Predicting Success
May 28, 2007 11:14 PM | General
May 29, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For the last month Athlon Magazine has been unveiling its preseason Top 25, counting down its picks online from 25 to 1. On Monday, the No. 5-rated team in the country was revealed and lo and behold it just happened to be West Virginia, these very same Mountaineers becoming accustomed to this kind of notoriety.
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| Both Athlon's and Lindy's are predicting Top 5 finishes for West Virginia in 2007.
WVU Sports Communications graphic |
On the first day of spring football drills back in March, WVU coach Rich Rodriguez made it a point to address the topic.
“Hopefully it’s not big news,” he said without so much as cracking a smile. “It’s not big news at Florida, Texas and USC. I almost sense that it’s not that big of a deal being projected to finish high. I don’t sense it amongst our players.”
Yet at one time not too long ago being preseason ranked was a big deal at West Virginia. Twice Art Lewis had teams preseason ranked in 1953 and 1955. Bobby Bowden inherited the nucleus of Jim Carlen’s 1969 Peach Bowl championship team and began his first coaching campaign at WVU in 1970 ranked 25th.
Despite having annual bowl-contending teams, it took Don Nehlen eight years to have his first team AP preseason ranked in 1988. ESPN’s Beano Cook became somewhat of a cult hero in West Virginia by picking the Mountaineers to win it all that year.
Cook even had someone drive him and a television crew down to Morgantown to unveil his pick on national TV. In hindsight, Cook’s selection of West Virginia as his No. 1 team was as much an indictment of the Mountaineers’ weak schedule that year as it was a testament to the strong team Nehlen had returning.
Of course Cook proved to be somewhat of a prophet when WVU made it all the way to the Fiesta Bowl to face Notre Dame in the national championship game. Whether it was astute analysis or blind luck, Nehlen was equally prophetic when he had this to say to Cook with the TV cameras rolling, “Doggone you Beano, no one ever accused you of being too smart!”
Sometimes West Virginia’s preseason rankings proved wildly off the mark like in 1990, when the Mountaineers started the season 25th and then needed all four quarters to beat Kent State in their season opener. Not surprisingly, West Virginia finished that season four-up in the win column and seven-down in the loss column.
The circumstances were similar in 1995 when West Virginia was just two seasons removed from its Sugar Bowl appearance against Florida in 1994. WVU began that campaign ranked 23rd before losing to Purdue in its home opener on a missed chip-shot field goal that would have won the game at the end. The Mountaineers never recovered going 5-6.
Of course the two most hyped and disappointing campaigns came in 1998 and 2004. The Mountaineers started the 1998 season ranked 11th with recognizable players like Amos Zereoue, Marc Bulger and Anthony Becht. The Mountaineer Sports Network even produced a lengthy, behind-the-scenes season video called All-Access (easily the best video ever made by MSN) in anticipation of another great year like 1988.
Unfortunately instead of opening with “some Dairy Queen” to borrow a Nehlen phrase, West Virginia began the year at home against No. 1-ranked Ohio State. The Buckeyes had control of the game from the second quarter on and won easily, 34-17.
A tough home loss to Miami was followed by a road defeat at Virginia Tech that sent WVU’s New Year’s Day bowl hopes right down the drain. West Virginia had to settle for the Insight.com Bowl where it simply mailed in a 34-31 loss to Missouri.
In 2004, West Virginia began the season ranked in the Top 10 for the first time in school history. The Mountaineers climbed all the way to sixth in the polls before having their musket muzzled once again in Blacksburg. Subsequent losses to Boston College and Pitt to end the regular season relegated West Virginia to the Gator Bowl instead of a BCS bowl game.
Last year, West Virginia started the season ranked fifth and rose to as high as third before losing at Louisville. The Mountaineers did rebound from their stunning home loss to South Florida by beating nationally ranked Rutgers to finish the regular season and then knocking off Georgia Tech in the Gator Bowl.
A pair of back-to-back Top 10 finishes, one of the most feared offensive backfields in the country and an innovative coach in Rodriguez has pundits once again predicting big things for West Virginia this season.
Lindy’s Magazine has WVU ranked fourth, using some of the same logic Beano Cook employed in 1988: “With seven starters back on offense and seven more returning on defense, plus a manageable non-conference schedule, WVU is again in position to contend not only for a Big East championship, but to make a run at the BCS title game.”
Take out Big East and BCS and it has familiar ring, doesn’t it?
When asked about preseason rankings Nehlen usually shrugged them off before growling, “The same damned teams are ranked each year – they just change the order.”
On the other hand, Rodriguez today embraces the rankings knowing some 18-year-old somewhere might be reading them. Better to be in than to be out.
“I’m never sorry that there are expectations for Mountaineer football,” he explained. “There should be expectations when you’ve worked to build a program up and have some success.
“We have a lot of players coming back from what was an excellent team last year, so it’s only natural that people know about us.”
Wonder where college football’s Nostradamus Beano Cook will have West Virginia this year?
Cook pegged the Mountaineers correctly in 1988. Of course, he also said quarterback Ron Powlus would win “at least two Heismans” at Notre Dame.
I'm willing to give Beano a break. Roughly half of Nostradamus’ picks turned out to be duds, too.
