterbacks. Yet if you’ve followed the direction of WVU’s offense and looked at the upcoming opponents, there’s a chance, and perhaps a good one, it will not happen.

Why’s that, you ask, especially since he’s on pace to set a career-high for carries? Well, the Mountaineers offense ain’t what it used to be. Just ask the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Here’s a hint, by way of Cincinnati postgame interviews following the Bearcats’ 26-23 overtime victory Saturday night at Mountaineer Field:

“Pat White is still Pat White,” Cincinnati cornerback Mike Mickens said. “He still made plays out there, and when he scrambles, he’s tough … They’re doing the same things, but it’s less run (for WVU) than it used to be.

“And he’s most dangerous when he’s running. We were glad to see them trying to pass more. It kind of played into our hands a bit.”

Smith to Bailey T-Shirts soon

by Mike Casazza

Maybe not. As it is, two of the best uncommitted players in south Florida committed to WVU Monday after visiting for that rousing game Saturday night. Say hello to Geno Smith and Stedman Bailey.

“Being up there and watching those guys play, I really felt in my heart this was the place I needed to be,” said Smith. “The coaches are very classy guys and I could see they were passionate about the program.”

Obviously, this is big for WVU and its recruiting efforts and image. The sky had been falling upon the Mountaineers ever since the TBA. Or so it seemed. After WVU stopped recruiting quarterbacks because it promised Boyd he was the one, the coaches got after Smith and closed the deal pretty quick. It sends a pretty clear message to doubters and supporters, commits and prospects. Despite it’s current state, WVU is still a pretty good place. It can once again be a great place.

Why, I guess you could call Smith and Bailey disaster recovery specialists.

Please!

November 10, 2008 by Mike Casazza

So far two commentors have sworn off commenting on the blog as related to football and I have around a dozen e-mails that have either said or suggested the same. Please, don’t go away. I understand the therapeutic value you’re shooting for, but at least stick around and read. I promise I won’t tell if you comment under a nome de plume.

I mean, if you go, you’re missing basketball and I have a very firm feeling this is going to be one entertaining team to follow. There are so many dynamics and so many things to follow that will produce material I feel it’d be a crime to miss it all.

Consider that Saturday alone:

– Bob Huggins got a T.
– Kevin Jones outplayed Devin Ebanks … and Ebanks wasn’t bad.
– Joe Mazzulla needed stitches six games sooner than I would have predicted.
– Beefed-up Alex Ruoff got into an elbow-throwing contest.
– Wellington Smith was in foul trouble.
– John Flowers was 2-for-2 at the foul line.
– Josh Sowards — excuse me — Bird Sowards was off the bench early and later described by Huggins as the team’s best shooter “by far.”
– Da’Sean Butler scored 38 points … and this is the last thing I mention?

You can’t miss this team!

Short-yardage shortcomings

by Mike Casazza

Sam Wilkinson said:

Here’s an idea – run a big guy out there, and give him the ball on third and one, and get the friggin first down. It’s the Refrigerator Perry play, but for god’s sake, we don’t have a player that can get that one yard right now.

I’ve probably flip-flopped on this one issue a billion times now. On one hand, it makes so much sense. I’ll take my chances with, um, Scooter Berry (high school fullback) plunging ahead for two yards when WVU needs one. I’d roll the dice with, uh, Selvish Capers (converted tight end not playing right tackle) lined up as a fullback and hope Jock Sanders can find the room he needs to move the chains. Hell, I’ve even wondered if, I don’t know, Doug Slavonic (6-foot-7, 265 pounds) or Robert Sands (6-6, 205) could execute a QB sneak.

Yet on the other hand, I’ve talked myself out of those things. I could rattle off the explanations, but in essence it made too much sense and always seemed to me the coaches knew what they were doing and that the offense was best handled by offensive players. If the coaches had a fix, they’d fix it. I still believe that, but not as much as I did earlier in the season.

Continue reading…

This is what happens …

by Mike Casazza

… when your game is on ESPNU.

23. West Virginia (6-3)
Last week: 16; Saturday: lost to Cincinnati, 26-23; The skinny: Talk about blowing it. The Mountaineers gave up 13 points in the final 1:13 and then couldn’t stop the Bearcats in overtime – all at home. Inexcusable. Next: Nov. 22 at Louisville

‘Big kick in the stomach’

by Mike Casazza

(Update from the Big East call: WVU at Louisville, noon, ESPN, Nov. 22) 

So how about spending a week — or is it a season? — obsessing over a terrible kickoff coverage team and promising improvements and then starting the ninth game of the season by giving up the school’s first return touchdown in 18 years? And would you feel worse to learn the player who scored was so good, so confident, he admitted he didn’t even watch much film.

