Football Notebook
October 26, 2008 02:58 PM | General
October 26, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bill Stewart put to rest one of the biggest worries Mountaineer fans had following West Virginia’s 34-17 victory over Auburn on Thursday night: defensive tackle Scooter Berry.
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| Dorrell Jalloh caught a pair of touchdown passes in West Virginia's 34-17 victory over Auburn Thursday night in Morgantown.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Berry left the game in the second quarter with a knee injury and did not return. Stewart said an MRI on Berry’s knee came back negative and he expects the sophomore to be ready for UConn next Saturday afternoon if he responds well to treatment this week.
“We’re in good shape. I’m pounding my head into my desk (for good luck),” Stewart said Sunday. “I was here for treatment and the players were here. Scooter Berry is fine. Chris Neild is fine. Patrick White is fine. Jarrett Brown was a little rusty early. He was still sore in that quad but in the second half he worked it through and was ready to go.”
Stewart was pleased with his offense’s performance in the 17-point victory Thursday night. The Mountaineers scored 31 unanswered points after falling behind 17-3 early in the second quarter. Stewart his team’s conditioning and some hurry-up offense paid off in a big way on Thursday night.
“We went into the two-minute hurry up and Patrick was getting that thing clicking,” Stewart said. “We caught them in things; we were running that zone and that’s when Noel was busting that zone - even Mark Rodgers came in and Jock Sanders busted one.
“It was just a different look to keep Auburn on their heels and we threw the ball a little more,” Stewart added.
Stewart said whether or not West Virginia continues to do that will depend upon how defenses choose to attack the Mountaineers.
“We have to wait and see what our opponents do,” Stewart said. “We always have the hurry up in there. We’ve done that every single game this year. The check-with-me was done more this week to keep Auburn from getting us in their cross hairs. You’ve got to understand what a defense we went against. They were big, strong, fast, burly, rough people and I was afraid they were going to mash us.”
West Virginia was able to move the ball with ease while not getting much in the way of running from quarterback Pat White, who finished the game with a season-low eight yards on 11 carries against the Tigers.
“We’ve got to be able to take pressure off of No. 5 (running the football),” Stewart said. “He’s got to be ready to run down the stretch here against these Big East teams.”
Stewart has been impressed with what he’s watched so far of the Connecticut defense. The Huskies forced six Cincinnati turnovers and turned a close game midway through the fourth quarter into a 40-16 rout.
“That fourth quarter for UConn – I saw a defense get after people yesterday and that was impressive,” Stewart said.
Stewart said Connecticut coach Randy Edsall will undoubtedly remind his team of West Virginia’s 66-21 victory in Morgantown last year to clinch the Big East’s BCS bowl berth.
“I’m just going to tell our team this: we beat a pretty good co-champ 66-21. We also beat a pretty good East Carolina team 48-7 and if you remember the second game of the season we went to East Carolina and got thumped 24-3,” Stewart said. “Our players better get that in their heads bright and early. They celebrated Thursday night and Friday. Now our Mountaineers better crank their engines and know that we’ve got a juggernaut up there.”
Briefly:
“Jarrett Brown won us two football games – the Rutgers game and the Syracuse game. He came in for an injured Pat White. Did we get better? I thought we played better, I thought we tackled better and I thought our special teams played better,” Stewart said. “I’m just hoping that it can last for this stretch run. If you start that stuff then these young men start seeing down the road and we just can’t do that. We’ve got to go one at a time.”
The Huskies now have an 11-game home winning streak.
“I call this league the black-and-blue league. It’s the bruise league. We pound each other. Last year’s league champs were 5-2,” Stewart said. “We’ve only won this league with a 7-0 record twice since we have been in the Big East. We’ve been quad-champs or co-champs. There is great parity and this Big East is just a rough, tough conference.
“It goes to show you how emotions of young people play such a big part in this game today,” Stewart continued. “I wish it was all blocking and tackling because I know what we would do there. It’s this other stuff that I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“I’m hoping our mentality will be that we’ll play them on blacktop somewhere,” Stewart said. “It doesn’t matter. Their grass is really nice. It’s a beautiful field. It’s cut low. It’s a fast track and if I was them I would keep it low because I wouldn’t want to slow that Donald Brown down any.”
“He’s on the mend and resting comfortably and I want to thank everyone for the nice calls, cards and emails we’ve received,” Stewart said. “It means a lot to Karen and I.
“I spend a lot of time in this job taking care of other people’s youngsters as all these coaches do – I’ve spent 33 years of my life doing this,” Stewart said. “I had a quality day with my son yesterday evening.”
