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

Here we are again

October 7, 2008 by Mike Casazza

So Reed Williams is out and there’s at least a question mark in the middle. WVU knew Reed was not going to play against Rutgers — apparently as early as Tuesday night — so there was ample time to pencil in a starter. It wasn’t the ballyhooed sophomore Pat Lazear or the steady veteran Mortty Ivy. It was, in a small surprise, Anthony Leonard, who was good enough to replace Lazear after one drive in the first game and was then replaced himself by Ivy at ECU and Colorado.

The larger surprise, I suppose, was Leonard played pretty well — team-high 11 tackles and a spot on the Big East’s weekly honor roll. So that’s settled, yes?

“The job is still open,” the redshirt sophomore said after the Mountaineers (3-2 overall, 1-0 Big East) relied on their young defense — six sophomores and one true freshman, safety Robert Sands — to stave off Rutgers on Saturday, 24-17. “Anybody can win [it], to be honest with you. I have to prepare for perfection. All I have to do is mess up, and somebody else gets a start.”

No pressure.

The seat is warm beneath him

by Mike Casazza

Greg Robinson is going to be fired any day moment time now and Lane Kiffin will be named the new Syracuse coach. At least that’s what I hear and read. The worst kept secret in college football is Robinson’s job is in great jeopardy. In fact, I read somewhere last week his name had officially been changed to The Embattled Greg Robinson. I think.

Regardless, he’s on the hot seat and taking all sorts of fire from friends and foes. The university paper ran a point-counterpoint examining not whether he should be fired, but whether the university should do it now or wait until after the season.

The most bizarre and troubling development, though, seems to be the wave of influential former players begging for a change and requesting one interesting candidate.

Should a team like that worry you?

Remember Taylor Zarzour?

by Mike Casazza

I know I haven’t forgotten — and I’m quoting myself here — “the only one of the AP’s esteemed voters who kept N0. 8 WVU out of the top 25. What’s that you say? Oh, he left five of the AP’s top 25 off his ballot!”

To review: Zarzour excluded Auburn, WVU, Tennessee, Illinois and Kansas from his preseason ballot. He took a lot of heat and I only took issue with just how arbitrary and inexact the polling is — and let’s be honest: he did not acquit himself with his self-depricating defense.

Here we are now, seven weeks into the voting and WVU, Tennessee and Illinois aren’t ranked. The other two remain ranked, but Auburn is nowhere near as good as most predicted and Kansas somehow erased a 20-point deficit on the road Saturday to salvage its season. Zarzour’s current poll is pretty fair.

The point? It’s still arbitrary and inexact, but he wasn’t as crazy as he once appeared.

Bad news on Jenkins

October 6, 2008 by Mike Casazza

Waiting on a confirmation, but it appears Josh Jenkins dislocated a kneecap Saturday. Painful and significant injury for someone who relies so much on his legs and their strength.

Stewart knows what you’re thinking

by Mike Casazza

Not long into Saturday’s postgame press conference, Coach Bill Stewart veered off path and started explaining his decision to squib the kickoff late in the first half. I was scribbling notes and circled it because it seemed strange. Not the explanation, but the appearance of it. I think I called it an “unprompted defense of his strategy” in my story. Clearly, he saw what effect the squib had on the game and knew it was going to come up.

I’ll be honest: I don’t like squib kicks or sky kicks or corner kicks, but that’s just me. Stewart had a plan for the moment and was guilty only of being on his toes. He trusted Pat McAfee would make a better squib kick and the player who fielded it wouldn’t do so cleanly. To that, he did not trust his coverage team and didn’t want to give up a long return like he witnessed twice against Marshall — in fact, he referenced Darius Reynaud’s game-changing kickoff return touchdown late in the first half against Maryland in 2006. He believed his defense could handle 57 seconds and 60 or so yards. I think that’s reasonable logic. Don’t forget that Rutgers had shown no life to that point, so I don’t think he really expected a five-play, 56-yard touchdown drive.

That, though, is the chance you take — and he was adamant he’d do the same thing again in the future.

Continue reading…

Talking points

by Mike Casazza

…from the weekend that was. For your use in elevator rides, trips to the water cooler and other awkward moments on a Monday. 

