Pitt Preview
November 23, 2005 12:35 PM | General
November 23, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – In a football series that has seen the underdog win the last two games, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has plenty to be concerned about when his 8-1, nationally ranked Mountaineer team faces 5-5 Pitt Thursday night in the 98th renewal of the ‘Backyard Brawl.”
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| Since 1955, the two teams have identical 24-24-2 records making the "Backyard Brawl" one of college football's most competitive rivalries.
William McBride photo |
“I worry about all of them,” Rodriguez said Tuesday. “I don’t worry about getting the guys emotionally ready because playing Pitt -- that’s easy. I just want them to go out and concentrate on their assignments and play good football and not get caught up in the external factors.”
Despite having a .500 record this year with a veteran team, Pitt presents plenty of problems for West Virginia. The Panthers have won four of their last five games after a 1-4 start, and have one of the conference’s top playmakers in junior quarterback Tyler Palko.
The Imperial, Pa., resident isn’t posting the same type of passing figures he did as a sophomore in former coach Walt Harris’ West Coast system, but some of that is by design. Coach Dave Wannstedt prefers to establish the run game first and then use Palko’s arm.
Yet in Palko’s last seven games he’s thrown 14 touchdowns and just three interceptions and is averaging 222 yards per game during that stretch. Contrast that with one TD pass and four interceptions in Palko’s first three games of the year.
Overall he’s completed 169 of 298 passes for 2,084 yards and 15 touchdowns. Palko is now fifth on Pitt’s career passing list with 5,164 yards and is sixth in total offense with 5,165 yards.
Rodriguez says he unsuccessfully tried to recruit Palko when he played for his father Bob Palko at West Allegheny High School.
“I thought he was one of the best prospects in the entire East and he’s proven that. He’s a winner, he’s a competitor and he has all of the intangibles. There is no question the key to Pitt’s football team is Tyler Palko,” Rodriguez said.
The Panthers have other weapons on an offense that is averaging 25.4 points and 326.4 yards per game. Wide receiver Greg Lee leads the team with 43 receptions for 820 yards and five touchdowns. Lee also leads the Big East Conference with 82.0 receiving yards per game and is averaging an impressive 19.1 yards per catch.
Tailbacks Raymond Kirkley (5-10, 225, Sr.), Laron Stephens-Howling (5-7, 165, Fr.) and Rashad Jennings (6-1, 235, Fr.) provide Pitt with an interesting blend of speed and power.
Kirkley is Pitt’s most experienced tailback making 29 starts and is the team’s second leading rusher with 351 yards on 82 carries for a 4.3 yards-per-carry average. Jennings combines both speed and power and has gained 342 yards and scored a touchdown in seven games and was the team’s starting tailback until a shoulder injury sidelined him for three straight games to close out September.
In his place emerged Stephens-Howling, a 5-foot-7-inch, 165-pound speedster who gives Pitt a big-play threat. The Johnstown, Pa., resident leads the team in rushing with 389 yards and ran for a career-high 101 yards in a home win against Syracuse.
Stephens-Howling also excels as a kickoff returner, earlier this year taking the opening kick the distance in a road loss at Ohio.
“He’s a fast guy,” said Rodriguez. “He’s made big plays for them and he concerns you because if he gets a crease he can take it the distance. You always worry about fast guys particularly when you miss a tackle or take a bad angle.”
Pitt’s offensive line is one of the biggest West Virginia will see this year with a trio of 325-plus-pounders at both tackles and at right guard. Freshman left guard C.J. Davis is Pitt’s smallest starting offensive lineman at 290 pounds.
“I think they’ve found what they want to do in all three phases,” Rodriguez says. “I think they have more confidence, you can tell by the way they are playing and you can tell by the results of their games.”
Rodriguez wouldn’t be surprised to see Pitt use everything in its bag Thursday night, including trying some trick plays.
“With a rivalry game you’ve got to prepare for everything,” Rodriguez said. “We know they are going to do trick plays. Throw the records out the window along with all of the coaching clichés because you better be ready to play.”
