By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
August 2, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Some leftovers from football coach Rich Rodriguez’ pre-camp media teleconference last Thursday:
Coach Rod on his team’s linebacker corps heading into fall camp: “Even though we lost some linebackers we will be able to play more of them this year,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of linebackers that have a chance to play because they’re all close in ability.”
On his team’s youth and inexperience: “We’ve got to do a lot of teaching and we’ve got to have a lot of patience and that’s probably the hardest part as coaches,” he remarked. “We expect a certain level of play with no mistakes and with the young guys we know we’re going to get (mistakes) but we’ve got to limit them and we’ve got to do a good job of teaching them.”
On his team’s physical conditioning: “I’ve gotten great reports from the strength staff that they’ve worked hard during the summer. Our expectations for the program will never change even though we may be under the radar a little bit having lost some key players. We still expect them to play at a high level and we expect them to expect the same thing.”
On having to face a wishbone team in Wofford just six days after its season-opener at Syracuse on Sept. 4: “I don’t know how much practice we’ll do against it in camp. A lot of people say, ‘Why in the heck are you playing Wofford?’ You’ve got to remember that Central Florida dropped us in February and it’s kind of hard to pick up a Division I home game that quickly. So you’ve got to almost find an I-AA and as it turns out Wofford is a quality team.”
Briefly:
| |
 |
| |
A view of the soon-to-be-completed WVU Coliseum floor with new Big East logos.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
|
ESPN.com’s Andy Katz revealed his August listing of the top 50 preseason John Wooden Award candidates and at No. 17 is West Virginia’s Kevin Pittsnogle. Katz listed three Connecticut players (Rudy Gay, Josh Boone and Marcus Williams), two Villanova players (Randy Foye and Curtis Sumpter) and one each from Syracuse (Gerry McNamara), Pitt (Carl Krauser), Louisville (Taquan Dean) and Cincinnati (Eric Hicks).
Despite Pittsnogle’s rising popularity he will be the second most famous student on WVU’s campus this fall. The top distinction goes to Jessica Lynch, who will begin on-campus classes this fall after taking online courses last semester. Lynch indicated that she would like to become an elementary school teacher.
The Coliseum floor is undergoing a facelift. The new Big East logos and the lighter color makes a big difference.
A total of 28 former Mountaineer football players are in NFL training camps as of Tuesday, Aug. 2. Here is the list:
AFC
Dolphins: Kay-Jay Harris
Jets: Eddie Jackson
Bengals: Chris Henry; Quincy Wilson; Rich Braham; John Thornton
Browns: Corey McIntyre
Steelers: Mike Logan
Texas: Tim Brown; Jason Davis
Colts: Mike Vanderjagt
Jaguars: Mike Compton
Titans: Pacman Jones
Broncos: Todd Sauerbrun
Chiefs: John Browning; Gary Stills
Raiders: Jerry Porter
NFC
Cowboys: Lance Frazier
Giants: Barrett Green
Redskins: Antonio Brown
Lions: James Davis
Vikings: Grant Wiley
Falcons: Antwan Lake
Panthers: Mike Watson
Buccaneers: Anthony Becht; Lance Nimmo
Rams: Marc Bulger
49ers: Rasheed Marshall
Two long-time NFL veterans Aaron Beasley and Amos Zereoue are currently looking for work. Beasley was released last spring by the Atlanta Falcons and Zereoue was waived by the Oakland Raiders.
Former WVU receiver Chris Henry showed his feistiness during Oklahoma drills at Cincinnati Bengals camp on Monday. Henry knocked off safety Madieu Williams’ helmet during a blocking drill. According to Cincinnati Bengals team web site, head coach Marvin Lewis looked on with approval. Henry has been drawing raves all summer for his size and athletic ability.
“I think this kid, when the lights come on, he comes on,” said Bengals receiver coach Hue Jackson. “That’s good because we play under the lights.”