(Sorry, busy morning, led off by a Bob Huggins teleconference. Best news? The money is almost entirely raised for the practice facility and ground-breaking should happen soon.)

 - In case you were gone all weekend, Rutgers beat West Virginia. 

– OK, back to normal. WVU beat Rutgers Saturday, but the victory started Friday afternoon. 

– Jock Sanders: 21 will do, thank you.

– The Scarlet Knights were kind guests.

– They aren’t very good either.

A few other things to discuss: Schiano may have overestimated his team, but you can’t overestimate how valuable Rutgers is to the Big East. They have to get it together before they become the punchline again. … Jock’s take on the defense isn’t too misguided. In fact, if WVU had scored 21 points, it would have beaten Colorado and been right there against ECU. Trouble is, three touchdowns isn’t a grand goal and has still been difficult to attain. Conversely, there aren’t a lot of offensive juggernauts in this league so an above-average defense (and WVU’s is well above average … and getting better) could be a significant factor.  … Anthony Leonard played OK and is probably the fix at middle linebacker this season, but Reed Williams will be greatly missed. … Oh, coaching. The squib kick, the fourth-down call. Let’s get into that later, unless you want to get into it right here.

Friday Feedback

October 3, 2008 by Mike Casazza

Not this night!

A friend is graduating from the state police academy in South Charleston this morning and I’ll be the guy making the realistic sound effect noises clapping. Back at it Monday, but feel free to discuss your thoughts, concerns and hopes about tomorrow’s game.

I’m curious to see:
1) Special teams avoid a catastrophe
2) How WVU handles a big running back. Didn’t go so well against ECU.
3) Corners vs. receivers — both sides
4) Mark Rodgers … not sure why
5) Clock management

Enjoy the weekend!

Your Kerns questions answered

October 2, 2008 by Mike Casazza

Show of hands: Who watched WVU flounder on repeated third-and-shorts early in the season and wondered where in the world the enormous Terence Kerns was lurking? Thought so.

I admit, it seemed like a fairly simple solution. Need 36 inches? Why not go for the 6-1, 240-pound answer? Yet it never happened and it won’t this season. Kerns is going to redshirt because he just hasn’t done as much as the coaches needed to see. And in the irony of ironies, the big guy is perhaps too big.

“Flexibility is an issue for him,” Beatty said. “He’s one of those guys who can’t go downhill. He’s so muscle-bound and tightly wound that he has trouble getting downhill. He’s got to do a steering wheel type of thing to get back downhill. He’s getting better, but I think it’s a situation where in high school you’re that big and that fast you don’t really run off it. You run because people are scared to tackle you.”

Obviously, there’s a difference between high school and college, but in college I guess there’s a difference between games and drills, huh?

Sports misinformation

by Mike Casazza

Big-time confusion calls for a big-time clarification. Reed Williams has until after the Syracuse game to decide whether he’ll take a medial redshirt or play on through the pain he’s experiencing in his shoulders. We were told a decision had to be made in the team’s first four games, which made this week’s news he was questionable somewhat alarming — the four-game deadline had passed.

In truth Reed can play four games — two down, two to go — before making a decision and those four must be in the first half of a championship sport season. In short, he can play/sit the next two games before he picks red or the old gold and blue. I’d apologize for the confusion, but, frankly, it’s not my fault.

Auburn’s spread is dead

by Mike Casazza

True, there were warning signs: 3-2 against Mississippi State, 14-12 against Tennessee and rather moribund offensive rankings, but it is now official. Auburn’s spread offense is no more.  

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said no one in the halls of the Tigers’ football complex is panicking about the team’s struggling offense, but he acknowledged the spread system upon which Tony Franklin built his reputation has been packed up and put in storage for the foreseeable future.

“One day we’ll have the talent that we can say, ‘Well, we’ll run 100 percent of what Tony likes to run,'” Tuberville said. “Right now, we don’t have that talent in some areas.”

Don’t automatically assume victory in the Oct. 23 game in Morgantown — Auburn will still play Auburn defense, which is proven to be more than enough to get a win. By the way, Auburn’s defensive coordinator should be familiar.