September 12 Notebook
September 12, 2005 02:54 PM | General
September 12, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It’s been nine years since West Virginia last led the country in total defense. It's only two weeks into the 2005 season but the Mountaineers are back on top allowing just 128.5 yards per game against Syracuse and Wofford.
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| West Virginia defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel explains a technique during fall camp.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
How they do this weekend against Maryland will go a long way in determining whether or not this year’s defense measures up to the 1996 unit that featured consensus All-American linebacker Canute Curtis, and future pros Mike Logan, Gary Stills and John Thornton.
According to Coach Rich Rodriguez, team speed may be West Virginia’s biggest asset on defense this year.
“As a group our big guys move pretty well and I think our linebackers move pretty good, too, although they’re not very big,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve been able to chase people down.”
One reason why West Virginia has played so well this year is because all of the players in the system are now used to it.
“They’re growing up in the odd stack defense and it’s giving us some flexibility now,” Rodriguez said. “Even though we’re playing younger players we’re able to do more out of this system. Whenever you feel comfortable enough as a defensive coach to add more to the package … that’s going to give you a few more things for them to prepare for.”
Even though its four years old now, West Virginia’s odd-stack, 3-3 scheme is still not being utilized by a lot of college teams.
“It’s different,” Rodriguez said. “I think any defense if you’ve got good players and they’re disciplined in their techniques they can have success with it. For us (the odd stack) fits our personnel and it’s what our coaches know. One of the keys is that our defensive staff is very in-tuned to the strengths and weaknesses of our defense.
“Our staff and players are committed to it, believe in it, and now we’re able to recruit to it,” he said.
Saturday the odd stack will get its biggest test against a Maryland team well known for putting together impressive and varied offensive game plans.
More Maryland Notes:
“Dan played pretty well,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to wait a couple of days to see how that pans out. Being that it was his first action at center he did some positive things and played pretty well.”
“After the game in the locker room I asked them, ‘You all know who’s next?’ They all shouted out Maryland. You don’t have to say much about Maryland to our players,” he said.
“Two years ago we got killed by them and wound up having a pretty good season,” Rodriguez said. “It is a good test because Coach Friedgen and his staff have done such a good job.”
“They’ve got a lot of players that we’ve tried to recruit and they’ve lost to Clemson but there is no question our players and coaches know how strong, how physical, and how good they are,” he said.
“It was a big win for Clemson last weekend,” Rodriguez said. “They were down and out and they came back in the last quarter to win it.”
Today Clemson is operating a completely different offense than when Rodriguez was coordinating it in 1999 and 2000.
“The rule is if the ball goes straight over the top of the goal post then they have to consider it no good because it would hit the goal post,” Rodriguez said. “It was close.”
“I think it’s a matter of our defense getting a lot of three and outs,” said Rodriguez. “They’ve been doing a great job.”
The Mountaineers were also able to sustain long drives in its most recent victory against Wofford, producing TD drives of 10, 10 and 14 plays.
“We had four long drives and three of them were 10 plays or more so that was good,” Rodriguez said.
The coach admitted that if the perimeter blocking would have been a little better some of those drives may not have been as long.
“We could have gotten bigger plays,” he said.
Briefly:
Edwards is scheduled to speak at 7 pm and the discussion is free to the public.
As you can see, West Virginia’s varsity sports teams have benefited greatly by being members of the Big East Conference and many of them are now playing national schedules.
Let the Big East bashing begin!
Speaking of talking heads, I wonder what Trev Alberts is doing these days?
Now I understand why my mother told me all of those times when I was young to get away from the TV and go outside and play.
Thankfully I did.
Of course I’m sure many of you remember the longest running joke in college football … the one about Craig James and Eric Dickerson taking pay cuts when they left SMU for the pros.
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| Christopher Walken |
Notre Dame is probably the only team in the country that could start the season unranked and still have enough juice to get into the national championship game by season’s end. Of course a tough schedule also helps.
The 2-0 Irish have games remaining against Michigan State, Washington, Purdue, USC, BYU, Tennessee, Navy, Syracuse and Stanford.
I wonder why the same writer didn’t demand Big Ten teams boycott Notre Dame in 2003 after the Wolverines beat the Irish 38-0!
Have a great week!
Note: The views and opinions expressed here do not neccessarily reflect those of West Virginia University or the Mountaineer Sports Network.