I got a nice email from Andy Peters, who read in last week’s Campus Connection that I was doing a year-long feature on the 1975 Peach Bowl season. Peters was a starting defensive end on the ‘75 team and today lives and works in Pasadena, Calif. His daughter Erin was a member of Nikki Izzo-Brown’s first WVU women’s soccer team in 1996 and he has a son who is a sophomore at West Virginia this fall.
Andy says he remains an avid Mountaineer fan.
I also recently received a note from Richmond lawyer Bob Jacobs, who is helping get started a $25,000 scholarship for a Richmond-area student to attend WVU. The Central Virginia Chapter of the WVU Alumni Association will have a golf tournament on Sunday, Aug. 18, at the Crossing Golf Course in Glen Allen, Va.
Special guest at this year’s event is former WVU football coach Don Nehlen, a recent inductee into the college football hall of fame. For those interested in attending the event, the CVCWVUAA has developed a web site that can be accessed at http://www.cvcwvu.org/CVCGolfTournament.htm.
According to CNNSI.com’s Pete McEntegart, former West Virginia wide receiver Jerry Porter showed up for the first day of training camp at Oakland in a FedEx uniform. Porter’s explanation: he wanted to show the team that he’s a “working man.”
College basketball recruiters can resume text messaging, emailing and instant messaging prospects now that the July recruiting period is over. According to the Cincinnati Post, one top college prospect says he receives about 50 text messages a day and many prospects now prefer to be contacted solely by telephone.
The NCAA approved the use of text messaging and instant messaging as recruiting methods last summer. Despite limiting the number of telephone calls a recruit can receive, a recruit can receive an unlimited number of text messages.
The Post said in an informal poll of the top prospects at Nike All-America Camp and AAU tournaments in Las Vegas that Arizona assistant coach Josh Pastner is the unofficial king of text messengers. Look for a measure by the NCAA to limit this practice in the near future.
The honeymoon continues at South Carolina for new coach Steve Spurrier, even though he recently revoked the scholarships of six Lou Holtz recruits because he didn’t feel they were good enough to play for him. The move has caused the South Carolina Football Coaches Association Board of Directors to call Spurrier’s decision “unethical” and to issue a formal protest.
Spurrier’s decision to pull the scholarships hasn’t impacted season ticket sales, however. The Gamecocks have sold more than 62,000 season tickets so far this year. When you combine that with Clemson’s season ticket sales, South Carolinians will have purchased well over 100,000 football season tickets this year.
Amazing.
I saw an interesting argument concerning the NCAA’s recent decision to limit football media guides to just 208 pages this year, forcing many schools to cut in half the size of their books. Said one college sports information director, “The NCAA doesn’t limit the size of stadiums or the weight of offensive tackles, so why are they limiting the size of media guides?”
He went on to point out that there is much more football history at Notre Dame then there is at Nevada, yet the two schools are required to have the same sized media guides.
North Carolina was the primary advocate of reducing the size of brochures, arguing that sports information departments are spending too much time and money producing media guides when they can be using that same time to get to know their teams better and pitch feature-story ideas to local newspapers. They also rationalized that any savings derived from the measure can be funneled to non-revenue sports.
Hmm.
I saw in today’s local newspaper that a Pennsylvania developer plans to construct a 20-story office building in downtown Morgantown on University Avenue next to the Bartlett House. This is in addition to a 12-story condominium planned across the street overlooking the river. And just down the street is the beautiful, brand new 18-story Radisson hotel that has revitalized the city’s Wharf District.
I bring this up because it affords me the opportunity to tell an amusing story. During my discussion with running back Artie Owens a few weeks ago about the 1975 Peach Bowl season, we got on the subject of how much Morgantown has changed in the last 30 years. Owens lived in the Towers dormitories in Evansdale and recalls having to hitchhike downtown just to see different people.
He says one of the biggest moments during his four years in Morgantown came when McDonald’s finally opened across the street from Towers.
“It was like Las Vegas to us,” he laughed.
Yes, Morgantown has changed quite a bit in the last 30 years.
Have a great week!
