By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
December 6, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez is a proponent of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and correctly points out that it served its purpose this year by pairing USC against Texas in the national championship game in the Rose Bowl.
“Think back before the BCS, would Texas have played USC?” he asked. “USC would have played Penn State and that would have been a pretty good game but what happens if Texas won their game big and USC won their game big? You have co-national champions. The way the BCS was set up was for a year like this year: Tow teams that everyone feels that were the best are playing.”
A relaxed Rodriguez tossed out a few zingers during his Monday afternoon press conference:
Asked if he thought his team was prepared for the media attention it was about to receive heading into the Sugar Bowl Rodriguez answered, “I don’t think it will be a problem. This is our first press conference and it looks like our numbers are down one or two,” he said pointing to all of the empty seats in the team meeting room.
Asked later if a win over Georgia would enhance the Big East’s standing Rodriguez replied, “I’m not going to jump off the Westover Bridge if we don’t beat Georgia. But we may have a parade downtown if we do.”
Rodriguez also made a comparison between Grant Town, W.Va. (his hometown) and Atlanta.
“They have a few more stoplights in Atlanta than they do in Grant Town,” he laughed. “I hope they have someone to show me where to go because I’ll get lost in a hurry. It took me two years to figure out New Orleans and then I left. Atlanta is bigger than that.”
Rodriguez recalled his only other experience playing a football game in the Georgia Dome when he was an assistant coach at Clemson facing Mississippi State in the Peach Bowl.
“They allowed (Mississippi State fans) to bring their cowbells in,” Rodriguez said. “They were pretty salty on defense and my ears were ringing for a week listening to those cowbells. It was as loud a place as I’ve ever been in.”
Rodriguez said his assistant coaches were in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Western Pennsylvania recruiting this week.
Here is the first of many statistics you need to remember for West Virginia’s game against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl: turnover margin. The Bulldogs are plus-14 in turnover margin while West Virginia is plus-11. Turnovers helped Georgia upset LSU in the SEC championship game.
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Quarterback Pat White is now second on WVU's single-season rushing list for quarterbacks with 875 yards.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
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Pat White is now second on the WVU single-season quarterback rushing list with 875 yards, moving ahead of Rasheed Marshall’s 2004 total of 861. Major Harris holds the school record with 936 yards in 1989. White would have to get 62 yards against Georgia’s nationally ranked defense in the Sugar Bowl to eclipse Major’s record.
According to a report released Monday, 41 percent of this year’s bowl-bound teams failed to meet the NCAA’s new academic standards and almost half lack a 50-percent graduation rate. The NCAA uses an Academic Progress Rate (APR) to measure a school’s academic performance. A satisfactory score for an institution is 925 meaning schools that fall below that number could face recruiting restrictions and lose scholarships beginning next year.
Two conferences, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East, had every one of their bowl-bound schools receive an APR score higher than 925, and all the teams in both conferences were in the top 25 of APR rankings for bowl-bound schools.
All five of the Pac-10’s bowl-bound teams scored less than 925.
Be sure to catch the National Football Foundation Awards Dinner tonight on CSTV All-Access. Former West Virginia coach Don Nehlen will officially be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
The program is free.
Did you realize that Notre Dame is trying to snap a seven-game bowl losing streak in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State? One more loss by the Irish will put them into a tie with South Carolina and West Virginia for the most consecutive bowl losses in NCAA history.
Arkansas coach Houston Nutt said he apologized to Rodriguez for accidentally leaving West Virginia off his final regular season Top 25 poll, made public by USA Today on Monday.
“It was a mistake, an oversight on our part,” Nutt told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “I don’t know how we left West Virginia out. Somehow, we got mixed up when we were moving a couple other teams up and down.”
Nutt admitted he received emails from some West Virginia fans. “They’re upset about it, and I understand their feelings,” he said.
I know this is beginning to look like a compulsion on my part, but I just can’t resist having some more fun with our friends up in Boston. Someone passed along to me a story from today’s Boston Herald quoting BC coach Tom O’Brien on the prospect of his team facing Boise State in Boise, Idaho, on Dec. 28.
“I’m sure (the players) are disappointed,” he said. “They felt they played their way into one of the Florida games. But sometimes you don’t get out of life what you give, so it’s a tough lesson for some of them to learn. But we still have a lot to play for. It’s for our ninth win; it’s to keep our bowl streak alive and it’s the legacy of this senior class.”
Boston College has a very fine team this year and probably deserves to be in a January bowl game, but when you only travel 16 people things like this can happen.
By the way, I’m sure the folks at the MPC Computers Bowl were thrilled to read O’Brien’s comments this morning.
I have a little more sympathy for our friends down in Blacksburg, Va., having ourselves gone through what the Hokies are now enduring. Not only did Tech get knocked out of a BCS bowl berth by a four-loss Florida State team in the ACC championship game, but the Hokie men’s basketball team suffered a last-second loss to Duke on a half-court shot last Sunday.
Of course, if the ACC didn’t have a championship game Virginia Tech would have been the conference’s representative in the Orange Bowl.
“You want a championship game and sometimes you pay the price,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez. “(The ACC) is still going to get their BCS money because they’re going to have a BCS representative, but sometimes those championship games will knock out a BCS berth.”
Assistant marketing director Matt Wells informs me that tomorrow’s West Virginia-UMBC game is a Dairy Mart 2-for-1 game. You can pick up a coupon at any local Dairy Mart store and redeem it at the Mountaineer Ticket Office to receive two tickets for the price of one.
Congratulations to Mike Lorello for being named to the Sports Illustrated’s All-American second team. Lorello tied linebacker Boo McLee for the team lead with 74 tackles and also had seven tackles for losses, three sacks and three interceptions.
The guess here is that when the all-Big East football teams are announced in the near future West Virginia will probably wind up with Dan Mozes as a first-teamer on offense, and Mike Lorello, Jahmile Addae and possibly Boo McLee on the first-team defense. Antonio Lewis has a shot of making the team as a specialist.
I say Pat White and Steve Slaton are co-players of the year with Rich Rodriguez a unanimous choice as the league’s the coach of the year.
Look for Louisville’s Brian Brohm and defensive end Elvis Dumervil to sweep the offensive and defensive player of the year awards. Dumervil has already won the Nagurski Trophy as college football’s top defensive player.
From the looks of things so far, I have to say Connecticut, Villanova and Louisville are clearly the three best men’s basketball teams in the Big East Conference this year. After that, there is a logjam of Big East schools that could beat each other on any given night.
West Virginia’s losses to Kentucky and LSU sting a little bit more now after LSU dropped an 84-83 overtime decision at home to Houston and Kentucky was beaten at home by North Carolina.
Don’t forget, you have two chances to catch the Mountaineer basketball team in person this week against Maryland Baltimore-County Wednesday night and then Duquesne on Saturday. The Duquesne game tips off at noon to accommodate ESPN Plus television.
Have a great week!
Note: the views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of West Virginia University or the Mountaineer Sports Network.
