Suffering From Inexperience
October 02, 2003 10:57 AM | General
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| According to Tony, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez wants to see his players compete for all four quarters Thursday night against No. 2 Miami. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
MIAMI -- Even to the most casual football observer, it is evident that West Virginia has had trouble moving the football in its last two games against Cincinnati and Maryland. My thought on that is simple: West Virginia has suffered from a lack of experience up front and a lack of productivity from some older players who need to step up and make plays.
Look at it this way, a year ago basically your skill people were the same except for the fact that Avon (Cobourne) was in the backfield and Phil Braxton was out on the perimeter blocking for him.
Last year the offensive line was making things happen. They were opening holes that enabled Rasheed Marshall to run for more than 90 yards against Miami and for Avon to have 175 yards against a defense geared toward stopping him.
When you can’t run the football and you haven’t achieved a true balance between the run and the pass, those corners start coming up and they lock up your receivers and they load up that box and you’ve got a huge problem.
Again, it goes back to experience. If we didn’t have the year that we had last season then I would be real worried right now. If we won just four or five games last year and three the first year I’d be worried. But I saw what this team can do, I saw what this offense can do, and I saw what can happen when it’s clicking.
Unfortunately we lose a Tim Brown before the start of the season, we lost Lance Nimmo, Zack Dillow and Ken Sandor off last year’s starting offensive line and we’re flipping people around to this day along the offensive line trying to find the right combination.
It all begins up front and at this point they just haven’t had enough time to gel yet. I’m hoping that that comes together here over the next couple of weeks.
I think Dan Mozes is a guy who is on his way to becoming an all-conference-type performer in the next couple of years. I think that a Jeremy Hines is a guy who can be a very productive player for offensive line coach Rick Trickett. He’s still a puppy at this point.
In a perfect world, some of the kids being asked to play now and have moved up into starting roles are probably still a year or more ahead of where they should be. But it’s a great opportunity for them now and we’re going to have to be patient while they grow.
As for Thursday night’s game, we have to be able to run the football to stay with the Hurricanes. Their four defensive backs are all Jim Thorpe candidates so passing is going to be very difficult.
Miami has 17 new starters on their football team and most teams that have 17 new starters would not be ranked No. 2 in the nation after their first four games. But Miami has just a tremendous amount of talent. However, in talking to some of their people this week they still aren’t sure how good this Miami football team is. They’re going to find out shortly with games coming up against three top 10 teams in Florida State, Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
One thing that sticks out in my mind is that a year ago they were giving up more than 160 rushing yards per game. This year they’re only allowing 116 yards per game. As far as stopping the run they’ve made a significant improvement and that is an area where West Virginia had good success against Miami last year.
As game time approaches I think West Virginia coaches are looking for a couple of things from their team against Miami:
1. They want to see four quarters of non-stop competition. They want these kids to compete on each and every snap.
2. I think Rich Rodriguez wants to see his offense show some signs of life. Show some sign of being able to run the football, show some sign of being able to put multiple first downs together in a drive, show some sign of being able to pass the football. In short, the offense needs to become offensive.
3. If West Virginia can be competitive and make some plays they can come out of this contest with some confidence for the rest of the season.
Hopefully Thursday night’s game is one we can build on for the remainder of the season. Even though the game is being televised nationally on ESPN, be sure to turn down the volume and turn up the MSN radio broadcast.
We’ll see you next week.