This is your life, West Virginia. It’s one in which people — read: not solely reporters — in the press box laugh out loud as Mardy Gilyard slips through “tackles” and runs to the end zone (Surreal.). It’s one in which other people openly wonder if the rules permit putting, say, 15 people on the kickoff return team, making the tackle and just accepting the penalty at the end of the play (I checked. It’s illegal.). It’s one in which a person suggests if WVU would be better off kicking the ball out of bounds and starting from the 40-yard line (Everyone agreed, especially after a sky kick ended up in a first-and-10 at the Cincinnati 42.).

The worst part? You could see it coming. If the Mountaineers were nothing else last week, they were clairvoyant. After the UConn game and in interviews before the Cincinnati game, pretty much every one of them who spoke to the media said they’d better fix these sustained errors — slow starts, kickoff returns, short-yardage struggles — or else.

Or else arrived 16 seconds into the game Saturday night.

Gilyard, who leads the conference in return average and zoomed from No. 21 to No. 5 nationally, believed he was better than WVU’s scheme. Earlier in the week, special teams coach Mike Elston called Gilyard into his office. They discussed one element of WVU’s plan and Elston all but guaranteed the Bearcats would exploit it.

“I didn’t even watch much film,” Gilyard said.

What he saw, though, was strange.

“I was like, ‘Why is West Virginia doing it like this?'” he said. “We’ve never seen anybody’s kickoff team do the things that they do. It seemed like they kind of left one guy back and left another guy back. I’m like, ‘Nine guys on 11 heads?’ That’s not good numbers, especially with our unit being No. 1 in the Big East and trying to develop ourselves as a strong special teams unit. We knew they were weak there. Nine hats on 11? You can’t win doing that.” 

Continue reading…

Your thoughts go here

November 8, 2008 by Mike Casazza

No need to wait until Monday to discuss the game. Comment away.

Before we begin, quick and significant injury update. Mike Dent is out at center. He’d started the past 21 games. Eric Jobe, a redshirt sophomore, will make his first start. This will be the first change in the starting lineup this season.

We’re told Dent hurt his neck in last week’s game against UConn and played through the pain. The condition worsened throughout practice this week and he was ruled out a little while ago. The length of the absence is undetermined.

How to usurp ESPNU

by Mike Casazza

Thanks again to thacker for providing these ways around the U’s stranglehold on tonight’s game:

Internet Radio Broadcastof the ballgame via the Bearcats Web site.

Probable direct link to the radio broadcast.

This appears to be a no-charge broadcast. It will require that Apple’s Quicktime plug-in be installed for your Web browser.

As always, broadcast links are never known for sure until game time.

If you’re interested, you can (inexplicably) catch the men’s basketball game here … and you need to bookmark that site.

Friday Feedback

November 7, 2008 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback on the eve of what I believe to be the Big East championship game. Last week I figured the WVU-UConn winner was in good position, but not necessarily champion, whereas the loser was done. I think we can agree that’s the case.

Should the Mountaineers win — and they’re favored by a touchdown to do so — they’re up two games and hold tie-breakers against two of the two-loss teams. The only other one loss team, Pitt, plays host to Louisville at noon. WVU could take the field knowing a win creates a two-game lead on its closest pursuer with three games to go.

Should the Bearcats win, watch out. They’ve already played USF and UConn and follow WVU with games at Louisville and at home against Pitt before finishing conference play at Syracuse. (U.C. also plays at Hawaii in a rare 13th game Dec. 6). 

Translation? Tomorrow’s a day in which someone makes a definitive statement in a still wide-open Big East. Does WVU remain the class of the conference or does Cincinnati move to the head of the class?

Other questions to answer:

– Do you need to set your alarm for a 7 p.m. kick?
– Does Ellis Lankster know the fair catch was not outlawed?
– Will Dorrell Jalloh get 10 touches?
– Can the Mountaineers successfully execute a reverse?
– Why can’t first-time QBs solve the 3-3-5?

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, remember people are watching!

Gordo said:

Let’s all join in!! Mustaches all around. Mike, you in?

You obviously don’t know me.  

Continue reading…

Stewart speaks, media seeks

November 6, 2008 by Mike Casazza

Phew. Ryan Stanchek does not have phlebitis!

But the college senior is not yet senior enough to suffer from a vein-inflammation disorder normally associated with the elderly, such as the late President Richard Nixon.

“I don’t even know what that is,” Stanchek said. Apparently, West Virginia coach Bill Stewart misspoke a week ago: He meant plantar fasciitis, the swelling of ligaments in the foot’s underside, which sidelined this left offensive tackle the first week of spring drills. Then mononucleosis scratched him from the first week of fall camp.

Stanchek knocked on wood yesterday. “Those are the only things I’ve had. I’ve never broken anything here.”

Except the wills of pass rushers and the open rushing lanes.