September 29 Notebook
September 29, 2004 02:24 PM | General
September 29, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Take a Virginia Tech maroon number three jersey and slap it on Rasheed Marshall’s back or pull a West Virginia blue number two jersey over Bryan Randall’s shoulder pads – it doesn’t matter – the two are practically interchangeable. In fact, the similarities between Marshall and Randall are almost eerie.
Consider this:
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| Virginia Tech quarterback Bryan Randall has accounted for 41 touchdowns during his career.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Randall’s career was left for dead two seasons ago when Michael Vick’s younger brother Marcus arrived in Blacksburg. The two actually shared quarterbacking duties last year and Randall’s starting status was in doubt as late as last spring until Vick ran into legal troubles during last off-season and was forced to spend this year on a team-imposed suspension.
Marshall never had to share quarterbacking duties with backup Charles Hales, but there were some Mountaineer fans who wanted to see more of Hales after his three-touchdown passing effort in a win at Boston College last year -- especially after Marshall struggled mightily in a pair of losses to Maryland last season.
West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez even went as far as to name Marshall the starter after spring practice just to make sure everyone knew where he was coming from.
Rodriguez, for one, believes the two quarterbacks playing in Saturday’s game have had near-identical career paths.
“They both understand the offenses; they can run and throw,” he said. “They will both probably be the key components as far as moving the football. Both have probably taken criticism unfairly throughout their careers.”
Marshall and Randall are each about the same height, though Rodriguez points out that Randall is a little heavier than Marshall.
“Rasheed is not as big as Bryan,” he said. “He is not as thick but Rasheed may be a little faster. They’re both really good athletes.”
And while both can do similar things both throwing and running with the football, the offenses they play in are somewhat different.
“They probably have been more traditional with two backs and we’ve been more of a one-back team,” said Rodriguez. “Other than that I think they use him the same as far as options and things we do out of the shot gun where he has the option to keep it or give it. We’re probably more of a one-back, bootleg and naked type of formation team than they are.”
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| West Virginia quarterback Rasheed Marshall is now 20-9 as a starter.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Rasheed’s critics point to his sometimes erratic throws that have led to a 51 percent completion percentage heading into this season. But Marshall has become a much more accurate passer this season, completing better than 60 percent of his throws so far.
Rodriguez says there are many reasons for this, “Part of it involves protection, it involves the receiver running the right route and catching the ball,” he said. “(Rasheed) has still got ways that he can improve but I think he’s better now than he’s ever been because he is trusting the offense more and he’s trusting what he sees more.”
The coach outlined the normal progression of a college quarterback: “Number one, he’s got to trust what it is you are doing. Then the second process is he has to know what they’re doing,” said Rodriguez. “You’ve got to understand the first one before you can understand the second one.
“He’s always understood what we were doing but I think he has a better grasp now of how teams are defending him than at any time during his career.”
Lyndon Johnson once said that the worst thing that can happen to a politician is to be found in bed with a dead woman or a live man. Well, the worst thing that can happen to a college quarterback is to be labeled interception-prone.
Marshall has always been able to avoid that.
He had a streak of 125 straight attempts from the end of his freshman season in 2001 until the fifth game of his sophomore campaign where he didn’t throw a single pick. He is currently on a 60-attempt streak without an interception after throwing two in the opener against East Carolina. Marshall has a very solid 34-to-19 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He has also never thrown an interception for a touchdown in 628 career pass attempts.
“He takes off and runs sometimes and he hasn’t forced anything,” said Rodriguez. “That’s the biggest thing we try to stress to all of our players.”
Interception avoidance is probably the one area Marshall has an advantage over Randall, who tossed three interceptions in last year’s loss at WVU and has thrown 26 interceptions for his career. Still, Randall has a very solid 32-26 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Whichever quarterback avoids the big mistakes Saturday will probably be the one on the winning side of the ledger.
Rodriguez agrees: “If you have no turnovers you usually win the game.”
Notebook:
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| WVU cheerleader Andrea Bianchi is a Harrisburg, Pa., native.
Athlon Sports |
“When Chris got his penalty believe it or not Pac-Man said, ‘Listen, that is going to cost us in a close game.’ The message is getting there slowly but surely if Pac-Man is being the unsportsmanlike police for me,” Rodriguez said.
“In NAIA you go the same day of the game,” said Rodriguez, who used to coach at NAIA Glenville State and Salem. “You wake up and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at six, you bus down there, play the game and have the leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on your way back.
“Here we go down the day before, eat a nice meal, stay in a nice hotel and have some chicken fingers before we come back,” he said.
Now, the women’s cross country team jumped nine spots in the FinishLynx national ratings from No. 30 last week to No. 21 this week. The Mountaineers finished seventh out of 29 teams at the Roy Griak Invitational, placing ahead of four nationally ranked foes. The team has been bolstered by the return of Tara Struyk, who was awarded a sixth season of eligibility for the Mountaineers. Struyk placed 12th at the Griak Invitational, seven spots behind WVU All-American Megan Metcalfe’s fifth-place finish.
The Mountaineers are also ranked second in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
According to the paper, Penn State’s athletic budget of $50 million could be in jeopardy if attendance at Nittany Lion home football games continues to dwindle. The football stadium’s capacity is listed at 107,282 and the attendance for the Central Florida game was announced at 101,715, though the Patriot-News speculated that the actual attendance was closer to 90,000.
Penn State president Graham Spanier listed several financial issues that his school’s athletic department must contend with. Primarily he says lower revenue streams are expected from television contracts because of less advertising due to TiVO and VCR programming. Also, most universities are also experiencing fewer state-appropriated dollars and have had to make up for the difference through tuition increases, which some athletic departments, including West Virginia University, must contend with.
The Patriot-News listed revenue from Penn State’s football program at $46.2 million with $12.7 million in expenditures. The only other PSU program to generate revenue was men’s basketball, which made a $2.6 million profit mainly through TV money divided up by the Big Ten.
By comparison, according to last year’s NCAA Gender Equity Survey covering the 2002-03 academic year, the Mountaineer football team generated $13.8 million in revenue and spent $6.5 million for a $7.3 million profit. The men’s basketball team made about an $800,000 profit during 2002-03.
West Virginia’s total athletic budget for the 2002-03 academic year was $29 million – or $21 million less than Penn State’s $50 million budget.
As you can see, it costs a lot of money to run a big-time athletic department these days.
Have a great week and enjoy Saturday’s game!
