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

If you can’t join them, mimic them

Victor Anderson once gave a verbal commitment to West Virginia’s football staff and it was an interesting recruiting battle because Anderson was a star running back at St. Xavier, in Louisville, Ky., and ultimately decided to commit to and sign with the Louisville Cardinals some time later.

Well, Anderson is still at Louisville and, despite injuries and suspensions in the backfield this season, he has yet to see any playing time and will instead redshirt.

That is not to say he isn’t helping the Cardinals in hopes they might hurt the Mountaineers tonight. Anderson played the part of WVU running back Steve Slaton in practice this week. Josh Miller, a freshman receiver, impersonated WVU quarterback Patrick White.

Miller and Anderson, the St. Xavier High School product, give U of L’s defense a model to work against in practice. But whether the Cardinals (5-4, 2-2 Big East Conference) can stop the real thing Thursday night in Morgantown is another story.

Every team that plays the No. 6 Mountaineers (7-1, 2-1) tries to figure out a way to slow White and Slaton. Hardly anyone succeeds. They’re the catalysts for an offense that averages 40.8 points and 298 rushing yards per game.

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If gambling were legal…

…and remember, it’s not, Las Vegas and the oddsmakers could still have a role in many of our lives. Why, sportswriters can certainly take a thing or two or twenty from the never-too-nonsensical trends opponents establish before playing one another. Tonight’s WVU-Louisville game offers such insight.

Louisville most recently:
When playing in November are 9-1
When playing on turf are 7-3
After outgaining opponent are 7-3
When playing within the conference are 7-3

West Virginia most recently:
When playing in November are 6-4
When playing on turf are 8-2
After outgaining opponent are 8-2
When playing within the conference are 7-3

Does it mean anything? Maybe not, but when you’re on writing on deadline and it’s a night game that television just will not let end, those little things come in handy.

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Admit it. When you heard Chris Henry had tested positive for a banned substance and was facing a suspension, you thought it was that Chris Henry.

Admit also that when Chris Henry was reinstated by the Cincinnati Bengals this week, you kind of sort of knew the other shoe would drop and he’d be back in trouble once again.

Well, who had two days in the office pool? If so, collect your prize because Henry is at it again.

According to the incident report, the valet parking attendant approached Henry and Desious Dyneal Alston, 24, after they parked a Land Rover without paying and started walking away Tuesday. The valet, according to the incident report, said Henry started arguing with him about parking when Baker approached and tried to resolve the argument.

According to the incident report, Baker told police that Henry came up to him and, chest to chest, said, “(Expletive) you. (Expletive) this. Don’t you know who I am?” before throwing a $5 bill on the ground and saying, “You better pick that up (expletive).”

Louisville’s problems are and were obvious

There’s not much more we can say about what has happened to Louisville this season as it’s fallen from No. 9 in the country to barely above .500 after nine games. No, really, I’m out of words after writing about this game for going on 10 days now. It’s ridiculous.

Even worse, you didn’t need a Ph.D. in Footballogy to figure out what was wrong with the Cardinals this season. All you needed was a video camera.

In the interest of full disclosure, I follow Kige’s work regularly and can only hope the feeling is mutual. That said, I was disappointed when I first saw that video because he offers a thin explanation. So thin, in fact, that I believe it might have anorexic.

Here comes UConn

Big weekend for the Connecticut Huskies, whose sky rocket seems as if it will never run out of fuel. First, they stomp Rutgers Saturday and a day later Jimmy Bennett, a very promising offensive line prospect, committed to the recruiting class of 2008.  

Jimmy Bennett, 6 feet 8, 280 pounds, from West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Va., gave Edsall an oral commitment Sunday night. Bennett chose the Huskies after visiting Boston College, Penn State, Virginia and West Virginia. He visited UConn in April.

Bennett was interested in the Mountaineers and visited over the summer, but like so many other people is impressed by what’s going on in Storrs.

“If you have been with them than you kind of expected them to do well, but not this well,” he said.

Chippewas off the old block

You’ll remember when West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez was asked following the Rutgers game whether or not the Scarlet Knights had somehow acquired some knowledge about the how the Mountaineers signal in their plays on offense. Rodriguez said a sideline report during the game was inaccurate, but that Rutgers had done a little homework.

“They obviously talked to maybe a former coach or (did) something back in the summer, which they’re allowed to do,” Rodriguez said. “We weren’t overly concerned. We were prepared for all scenarios.”

One name you can remove from the list of conspirators is Butch Jones. Jones coached WVU’s receivers from 2005-06 before returning to Central Michigan as the head coach this season. Jones, who was with the Chippewas from 1998-2004, has CMU rolling along and on Tuesday they won the Mid-American Conference’s West Division title.

Besides it being an exciting rivalry win, the victory gives the Chippewas their second consecutive Mid-American Conference West Division title and stamps a ticket to the MAC championship game at Ford Field on Dec. 1.

“I though it was a great college football game,” CMU coach Butch Jones said. “It was a great game between rivals. I can’t say enough about Western Michigan, but I also can’t say enough about our kids. They played with a lot of heart tonight.”

