Fast Track?
November 15, 2006 01:17 PM | General
November 15, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – During a halftime television interview at last year’s West Virginia game Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt was asked what his team could do to stop Mountaineer freshmen Patrick White and Steve Slaton. His answer was simple, “run faster.”
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| Quarterback Patrick White ran for 220 yards against Pitt in last year's win in Morgantown.
AP photo |
This year, Wannstedt might be asking for it to rain harder.
The latest forecast from Weather.com is calling for morning rain showers and temperatures in the low 50s at kickoff on Thursday.
Pittsburgh comes into the Backyard Brawl with a 6-4 record having lost its last three league games to Rutgers, South Florida and Connecticut. The Panthers are allowing 157.6 yards per game rushing and are facing the nation’s No. 2-ranked rushing offense in West Virginia, averaging 318.2 yards per game. Last Saturday Pitt had trouble stopping Connecticut’s running game, giving up 317 yards in all including 205 to Husky tailback Donald Brown.
That doesn’t bode well for a Panther defense that couldn't contain the Mountaineers in Morgantown last year. A sloppy Heinz Field on Thursday certainly wouldn’t hurt, though.
The facility serves as the home for the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Pittsburgh Panthers as well as many high school football games. The problem with that of course is that Heinz Field has a natural grass playing surface and West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez has made no secret of his preference of playing on a dry, fast field.
“We’re going to bring the half-inch cleat,” Rodriguez said Tuesday. “We know the surface. When we went there a couple of years ago and they had to re-sod it because of all the high school games. From my knowledge they have not done that yet. They will not let us on it the day before the game so we will not get on it until warm ups. We’ll get a feel for it then.”
Having a dry, fast track is important to a team like West Virginia, which possesses two of college football’s fastest players in White and Slaton.
Last year on a frozen field at Milan Puskar Stadium, White and Slaton combined to run for 399 yards against Pitt’s defense. The Mountaineers finished the game with 451 yards on the ground. Rodriguez was asked Tuesday how his team was able to get so many yards on Pitt.
“Pat was really running pretty well. I think he was running to stay warm but I don’t know if it helped,” Rodriguez joked. “A couple of his big runs weren’t designed runs, they were screens and it opened up and he took off. It was guys making some individual plays and we did a good job up front getting a hat on a hat.”
The West Virginia coach fully expects Pitt to employ some exotic defenses Thursday night to try and confuse his blockers.
“I think they probably had a plan that they did in training camp or the staff worked on in the summer and they kind of introduced it at times that they would have a different plan to try and mix things up,” Rodriguez said. “What they’ve shown this year against the spread and what they showed last year against the spread and what they do against us in the game may be a little different from the start.”
Rodriguez said it may take a series or two to get a feel for Panther defensive coordinator Paul Rhodes’ game plan.
“You’ve just got to do the best that you can and say, this is what they’ve been doing and this is what they may do,” Rodriguez said. “Then you’ve got to be able to adjust throughout the course of the game.”
But Rodriguez concedes there are some things a coaching staff simply can’t plan for.
“A grass field up north with a lot of rain is going to be tough footing. How do you prepare for it? You’re not going to practice in it yourself. We’ll have to see what the conditions are,” Rodriguez said.
“You’d like to have a fast and dry surface but this time of year that’s not going to be the case.”
Two years ago, both teams had trouble keeping their footing at Heinz Field.
“Watching the film we slipped a few times and they slipped a few times, too,” Rodriguez said. “It’s the same for both teams but obviously it’s not something you’re accustomed to because most fields now are the rubber FieldTurf surfaces and if it’s raining you still get pretty good traction.”
The most important thing about playing in wet weather, according to Rodriguez, is taking care of the football.
“If the conditions are bad it changes your planning a little bit. Turnovers are crucial any time but when you’ve got a sloppy surface or a game with bad conditions it’s even more critical,” he said.
“We’ve got to recognize what they’re doing. They’re going to give us some different blitzes and some different looks and we’ve got to get the right people blocked and try and create some seams for our fast guys.”
So which side of the ball does a wet field benefit?
“I don’t know. What it does is it kind of equalizes everything,” Rodriguez said. “It takes away more big plays and it condenses the game. You may get a big play because someone slips. This is just personal preference … if you’ve got fast guys I’d think you would want a fast surface.”
Last Saturday, West Virginia did just fine in a driving rain storm against Cincinnati in Morgantown.
“We’ve played on tough surfaces before and we’ve just got to be ready for it,” Rodriguez said.
