Lyons Share
July 29, 2007 02:11 PM | General
July 29, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sophomore wide receiver Wes Lyons can foresee plenty of one on one opportunities this fall if defenses continue to crowd the line of scrimmage in an effort to stop one of the nation’s most powerful rushing offenses.
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| Sophomore Wes Lyons is looking to become more involved in West Virginia's offense in 2007.
Bill Amatucci photo |
“If they throw everybody in the box and stop the run I feel like we can throw the ball,” Lyons said last week. “I feel one on one outside that we can throw all day.”
Chances are pretty good that defenses are going to put eight and nine defenders in the box to stop Steve Slaton, Patrick White and Owen Schmitt from running the football. Last year those three accounted for 3,314 yards rushing and 41 touchdowns with an incredible 6.9 yards-per-carry average. Historically, 4.0 yards per carry has been a figure most offensive coordinators would be happy with.
You probably have to go back to Tom Osborne’s Nebraska teams or Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma teams to find a more productive running trio.
But Rich Rodriguez, in his never-ending quest to construct the perfect offense, believes a playmaker or two out on the perimeter stretching the defense and keeping the linebackers honest could make his spread system virtually unstoppable.
“I’m anxious to see if we can get a couple more guys out on the perimeter outside of Darius Reynaud that can be a guy one-on-one who can win some match ups,” Rodriguez said. “That’s going to be one of our keys offensively.”
Wes Lyons, at 6-feet-7 inches tall, was recruited to do just that. Lyons saw action in all 13 games last year and caught four passes for 39 yards playing behind senior Brandon Myles, Rayshawn Bolden and Tito Gonzales.
Lyons is coming off a solid spring game catching three passes for 76 yards including a 46-yard touchdown. But Rodriguez is expecting more from a guy who two years ago turned down Ohio State to play for the Mountaineers.
“There were some days when Wes did really well and some days when Wes didn’t do as well as we’d like,” Rodriguez said last spring. “This was his first spring so I think he’s still maturing in his role in what we want. He’s got talent.”
Lyons admits the coaching staff challenged him to have a great summer of strength and conditioning to be ready to go when fall camp opens this Saturday, Aug. 4.
“They challenge you in different ways,” Lyons said. “They challenge you here and there just to see how to react to it, how you respond and what you do and see if that will be a good way or a bad way.
“I feel like it’s been a big summer for me knowing that I need to step up and play a big role this year,” he said. “I knew I had to come into this summer, work hard, train hard and everything like that.”
Lyons says he’s added about 15 pounds this summer and will begin camp at 230. “Last summer after workouts I was about 215,” he said.
The added bulk hasn’t compromised his speed, Lyons says.
“I have deceptive speed, too. In the winter I ran a 4.5 and I feel like I’ve gotten faster from that, too,” Lyons said. “I can get up on a DB real fast.”
The added size should also help Lyons in his downfield blocking as well.
“My blocking has gone fairly well. In high school I blocked a lot, too, because we weren’t really a throwing school,” he said.
The wide receiver corps is getting a big boost this fall with several newcomers. All of them are already in town enrolled in summer school and doing conditioning drills with the team. Lyons believes the competition will make the entire unit better.
“We’re working hard in the weight room training in the summer trying to get that edge on somebody else for playing time,” he said.
That competition could bring West Virginia’s wide receivers into the forefront of the offense this fall.
“I think we get unnoticed,” Lyons said. “If it comes down to a game when we need to pass we can pass.”
Briefly:
Wrote Rivals: “West Virginia has defeated the SEC champion and the ACC runner-up in bowl games the past two seasons, but the Mountaineers have their eyes set on a bigger prize - the national championship. The Mountaineers face Louisville in Morgantown this year, but they will have to face Big East upstarts Rutgers and South Florida on the road. If West Virginia can make it though the Big East undefeated, it could find itself playing for the national championship.”
Speaking of Street & Smith, word has sifted down that the magazine was recently purchased by The Sporting News and will no longer publish a basketball annual.
“Since I’ve been here each summer has gotten harder,” White said last week. “You’re definitely curious how all the work you’ve done in the summer will play off during the season.”
White is aware that West Virginia will probably start the season ranked in the Top 5 but he says that’s really meaningless.
“In the college game you have to win all of your games anyway so it doesn’t really matter where you start,” he said.
Louisville despite having a strong team returning, is offering a mini-season ticket package this year for $180 covering the Murray State, Middle Tennessee State, Utah and Rutgers games.
West Virginia is no longer selling season tickets and will probably only have a limited number of single-game tickets available to sell for the Nov. 24 game against Connecticut. The Mountaineers did not sell any mini-season ticket packages this year meaning the school increased its full season ticket sales by roughly 4,000, according to Deputy Director of Athletics Mike Parsons.
In fact, the Mountaineers have as many bowl appearances as Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Rutgers and South Florida have combined with 26.
There was a big drop off after that with Pitt next at 52. South Florida was 58, followed by Syracuse (63), Cincinnati (69), Rutgers (70) and UConn (77).
The only other time it occurred was in 1992 when Miami was No. 3 and Syracuse was No. 7.
The most balanced offense was East Carolina running 20 more times than it passed followed by Mississippi State (394 rushing attempts to 360 pass attempts) with a 34 run-pass difference. The biggest discrepancy came from Rutgers, which ran 198 times more than it threw – 496 rushing attempts to 298 pass attempts.
Of course no offense on West Virginia’s schedule comes close to having a run-pass discrepancy like the Mountaineers. In 2006, WVU ran 590 times and passed 233 for a difference of 357.
Then again, no team in the country came close to West Virginia’s phenomenal 6.7 yards per carry rushing average. Arkansas with Darren McFadden had the next best team per-carry average at 5.9.
Statistically speaking that is a significant discrepancy.
2006 Team Yards per Carry Average