True, Jones coached at Rutgers from 1990-92, but he overlapped with no one on the current staff, and on Monday Rodriguez was a little excited about the Tuesday night game on ESPN2. Of more concern, perhaps, is that Jones coached a season at Central Michigan under Cincinati’s current head coach, Brian Kelly, and the Nov. 17 game between WVU and Cincinnati could have significant implications.

Just sayin’… 

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

West Virginia men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins said at his meeting with the media today the Mountaineers will play in the Las Vegas Classic next season. WVU will be joined in the field by Kentucky, Iowa and, believe it or not, Kansas State. Huggins coached the Wildcats last season, when they won the Las Vegas Holiday Classic.

Delaware State, Southeast Missouri, Oakland and Longwood will also play in the Invitational, and if you’re eager, you can get your tickets at the bottom of this page.

“That’s a great field. We’re looking forward to that like we’re locking forward to this year when we go play Tennessee and either Texas or New Mexico State (in the Legends Classic). You get to play quality opponents and I think that tells you a lot about your team. Plus, it’s on a neutral site, which is very similar to what the postseason is.”

Huggins’ reunion tour next season will also include a visit with Andy Kennedy and his Mississippi team. Kennedy replaced Huggins at Cincinnati on an interim basis. The Mountaineers and the Rebels will play a home-and-home series beginning next season.

Finally, a place for rumors

Who doesn’t love gossip? Certainly not the person who starts the gossip. And so it is that some recent conversations and e-mails have tipped me off to a few things I cannot prove, but just have to share. The teases come not from coaches or players, whose trust I cannot betray and who should never be confused as the source of this silliness, but from far less credible places. Nevertheless, if air powers windmills, why can’t hot air power rumor mills?

> Morgantown is becoming a pretty cool place to watch sporting events. You might see a Primetime celebrity on the sideline Thursday night … and here’s hoping Noel Devine has a few chances to high-step. Speaking of guests, grab your thermometers if you head to the Coliseum this season. There’s a chance it might reach 98 Degrees.

> That Gold Rush football coach Rich Rodriguez has been talking about could carry down to the field, as well.

> The men’s basketball team scrimmaged Virginia in the Coliseum two weekends ago and let’s just say the Mountaineers acted in a very cavalier way. Final score wasn’t even close.

> There is some concern about where West Virginia’s top college recruit will play. The Mountaineers are curious, too.

> There is a scramble to get the most possible attention on the WVU-Connecticut football game. Provided both teams do their part, the solution could be as easy as A-B-C.

I’ve spent a lot of time in press boxes above fields on which West Virginia has played football games the past two years trying to think of ways to describe and define the team and the games they’ve played. It’s a team effort, really, and sometimes more entertaining than the games. We media often have to endure boorish blowouts and games that are no longer interesting after halftime. Sometimes our ideas make it into print and sometimes they probably should have never made it out of our mouths.

Today, though, I must admit I’m a little jealous of Louisville Coach Steve Kragthorpe. Really, how have we watched White and Slaton and Devine and Reynaud and all the others without coming up with this?

University of Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe thinks there should be a new statistic invented for West Virginia’s offensive stars.

“People talk about yards after contact,” Kragthorpe said today. “With these guys, it’s yards after juke. They juke a lot of guys and make plays not just by breaking tackles, but by creating vapor tackles

Stay classy, South Florida

So you’ve come here before and seen South Florida’s players and coaches say some pretty bizarre things, first after beating West Virginia then after stomping juggernaut Central Florida. Well, that team that was once 6-0 and ranked No. 2 in the nation — no, that really did happen. This year, too! — is 6-3 and the Bulls have lost more than three straight games.

Gone is the silly sense of entitlement they once had that empowered them to say such things. Now they’re a little bitter things are no longer going their way, a problem that’s obviously remedied by cursing at officials.

Matt Grothe’s pass to Jessie Hester Jr. as time expired bounced off of Hester’s chest in the back of the end zone. At first glance, it appeared that Cincinnati strong safety Anthony Williams might have committed a pass-interference penalty, and USF players and coaches were incensed that no foul was called.

“It seems like there were some things going on back there,” Leavitt said. “It seems like it wasn’t really a clean play.”

Fullback Mike Padilla cursed at referee Randy Smith as Smith ran off the field and other USF players shook their heads as they walked toward their locker room.

Though it’s certainly changed, the season is not over for the Bulls, who still must be at least slightly admired for the way they’ve advanced as a program in just 11 years of existence. The party, though, is finished and now might be a good time to learn a few things about how to operate in a more respectable manner.

True story: According to sources close to the USF program and a representative from UConn’s athletic department, USF coach/sore loser Jim Leavitt instructed his players not to talk to members of the media following last week’s loss to UConn. It got so ridiculous that one Tampa sports writer, waiting outside the locker room to interview players, was told by a uniformed police officer, “If you don’t step back, I’m taking you in.” Two words for USF administrators who have allowed Leavitt’s ego to swell to a point where he has become perhaps the biggest jerk in college football: pathetic and disgraceful. Any chance USF quarterback Matt Grothe might have had to garner some Heisman attention has been ruined by Leavitt’s ham-handed PR. USF should have been one of the feel-good stories of the year in college football, but once again Leavitt has managed to turn the Bulls into one of the most unlikable teams in the country. . .Â