Buzz is Building
August 31, 2004 09:59 AM | General
August 31, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The buzz is building in Morgantown in anticipation for West Virginia’s season opening football game against East Carolina Saturday evening at Milan Puskar Stadium.
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| A large crowd is expected for Saturday's season opener against East Carolina at Milan Puskar Stadium
(Van Slider photo) |
The Mountaineers, rated 10th by AP and 11th by ESPN/USA Today, is taking on a remodeled Pirate team under the direction of second-year coach John Thompson. Although the Pirates are coming off a 1-11 season in 2003, a large crowd is expected for Saturday’s opener primarily because of the high expectations being levied on the Mountaineers.
“I think there is a certain buzz and a certain excitement,” admitted West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, now in his fourth season at WVU. “I think West Virginia fans are annually optimistic anyway. But this (preseason rankings) has kind of fueled the fire. Now does that add more pressure? Probably in an external sense it does. But internally everything is still the same: we’re practicing the same and our approach is still the same.”
West Virginia’s No. 10 preseason ranking by the Associated Press is the first time the Mountaineers have ever entered a football season ranked in the Top 10.
“We know that there are a lot of eyes on us and that adds a certain amount of responsibility and we’ll see if we’re mature enough to handle it,” Rodriguez said.
For a good part of fall camp Rodriguez was disappointed with the large number of minor injuries that kept key players in the wide receiver corps and along the offensive line from practicing. The coach says most of the bumps, bruises and tweaks are healed and the Mountaineers should field a relatively healthy team for Saturday’s opener.
“I know our players are tired of practicing against each other and they’re ready to prove themselves out on the field,” Rodriguez said. “Camp has been pretty good: we were a little disappointed that we had some minor injuries to certain players on offensive line and receiver that hindered their development a little bit. But we’re getting healthier now and the players have had a great attitude.”
Rodriguez and his staff have now turned their sole attention to East Carolina and the Pirate’s new Fun-n-Gun offense installed by new offensive coordinator Noah Brindise, a former Florida player and a Steve Spurrier disciple.
“Being that it’s the first game we’re not exactly sure what facets or parts of the Fun-n-Gun they’re going to use,” Rodriguez said. “We can watch Redskins film and some Florida film. We know they have a talented quarterback (James Pinkney) with some really good receivers and that they’ll throw the ball all over the place. That always makes you nervous.”
The coach is also leery of East Carolina running a few trick plays that could keep the Mountaineer defense off balance.
“We know they are going to run four or five trick plays that we have never seen that they devised during spring ball or during summer camp,” Rodriguez said. “It’s hard to prepare for everything. Sometimes those trick plays put you on your heels a little bit so we’ve got to be prepared for those early and hopefully we can get a little bit more pressure on the quarterback than we did last year.”
West Virginia had good success the past two seasons running the football against the Pirates. In a 48-7 win over the Pirates last year in Greenville, WVU amassed 361 rushing yards. Two years ago in Morgantown, WVU rolled up 536 rushing yards against former coach Steve Logan’s team. Rodriguez isn’t convinced his retooled running game will produce those type results Saturday.
“We’re not sure that our tailbacks are quite at the Quincy Wilson (Atlanta Falcons) and Avon Cobourne (Detroit Lions) level yet,” Rodriguez said. “That is a big question mark we have coming in. Can we get the same production out of them (tailbacks Kay-Jay Harris and Jason Colson) that we’ve had the last three years? If we can then you have a chance to be a pretty good offense.”
Rodriguez is also worried about the usual unknowns concerning a season-opening opponent. Unlike other sports, football doesn’t have the luxury of a preseason scrimmage to iron out some of the wrinkles and kinks.
“From a scheme standpoint there is no question season openers are the toughest to prepare for,” Rodriguez said. “Even if a team that you’re familiar with … you never know what they’re going to do differently in the first game on offense, defense and special teams. Scheme wise you’ve almost got to prepare for everything but you can’t prepare for everything.”
On the flip side, Rodriguez concedes it won’t be difficult getting his team motivated to play the first game before a large and raucous crowd in the opener.
“From a motivation standpoint it’s easy because everybody is anxious to play,” he said. “They’ve been working hard all summer.”
Briefly: West Virginia owns a 35-8 record against teams from Conference USA … WVU is 13-2 all-time against East Carolina … East Carolina will be facing its highest ranked opponent since squaring off against No. 2-ranked Miami (Fla.) last year ( a 38-3 Hurricane win) … ECU has lost its last three season openers to Wake Forest, Duke and Cincinnati … The Pirates’ last season-opening win came against Duke to begin the 2000 campaign … East Carolina has only won three of its last 13 season openers including a 30-23 win over West Virginia in the ’99 opener in Charlotte … the Mountaineer Maniacs will have a pre-game pep rally on Friday, Sept. 3, at 5 pm in front of the MountainLair … traffic will be closed in front of the Lair from 4:30 pm to 7 :30 pm … the entire WVU team including Coach Rich Rodriguez, the Mountaineer Marching Band and the WVU cheerleaders, will be on hand for the event … West Virginia is 86-18-6 (80.9 percent) all-time in home openers … since selling out the Ohio State opener (68,409) in 1998, WVU has averaged just 52,340 for its ensuing five home openers against Miami (Ohio), Boston College, Ohio, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Wisconsin … tickets are still available for Saturday’s opener against East Carolina and can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging onto WVUGAME.com.