Defensively, Pitt has a run-stopper in the middle in junior linebacker H.B. Blades, and a pair of lock-down corners in sophomore Darrelle Revis and senior Josh Lay.
“You notice a little bit of a difference in their schemes defensively and I’m sure Coach Wannstedt has something to do with that,” said Rodriguez. “But they’ve been very good defensively under (defensive coordinator Paul) Rhodes.”
The Panthers have been most successful stopping the run when defensive tackle Thomas Smith has been healthy, but the 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound senior has been slowed by a nagging toe injury.
“Thomas Smith is doing better than he was last week,” said Wannstedt. “He’s not 100 percent. We’ll see where he’s at as we get closer to game time.”
Wannstedt has also inserted junior Clint Session back into the starting lineup at the SAM linebacker position. Derron Thomas will back up Session.
“(Session) probably would have come out of training camp as a starter had he not gotten hurt,” said Wannstedt. “Then he had an ankle and then he had a knee. So you combine all those things and it put him behind a little bit.”
Overall, the Panthers ranked 24th nationally in total defense giving up an average of 322.6 yards per game. It’s the first time Pitt has been ranked among the nation’s top 25 defenses since the 2002 season.
West Virginia also possesses one of the country’s top defenses, ranking fourth in the nation giving up only 269.8 yards per game. The Mountaineers’ are also fourth in rushing defense permitting 91.2 yards per contest.
There are no stars on West Virginia’s defense this year, but its unorthodox scheme, overall speed and aggressive play has impressed Wannstedt.
“It’s kind of like playing a wishbone team on offense,” Wannstedt said. “We used to play the wishbone teams when we were at Oklahoma State and Miami. We always felt like that was their biggest advantage, besides having real good players.”
Safeties Mike Lorello and Jahmile Addae are two of West Virignia’s top three tacklers. Lorello is tied with linebacker Boo McLee for the team lead with 60 stops, followed by Addae with 49 tackles.
“If you look at the statistics, you see their two strong safeties are involved with sacks in a lot of plays,” Wannstedt said. “The disguise element of rushing people and blitzing people -- they do a very good job of that.”
West Virginia’s offense has been a work in progress, with a pair of young co-starters beginning the season at quarterback in sophomore Adam Bednarik and redshirt freshman Pat White.
But since the Louisville game when White engineered a 17-point fourth-quarter comeback, West Virginia has averaged 43 points per game against the Cardinals, Connecticut and Cincinnati. White and true freshman running back Steve Slaton have been the primary catalysts.
White has thrown for a pair of touchdowns in his last two games and run for two more, topping the 100-yard mark on the ground for the second time this year in a 38-0 win at Cincinnati. Slaton has emerged as one of the nation’s most exciting young running backs, scoring a conference-record tying six touchdowns in the Louisville win and adding four TDs in his last game against Cincinnati. A vast majority of Slaton’s team-best 659 yards this season have come in his last five games.
“They’re probably as fast as anybody we’ve played, almost at every position,” said Wannstedt. “Their running back; their quarterback makes as many big plays as anybody they have. They’ve got speed at the wide receiver positions.”
Brandon Myles is West Virginia’s top pass catcher with 28 receptions for 456 yards and three touchdowns.
Thursday night’s game will kick off at 8 pm and will be televised nationally on ESPN. The game has been a sell-out for weeks.
“They’re trying to get bowl eligible so they’ve got a lot at stake,” Rodriguez said. “But I’m not worried about what Pitt has at stake -- I’m worried about what we have at stake. Anytime West Virginia and Pitt plays there is always going to be a lot to play for on both sides. We see each other, we go against each other in recruiting and it’s not the end of the world if we don’t win, and it’s not the end of the world if they don’t win, but there happens to be a lot at stake.”
Rodriguez says his formula for success on Thanksgiving night will be no different than any other game this year. “Be smart with the football, don’t give up the big play defensively, be sound on special teams and play smart, sound football,” he said. “That’s the formula we’ve kind of followed in the games we’ve won and it won’t be any different in this one.”
