Sept. 24-30 Blog
September 24, 2007 09:50 AM | General
We’re changing things up a little bit. For the past four years Campus Connection has kind of been like a weekly blog full of tidbits, notes, commentary, quasi-opinion and weak stabs at humor that have sometimes hit the mark and at other times completely missed. Well, to keep up with the Jones', we’ve decided to turn Campus Connection into a daily blog. If we miss a day then you know we’re struggling.
Hope you enjoy it ...
Sack Pack
Posted By John Antonik: September 28, 2007 (2:34 pm)
Last year about this time West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez issued a demand to his defense: go get the quarterback! The Mountaineers were without a sack through the first four games of 2006 in victories against Marshall, Eastern Washington, Maryland and East Carolina.
West Virginia finally snapped the streak with a five-sack performance against Mississippi State and it hasn’t stopped sacking the quarterback since. The Mountaineers have now recorded 47 sacks in their last 13 games (3.6 average per game) including 16 in four games so far this year.
Linebackers Marc Magro and Mortty Ivy join defensive end Johnny Dingle with four sacks each to lead the team. Safeties Eric Wicks, Sidney Glover, Quinton Andrews and Scooter Berry have also been in on the sack brigade.
Much has already been made about South Florida pass rushing specialist George Selvie’s 8 ½ sacks and 14 ½ tackles for losses in three games. The Bulls are ranked sixth in the country in team sacks averaging six sacks per game.
However, the Mountaineers are ranked eighth in the nation in sacks averaging four per game.
Friday Night Football
Posted By John Antonik: September 27, 2007 (1:34 pm)
As long as Rich Rodriguez is the football coach at West Virginia University there will be no home football games on Friday night. In the Mountain State Fridays are strictly reserved for high school football.
“We’re not going to play Friday night games at home,” Rodriguez said earlier this week. “It’s hard for us in mid-week games here because we share our parking lot with our hospital.”
The tradeoff for some schools choosing to play Friday night games is the enormous exposure your program gets.
Rodriguez understands that.
“On the road we’ve played a couple in the past and if they choose to do that it’s obviously good exposure for both programs,” he said. “Friday night is mostly for high school football but the mid-week games and the Friday night games have probably done a lot for programs and particularly Big East schools.”
Last year West Virginia played Connecticut on a Friday night, beating the Huskies 37-11 in West Hartford.
Sunshine State Recruiting
Posted By John Antonik: September 26, 2007 (11:34 am)
The football program that may have benefited the most from the ACC’s raid of the Big East Conference three years ago is South Florida. At least West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez thinks so.
“They are surrounded by so many players that they can get their whole roster from that area,” Rodriguez explained Tuesday. “They can use the argument that you can play Big East competition staying right here. Why do you need to go up north?”
Because West Virginia goes head-to-head with South Florida for many Florida prep prospects Rodriguez says he counters that argument by explaining to recruits West Virginia’s great tradition.
“We use the argument that our environment, our facilities, our tradition and our family atmosphere outweighs everything,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to recruit the entire state of Florida. There are so many good players.
“It has made it more difficult to recruit against them but we are still going to because I think we have a better sell … but I’m biased,” Rodriguez chuckled.
Rodriguez says it is vitally important for West Virginia to stay ahead of the curve as far as facility improvements go to remain attractive to top recruits.
“I was on a call (Tuesday) with some ESPN announcers trying to tell them the challenges of breaking down the perceptions of West Virginia,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got a great place but you have to be here to see it. That’s why I’m pushing the academic center. That’s why we’ve got to get that locker room done.
“We have to do these things to keep our program at the top level because once we get them here we want them to see that everything we have here is first class,” Rodriguez said.
The coach admits some of his best recruiters are his players.
“It’s as little bit of the pied piper thing,” he said. “If you get a guy to come up here and he has a great experience he’s going to go tell his buddies that he’s got a great place for them to go to school and play big-time football.
“When we have Florida guys in for visits they get with the other Florida guys and are like, ‘Geez those guys love it up here.’ We have a special place and our guys from Florida have done a great job of helping us get more of their buddies up this way,” Rodriguez said.
