Syracuse Preview
September 01, 2005 10:50 AM | General
September 1, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – This Sunday West Virginia will do something it hasn’t done since 2001: open a football season on the road. The Mountaineers will take on Syracuse in the regular season lid lifter for both teams. The game will be televised nationally on ABC.
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has 14 first-time players on his two-deep heading into Sunday's Syracuse game.
Sports Communications photo |
“The last time we did it it wasn’t very good,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez in reference to his team’s 34-10 loss at Boston College in the 2001 opener. “It started off good and then ended bad. But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
Rodriguez is doubly concerned about a road opener that also serves as the team’s conference opener. He says winning the Big East is always at the top of his program’s list of objectives.
“Everything is intensified with a conference game,” he said. “No matter who you play people are going to be excited but I think because it’s a conference game … the first goal of just about every team is to win the conference. You start off the bat with a conference game and the magnitude of it becomes that much higher.”
West Virginia has 14 new players peppered into its two-deep roster headed to Syracuse, but the most attention has been focused on the team’s two new quarterbacks Adam Bednarik and Pat White. Rodriguez has said repeatedly that both will play Sunday against the Orange although he hasn’t revealed a starter yet.
“I don’t think it is as important who takes the first snap as it is who’s ready to play,” he said.
Rodriguez says the two have alternated with the first group in practice by design.
“I have never alternated guys with the first team as much as these two guys and I did that purposely to see if it would affect the flow and the rhythm of the offense and it hasn’t happened at all. That’s why I feel so good about them,” he said.
The coach is also confident they will be able to handle the noise that will accompany a sold-out Carrier Dome.
“Adam and Pat both have the right type of temperament that they’ll go out there and just play and not worry about the atmosphere,” he said. “We’ve got to do a good job of not putting them in too many difficult situations but Syracuse is going to have something to do with that.”
Syracuse will be breaking in plenty of new players as well. Eleven new players are listed on the Syracuse two-deep: six on offense and five on defense. Leading the Orange is first-time head coach Greg Robinson, who said on Monday the last time he was a head coach was in college running his intramural football team.
The biggest area of concern for Robinson offensively is wide receiver where both juniors Tim Lane and Landel Bembo are first-time starters. Backing up Bembo at X receiver is promising true freshman Bruce Williams, a local product.
“He’s like clockwork,” said Robinson. “He’s a guy who you can count on.”
Junior quarterback Perry Patterson won the starting job over sophomore Joe Fields during fall camp and has plenty of experience. Last year he completed 168 of 289 pass attempts for 1,851 yards and seven touchdowns. Patterson also threw 10 interceptions. Against West Virginia last year in Morgantown, Patterson completed 23 of 37 passes for 249 yards.
Despite incorporating a new West Coast offense designed to spread the football around, Robinson’s best offensive weapon remains senior tailback Damien Rhodes. Last year Rhodes ran for 870 yards and scored 10 touchdowns. During the off-season Robinson challenged Rhodes to become an even better all-around back this year.
“He’s worked very hard and that’s what I’ve asked him to do,” Robinson said. “His dream is to go on to professional football and I thought he had a lot of work still ahead of him.”
Blocking for Rhodes is an experienced offensive line that has three veterans returning in senior offensive guards Jason Greene and Steve Franklin, and senior tackle Quinn Ojinnaka. Tight end Joe Kawalewski is also an experienced player.
On the other side of the ball is where Robinson’s imprint will be most evident. The former NFL defensive coordinator is taking over an Orange defense that permitted 51 points to Georgia Tech in the Champs Sports Bowl last year in Orlando. Robinson will have six returning starters to work with including one of the conference’s most dominant defenders in senior left end James Wyche.
Junior middle linebacker Kelvin Smith and senior strongside linebacker Kellen Pruitt are solid returners, as are senior defensive tackle Kader Drame, junior left corner Tanard Jackson and senior free safety Anthony Smith. Except for sophomore nose tackle Tony Jenkins and senior right corner Deandre LaCaille all of the defensive backups have yet to earn a letter.
West Virginia has prepared for Robinson’s variety of blitzes by looking at tape of last year’s Texas defense where he served as Mack Brown’s defensive coordinator and also in the NFL when he ran both the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs defenses.
“When he needs a stop he usually blitzes,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez expects mistakes by both teams. He just hopes his team doesn’t commit any major miscues early.
“In a first game there are going to be mistakes made and hopefully they’ll make some, too. We’re going to have to relax early because it’s probably going to be a high-charged atmosphere coming out of the gates and we’ve got to make sure we don’t make many crucial, critical mistakes early in the game to dig ourselves a hole,” he said.
In an effort to get his young team accustomed to the noise they will face inside the Carrier Dome, Rodriguez had artificial noise piped into the stadium this week.
“Communication is absolutely critical, especially when you’ve got guys playing for the first time,” he said.
The coach would also prefer to play on Saturday to begin getting into a weekly routine.
“It’s a hassle because you get into a routine,” he said. “You’d like to play every game on Saturday at 1 o’clock just like the old days. But it’s also exciting on the other hand because you get national exposure. Some of the reasons we’ve been able to recruit pretty well the last couple of years have been some of our mid-week national TV games. This is the first time I’ve ever played on Sunday. That’s the state of the world we live in now with college football.”
Sunday’s game will kick off at 1:30 pm. MSN’s radio coverage begins at 1 pm with the pre-game show.
Briefly:
“You don’t want to overload them scheme wise but you’ve got to do enough to have success,” he said.
“The reason I feel better is because we’re healthier there,” he said.
Because there isn’t a Chris Henry to throw to Rodriguez says the passing game will change a little bit this year.
“A lot of things we were repping in practice and not running we’re repping in practice and planning on running this year,” he said.
“We’re prepared to throw the ball a little more this year if we have to and try and get a little more balance,” said Rodriguez. “But I’m not going to keep a chart on how many runs and passes we have: I just want to score points and win.”
“I’m real excited about the young guys we have in the program and I’m looking forward to seeing how they’re going to play,” he said. “I’m sure they’re going to be nervous. If I didn’t have a game to coach it’d be a lot of fun to watch them myself.
“We’ve got to remain calm as a coaching staff because our young players are going to be as nervous as can be. I don’t want them feel any more pressure from us getting excited,” Rodriguez added.
