Passing the Time
October 24, 2008 03:41 PM | General
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| Pat White |
Seven of West Virginia’s first nine offensive plays called in Thursday night’s 34-17 victory over Auburn were passes and the results were less than stellar.
Quarterback Pat White completed six of them but two were to Auburn players that put the Mountaineers behind 10-0. Although it became much clearer later, West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said those early passes set the tone for the game.
“It was designed to loosen things up and get them out of the box,” Stewart said. “We’re going to try and not let people do that. We’ll use motion and we will use movement. Last week against Syracuse, who played us very, very tough, we used motion. Motion and movement are a great thing. Are we great at it? No. Are we getting better at it? Yes.”
Stewart said offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen did a fantastic job on the phone with White getting his senior quarterback calmed down after two early interceptions put West Virginia in a hole.
“The best thing was when Jeff Mullen got him on the phone and the way he talked to Patrick was impressive. And I knew,” Stewart said.
What fans saw Thursday night was West Virginia’s offense of old. They saw some option, they saw the zone read, they saw superb blocking both at the line of scrimmage and downfield, and they saw playmakers with the ball in their hands in space.
They even saw West Virginia get into certain formations to get the defense to tip their hand before signaling in the right play.
“We spread them out and we began doing what we did when Rich (Rodriguez) was here,” Stewart said. “We started looking over to the sideline to see what they were doing. Were they going to be cover zero? Were they going to be man-free? Were they going to be zone? Then we started calling plays to what we thought they would be and we used some tactics to get them to show their hand a little bit.”
The result was the best offensive performance of the year against a first-class defensive unit that came into the game ranked 11th nationally in scoring defense, 14th nationally in total defense, 15th in pass defense and 26th in rush defense.
The Mountaineers finished the game with 25 first downs, 271 yards rushing, 445 total yards and punted the ball back to the Tigers just once the entire game.
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| Jeff Mullen |
That’s a far cry from the 17 points and 268 yards put up on the board against Syracuse 12 days ago.
“The first half I looked at the statistics and we had eight minutes of possession time. That’s on us because we turned the ball over,” Mullen said. “The eight minutes we had we actually out-gained their 22 minutes of possession time. I was happy with our execution all night. Clearly the perception is the second half was the deal because we scored 24 points. We honestly should have done that in the first half.”
Eventually, West Virginia was able to locate some wide open receivers downfield. White withstood a heavy rush to fire a perfect strike to Alric Arnett running a deep drag for 44-yard touchdown to pull the Mountaineers to within seven of the Tigers.
“It was a three-deep shell and we were trying to high-low the free,” Mullen explained. “We did the fly motion and the play fake and Patrick made a good read and got it to the right guy. I was looking at the video board and he stood in there and took one right in the chin. That’s when you know you’ve got a pretty special quarterback when he can stand in there and throw the ball under pressure.”
“I went through my reads and it was there,” added White. “I knew he had wheels and he could run through it. I threw it up and gave him a chance to go and get it and he definitely did.”
White’s second touchdown pass to Dorrell Jalloh was a play running backs coach Chris Beatty called.
“He said if they’re going to play this coverage again and they did, he said Dorrell Jalloh is wide open,” Stewart explained. “Chris made a great call and Patrick made a beautiful read.”
West Virginia’s 174 yards passing were tied with the Marshall game for the second most this season. It was the fourth time in seven games Mountaineer quarterbacks have had two or more touchdown passes in a game.
“I’m sure when we look at the tape that there are going to be a lot of corrections to make,” Mullen said. “I’m happy for our kids. It was a quality win against a real good football program.”
Briefly:
“They’ve got a tremendous defensive coordinator in Paul Rhodes and we just had to loosen them up a little bit by throwing the ball and they were bringing a lot of stuff … if I say anything good then people are going to say last year Pitt … so I’m just grateful we made some plays,” Stewart said. “If I say something good then I’m badmouthing last year. I can’t win.”
Stewart did admit that what West Virginia saw Thursday night from Auburn was very similar to what Rhodes did with Pitt last year in a 13-9 Panther victory.
“They played a lot down in the box and they played a lot of cover zero on us,” Stewart said. “They played a lot of man, they had a good scheme and that passing game ... I’m just thrilled to death.”
“Our defense played to win,” Stewart noted. “They played aggressive and I finally got smarter in the second half kicking the ball off.”
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| Anthony Leonard |
Neild was also a force up front getting consistent penetration in the backfield.
“They did the Steelers thing. They blitzed us and they zone dropped us,” Stewart said. “The second pick I thought the guy kind of got inside Alric Arnett a little bit. I told Pat don’t worry about it because you’ve got a whole lot of football.
“It goes back to Miami in 2003. I saw a whole locker room of tears. We were 1-4 at that time and we came back and I don’t think we lost again until the bowl game. At Colorado it came back around,” Stewart said. “I looked back in that locker room and I saw tears and heartache and we took that on the chin. It was the same locker room scene. Maybe we win them all or maybe we lose the next five. But I saw confidence oozing from everyone tonight.”
“I told them to stay the course and keep banging the rock. When we scored that 10th point that was big. The cracks started to show and then we came back,” Stewart said.
“It was definitely a confidence booster for the younger guys. It was a big-time Thursday night game and we showed up to play and it was a wonderful feeling,” White said.
White agreed.
“It seemed to me like they gave up,” he said. “We had the ball in the fourth quarter with six minutes to left and coaches didn’t even call timeout and ran the clock down.”
In Devine’s last two games he has rushed for 395 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns. Devine has boosted his season rushing total to 849 yards on just 115 carries for a staggering 7.38 yards-per-carry average.
Syracuse is idle this weekend.