Summers Drafted
Posted By John Antonik: September 26, 2007 (10:45 am)
 |
||
| Rob Summers |
Rob Summers, the starting center on last year's West Virginia NIT championship team, was recently selected in the fifth round of the CBA draft by the Albany Patroons.
The 7-foot center started all 36 games for the Mountaineers averaging 4.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Summers scored four points and grabbed nine key rebounds in West Virginia’s NIT semifinal victory over Mississippi State and had seven points and six rebounds in the Mountaineers’ NIT opening-round victory over Delaware State.
As for NIT MVP Frank Young, the last we heard Young was playing professionally in Germany. Others still playing professionally overseas include: Kevin Pittsnogle, Mike Gansey, Patrick Beilein, Joe Herber, J.D. Collins, Tyrone Sally, D’or Fischer, Calvin Bowman and Marcus Goree.
Direct Snap
Posted By John Antonik: September 25, 2007 (10:15 am)
 |
||
| Patrick White is one of the best quarterbacks in the country at operating the no-huddle, shotgun offense.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
The direct snap to the quarterback has been around since the days of the single wing in the 1930s and 1940s. Today it is being revived with the help of guys like Rich Rodriguez.
Last Thursday night Miami used a direct snap to freshman running back Graig Cooper to score the Hurricanes’ first touchdown in a 34-17 victory over Texas A&M. Arkansas has used a direct snap as a means of getting the football into the hands of running back Darren McFadden.
In the second half of its narrow loss to Michigan State, Pitt predominantly used a direct snap to freshman running back LeSean McCoy.
Tim Tebow has used the shotgun snap with great success at Florida.
Rodriguez says he first got the idea to go exclusively to the shotgun 15 years ago out of necessity at Division II Glenville State College.
“It started from run-and-shoot principles but back then and they were always under center,” Rodriguez said Monday morning. “We had a shorter quarterback who was about 5-11 or 6 foot. We got into the shotgun mostly for passing purposes just so he could see better and give him a little bit more time to get rid of the football.”
What began out of necessity 15 years ago for Rodriguez has today turned into one of college football’s most fashionable offenses. Coaches from everywhere and from all levels have been to Morgantown to study what Rodriguez is doing.
“A lot of people are using it to try and get the ball into their playmakers’ hands and kind of use that running threat back there,” Rodriguez said. “For us, our offense with the quarterbacks that we have it’s our base offense. The advantage that we have out of it is the guys we have back there are quarterbacks that can throw the football.”
Essentially what Rodriguez is doing is he’s taking his best athlete and he’s putting him at quarterback where he handles the ball on every play. That’s not any different than what was being done in the 1940s when quarterbacks like Sammy Baugh, Bob Waterfield and Sid Luckman were basically single-wing tailbacks that could throw the football.
What you’re seeing today is really a snapshot of what offensive football looked like in the 1940s.
“Coaches throughout the country are copycats and if they see something that is a pretty good scheme or play it gives them a little bit of a wrinkle they’re probably going to try and use it if they can,” Rodriguez said.
And they are.
National Leaders
Posted By John Antonik: September 24, 2007 (9:45 am)
What do West Virginia, Kansas, Oklahoma and Rutgers have in common? These four are the only schools in the country to rank in the Top 20 in scoring offense, scoring defense, total offense and total defense.
The Mountaineers this week rank ninth in the nation in scoring offense averaging 47.3 points per game, 10th in total offense averaging 525 yards per game, 15th in total defense giving up 273.3 yards per game and rank 20th in scoring defense allowing 17 points per game.
West Virginia also has Top 20 marks in rushing offense (No. 2, 357 yards per game) sacks (No. 8, 3.75 per game), passing efficiency (No. 10, 169.55) and rushing defense (No. 19, 87 yards per game).
Individually, Steve Slaton ranks third in scoring averaging 15 points per game, Patrick White is ninth in passing efficiency with a 174.82 rating, Slaton is 12th in rushing averaging 125.5 yards per game and Mortty Ivy, Marc Magro and Johnny Dingle are tied for 13th in sacks averaging one per game.
