Football Notebook
September 18, 2006 02:35 PM | General
September 18, 2006
ECU GAME NOTES
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| Steve Slaton |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – With three home victories under its belt, the No. 4-rated West Virginia University football team now must play four of its next five games on the road beginning with Saturday’s trip to East Carolina. Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez is anxious to see how his team will react.
“We have some young guys playing for us defensively and we’ve still got some things to clean up. Are we a better football team than last year? We’ve played like it at times this year but this is our first road test and we’re going to be in a tough environment. Their crowd gets into it. This is going to be their biggest game and we’ve got to be prepared for that,” Rodriguez said.
The coach admitted that sometimes road games can be easier on a team because there are less distractions and the coaches are with the team all of the time.
“You worry about the young guys. How do they handle it? Do they handle it like a business trip like the veterans do?” Rodriguez said. “We have enough veterans I think that they can explain to the guys about how to go about it.”
Following its trip to Greenville, West Virginia has road games also coming up at Mississippi State, at Connecticut and at Louisville sandwiched between a homecoming date against Syracuse.
“Our guys have got to understand how to take care of business and how it’s going to be now that we’re ranked. It’s going to be a big crowd wherever we go and we’re not going to be very popular for the folks we go at and we’ve got to learn how to handle that,” Rodriguez said.
East Carolina gave West Virginia all it wanted last year in Milan Puskar Stadium, falling 20-15. The Pirates actually had the ball at midfield with a shot at a game-winning touchdown on the final play.
“They gave us a lot of problems last year,” Rodriguez said.
The Pirates (1-2) are feeling a lot better about themselves now after their 35-20 come-from-behind win over Memphis last Saturday. The ECU defense held Memphis to just 95 yards rushing and forced six Tiger turnovers in overcoming a 20-7 halftime deficit.
Both West Virginia losses in the series have come on the road, dropping a 23-20 verdict in Greenville in 1995 and losing a 30-23 decision in Charlotte in 1999. West Virginia’s last trip to Greenville in 2003 resulted in a 48-7 Mountaineer victory.
Briefly:
Rodriguez said Monday on the Big East coaches’ conference call that penalties are a topic he has addressed with his team at considerable length.
“There were a couple that were aggressive penalties when you grab a guy you shouldn’t have or you keep blocking him past the whistle which you shouldn’t do,” he said. “Then there were some that were really stupid: lining up offsides defensively three times and a couple of the personal fouls that are totally unnecessary.
“I was really upset with that and I mentioned it to the team after the game, I mentioned it to them in our Friday meeting and I will mention it to them today. The message will get across and if they continue to do it they simply won’t play.”
“We’re pretty healthy coming out of the game,” Rodriguez said. “We’re waiting to see if Ridwan Malik and Doug Slavonic will able to go and we’ll take a better look at them today and tomorrow when they put the pads on.”
Slaton, who leads the conference with 503 yards rushing and an astonishing 8.1 yards-per-carry average, had a little more motivation last Thursday night playing against the school that rescinded his scholarship offer.
“We didn’t try to put too much pressure on Steve because of his recruiting situation,” Rodriguez said. “We just wanted him to go out and play and improve and I think he’s doing that. He made a few mistakes in the game but he played with great passion as he always does and I think he’s going to keep getting better and better.
“He understands what his role is in our offense. When he makes big plays like he did in the last ballgame and like he did in several ballgames it certainly gives a boost to all the guys on our team,” Rodriguez said.
“I would like to think our guys want to make a personal statement in every game if they’re real competitors. One of the attributes of Steve is that he always runs hungry. He runs like he’s trying to score on every play,” said Rodriguez.
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| Darius Reynaud |
The coaches in the Big East have little time to think about the two conferences, but that doesn’t stop reporters from bringing up the topic. A couple of writers this morning asked Rodriguez about the Big East’s performance so far against the ACC.
“I didn’t lie awake at night thinking about it but where you get tired of it was hearing it in recruiting,” Rodriguez said. “Your competitors from other leagues in recruiting were talking about the Big East not being this and not being that and that got a little bit old. I think finally now -- at least in recruiting circles -- you can’t say a whole lot about our league. I think it’s proven to be pretty strong.”
Rodriguez says the best thing to do is to let the season play out and take a look at it again at the end of the year.
“The thing I’m anxious to see if we got beat in a non-conference game does somebody jump all over the league for losing a non-conference game?” he said. “That was the thing that was happening the last couple of years and now maybe we won’t see that as much.”
“Every coach will tell you that injuries are a part of the game and you want to have luck and avoid them. But that’s what makes football such a great game and such a team game,” Rodriguez said. “You see that from a lot of the top programs in the country. They lose a guy or two and they have enough depth that they still can keep on winning.”
Hopefully, Rodriguez doesn’t have to find out.
