The simple, yet effective GVegas.TV is your desination for all things Greenville, N.C., from tailgating info to anything you need to know about area disc golf! There’s also abundant information on ECU and Saturday’sthis weekend’s game against WVU with an informative three-part preview.
Spoiler alert: They say ECU 31, WVU 24.
If nothing else, Ben Mauk is persistent.
The NCAA has been unwilling to listen to Mauk’s arguments and has treated Mauk differently from other athletes who have asked for another year of eligibility, attorney Kevin Murphy told Hardin County Judge William Hart, who is overseeing the lawsuit in the town where Mauk grew up and started his playing career.
Mauk wants to play one more season with the Bearcats but has been turned down five times by the NCAA, including an appeal that was rejected Wednesday by the NCAA’s reinstatement committee.
Perhaps you remember the bizarre case of Keith DeWitt, a 6-10 prep school star who came out of nowhere when he committed to WVU in April, then pulled his pledge two weeks later. It was, we slowly discovered, a weird tale about a kid with a troubled past and a tenuous family situation who saw something he’d always wanted and quickly took it, then realized there was much more out there. Â
Well, he’s now headed to Missouri, so long as he clears a few academic hurdles, and had something interesting to say about his mingling with the Mountaineers.
“West Virginia, I wasn’t really communicating with those guys,” DeWitt said. “They came in and persuaded me. That’s what college coaches are supposed to do, do whatever they can to get you, but I was not comfortable. When I made that decision, I was not happy.”
That seems a little unfair, particularly since DeWitt’s coach says in the next sentence that the interest from Huggins  “put him on the map,” but it would seem now that the mystery is solved. Huggins was prepared to offer a scholarship to a kid who was not prepared to handle one.
ECU and WVU continue to monitor H/TS Hanna, which has been a little unpredictable, if not volatile. Keeping track of the semi-hourly projections, it seems more and more likely it’s going to re-intensify to hurricane status and hit around the South Carolina/North Carolina border early Saturday, head inland a little and then float back out and fly up the east coast. That said, the recent series of projections seem to be predicting a landfall a little more northeast every time, so who knows what happens by Saturday?
A decision to change plans would almost have to come today, probably close to closing time, just to accommodate travelers. My suspicion is the schools will do everything possible to keep it on Saturday, even if it means an 8 p.m. kickoff, which would just ruin my day. Playing Sunday could work for WVU, which is off next week, but it makes it a very short week for ECU, which plays Saturday at Tulane.
As for the teams, they’re preparing for water, just in case.
Holtz said he might turn the sprinklers on “all week so there’s about 27 inches of rain on the field whether we get anything Saturday or not so we can try to slow the West Virginia offense.”
He’ll also throw buckets of water on the ball right before the snap in practice just so everyone gets used to handling a wet ball. The Mountaineers have similar ideas in place.
That said, Stewart told everyone to come to the game without umbrellas.
“You won’t need them,” he said. “That thing’s going to kick east and blow out into the ocean.”
Holtz disagreed and encouraged fans to pack umbrellas.
“Even if it doesn’t rain,” he said, “the sprinklers will be on.”
Pat Forde’s Dash and Minutes column has been the best running column on the Web, I say, for quite some time — way before he clubbed the WVU media for mishandling the P-Rod-to-Alabama debacle 21 months ago — and here are two reasons why.
Take the 2008 debut of the Forde Yard Dash that included great moments in headset history and one submission by The Product.
What happened: Rodriguez called an incredibly gutsy fake punt on fourth-and-6 near midfield in the fourth quarter while clinging to a three-point lead. He called it from field level and asked for confirmation that the Bulldogs’ formation was susceptible to the fake.
“I said on the headphones, ‘Do we got it? Hello? Hello? Anybody there?'” Rodriguez recalled.
Nobody in the press box wanted to stick his neck out and sign off on such a risky play. But the Mountaineers ran it anyway and it worked. They never gave the ball back to Georgia and won 38-35.
Needless to say, this raised many an incredulous eyebrow and Forde dutifully followed up in this week’s Dash.
Continue reading…
There was a buzz in the press box Saturday afternoon when WVU’s offense took the field for the first time and the sneaky media would finally be allowed to get a look at this group it’d been prevented from observing in full view in the summer. A few snickers followed as the debut fizzled.
Let history record that the Bill Stewart era of new, improved offense at West Virginia launched Saturday with the same aerial staple as the old era — another bubble screen.
The third and fourth pass plays were screens, too.
More to the point, though, the unveiling of their mildly-to-wildly tweaked passing game opened eyes, if not future defenses, without opening many pages from coordinator Jeff Mullen’s playbook.
“I put a squash to that,” Stewart admitted of a motioning, shifting, multi-faceted offense kept under wraps not for Vanillanova last weekend but for upstart East Carolina this one, and other games beyond.
“The reason I did,” added the new coach, “is I didn’t want to show too much.”Â
The question now, though, is at what pace will the Mountaineers unveil their nuances?
Something suggests WVU won’t have quite the same success throwing the ball this week like they did last week. There’s the possibility of rain and wind, the latter worrying WVU more than the former, plus the fact the Mountaineers simply had to have sent a message to an ECU team that’s been guilty of the same defensive strategy Villanova tried and WVU thwarted.
So perhaps there’s either necessity or incentive — or both — for WVU to run the ball this week. Who, though, gets the work? Noel Devine had nine carries Saturday and is certainly capable of more. Jock Sanders had two, but caught eight passes and played many, many more snaps at receiver, so he can’t handle a ton more work. The backups were actually one backup and Mark Rodgers had one carry. Few questions about a questionable situation were answered.Â
They need more, particularly Rodgers, who has safely established himself ahead of the other contenders.
It will be those three again this week — and perhaps longer. Neither Zach Hulce nor Terence Kerns dressed for the opener. Hulce had a shoulder stinger and is doubtful this week, although the coaches are eager to get him healthy and on the field.
“I feel like Zach can give us what we need,” running back/slot receivers coach Chris Beatty said. “He’s a bigger guy who can be good when those situations come around.”
Kerns seemed to be the bigger back the team had in mind, but he was healthy for the opener and simply didn’t dress as he continues to slowly acquiesce, perhaps toward a redshirt.
“I don’t ever want to say someone is definitely redshirting because you never know with injuries,” Beatty said, “but I think if he doesn’t play in the third or fourth game, something drastic would have to happen to change our mind.”
Of course, the year was 2005 and hardly anyone thinks the same about Jason Gwaltney now as they did three years ago. As it is, the academically troubled Gwaltney is no longer with WVU and is instead at C.W. Post.
In a stunning development on the local college scene, Newsday has learned that former superstar running back Jason Gwaltney has enrolled at Division II C.W. Post and may play this Saturday when Post hosts Indiana (Pa.) in its inaugural Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference game.
One of the all-time great leads, I say. Stunning development because there was no way he’d be eligible this season and maybe even next and, quite frankly, who could blame Gwaltney for not wanting to wait around more than he already has? It must be said that every report I received said he was not only in tremendous shape, but also a completely different person since his latest return in the spring and had taken Bill Stewart’s personal challenges to heart. Best of luck as he attempts to get his untapped talent back on track.
Wannstedt’s job is safe!
“I don’t want to put anything definitive on a coach. I don’t believe in that,” Pederson said. “We just want to focus on beating Buffalo Saturday night. Hopefully, we can get that done.”
So Buffalo is, in essence, a must-win for the Panthers? And the word “hopefully” is troubling, yes?
I couldn’t see or hear it completely, but I thought it was very sharp.
P.S.
Sam, I apologize for doing this to you. Again.
