Quincy Morgan?
November 17, 2003 11:50 AM | General
November 17, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Maybe now ESPN’s Chris Fowler and Lee Corso will quit referring to Quincy Wilson as “Quincy Morgan” after the senior ran for 208 yards and four touchdowns against Pitt last Saturday.
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| Quincy Wilson scores one of his four touchdowns Saturday against Pitt.(All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
“Morgan? Who is that guy?” Wilson said after Saturday’s game. “I’m not sure why my name is so hard to pronounce but maybe when you carry the ball so many times you start to fumble the names up.”
Others have even called him Quincy Jones.
“I can take that one,” he laughed.
Jokes aside, Wilson is rapidly losing his anonymity at the same time West Virginia is moving into the bowl picture.
The Mountaineers knocked off Pitt 52-31 last Saturday night and have won their last five games against Rutgers, Virginia Tech, Central Florida, Boston College and Pitt.
The primary reason for the dramatic turnaround is a running game that is now ranks 12th in the country averaging 220.3 yards per game. Wilson says improved offensive line play has been the big difference.
“They are the reason we’ve been successful,” said Wilson. “When we weren’t doing well it was because our line wasn’t ready. Now that we’ve found five guys that can roll that’s what we’re doing. We’re starting to put up 300 yards in the rushing game again.”
According to Wilson, West Virginia’s surprising turnaround is rooted in the disappointing loss at Maryland.
“At the beginning of the year we tried to do a lot of things and then after the Maryland game Coach Rod said, ‘Let’s simplify this thing, put Moe (Fofana) out there and run right at them.’ We finally found a line which is the biggest thing. Once we found that we’ve just been rolling.”
Wilson has been the primary beneficiary of West Virginia’s improved blocking, going for 177 against Rutgers, 178 versus Virginia Tech, 135 against Central Florida and 208 last week against Pitt. The only game he was kept under 100 was at Boston College, when he left the game in the third quarter with a throat injury and had just 73 yards on 19 carries.
Quincy has moved up to 10th in the nation in rushing this week with an average of 122.6 yards per game. He has rushed for more than 100 yards in a game five times this season and his 12 rushing touchdowns rank third in the Big East behind Virginia Tech’s Kevin Jones and Syracuse’s Walter Reyes.
Wilson is also third in rushing behind Boston College’s Derrick Knight and Tech’s Jones. Wilson says those guys deserve all of the attention.
“If I have to be under the radar I’ll be under the radar,” he said.
Last Saturday Wilson certainly wasn’t under the radar. During one stretch at the beginning of the fourth quarter, he carried the football eight straight times moving the ball from the West Virginia 28 to the Pitt 34.
Wilson got one more carry on a third-and-one play that resulted in a fumble Pitt recovered at its own 16. Wilson says a pad used to protect his lung was the reason for the fumble.
“That’s what I’m going to blame that one on,” he laughed.
A good portion of Wilson’s 208 yards Saturday came out of the I formation with fullback Moe Fofana lined up in front of him.
“I love Moe, he’s my man,” said Wilson. “Having Moe out there means one less man I have to duck or dodge and try to run over.”
Fofana was the key blocker on Wilson’s third-and-short run that resulted in a 37-yard gain to the Pitt. Fofana was also a big reason why West Virginia was able to convert six third-down tries Saturday.
The Mountaineers aren’t a great third-down team, but they are certainly better when it’s third and short.
Wilson says those short gains later turned into long runs when Pitt began to tire, “We just kept at it, kept pounding, took our three yards, took our four yards and then finally we started busting a little bit,” he said.
Briefly ...
“A thin situation has gotten a lot thinner,” said Rodriguez. The coach mentioned that junior Jason Hardee will move into that spot and start Saturday at Syracuse. “You just can’t play the three starters every snap and they’ve been playing way too much the way it is because of our depth.
“Warren Young, who has not played much, we’ve got to get him honed up and ready to go,” the coach added. “We haven’t gotten all of the answers for that right now.”
“We didn’t change a whole lot of coverages but we rolled up one side on occasion to try to take away the underneath stuff,” he said, “but it was more of a situation where we got some more pressure on some of the blitzes and I thought we broke on the ball better. We also got off blocks a little better, too.”
“The more you win the bigger the stakes get,” he said. “This game (against Syracuse) is bigger than the Pitt game because we won the Pitt game. We’ll get that message across and try and keep our guys focused and get prepared for another big battle this weekend.”
