Upon Further Review
October 05, 2008 03:17 PM | General
October 5, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said during his Sunday afternoon teleconference that he expects quarterback Pat White to be ready to play against Syracuse next Saturday.
 |
||
| Teammates Mortty Ivy and Zac Cooper embrace Scooter Berry after he knocked down Rutgers quarterback Mike Teel's fourth-down pass to secure a 24-17 win for West Virginia.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
For the second week in a row White left the game in the third quarter with an injury. Against Marshall White gave way to backup Jarrett Brown after injuring his thumb. Yesterday, White went to the sidelines after taking a blow to the head from Rutgers linebacker Ryan D’Imperio.
“He got dinged up a little bit and we held him out for precautionary reasons,” Stewart said. “He got hit in the head. It’s kind of a wait-and-see thing. He’s going to be out there for practice but I’m not going to run him around to make sure he’s OK.”
Stewart was emphatic that White did not suffer a concussion.
“He came over and they took him in (to be evaluated). He had his strength and he had his whereabouts. That worries me and it worried our trainers,” Stewart said. “But his eyes were not dilated and he did not get sick. I was on the phone with him every hour after the ballgame until 9 o’clock with his dad and his brother. We had a trainer with him last night.
“If everything progresses as we think he will be in the lineup on Saturday.”
In a little more than 2 ½ quarters worth of action White completed 12 of 17 passes for 137 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed 11 times for 59 yards to help the Mountaineers build a 24-10 lead.
Back up Jarrett Brown completed both of his pass tries for 21 yards and also ran 14 times for 44 yards and a touchdown.
Stewart said the offensive coaches limited Brown’s package when the lead grew to 14 points.
“I didn’t want to get him to do a lot of razzle-dazzle stuff,” Stewart said. “We used him in there with some misdirection. We rolled him out and threw the ball into the right flat. We probably didn’t do as much as we should have and could have but we will. We have more in the arsenal.”
Stewart is thankful he’s got two quality quarterbacks to go to if White goes down.
“God forbid if Pat ever got hurt Bradley Starks is in the fold as the backup,” Stewart said. “He’s a good player. He’s not Pat White or Jarrett Brown, that’s why he’s the third, but we’re very blessed.”
Briefly:
“You remember Maryland a couple of years ago got back into the ballgame and they kicked the ball deep with like 20 seconds on the clock and who took it all the way for a touchdown? Darius Reynaud,” said Stewart, answering his own question. “That’s what you don’t do to your players. You never ever do that. They didn’t take it back for a touchdown. They got it back to about the 45. Had we squib kicked it and it went out of bounds with the new rule they get the ball at the 40.
“We sky kicked the second one and he kicked the darn thing on the hash instead of the numbers. It’s very hard to hit a 9-iron just right every time on the golf course,” Stewart explained. “He miss-hit the sky kick and then on the squib kick you’ve got to be very careful because if it goes out of bounds they get it on the 40. Sometimes the fullback picks it up clean and sometimes he doesn’t. I would do the same thing again.”
The Rutgers up-back was able to field the kick cleanly and advance it another 20 yards to the 44.
“How many times he fields that clean? Maybe three or four out of 10,” Stewart said. “I would take that chance as opposed to a long return for a touchdown or a long return back to our 26 yard line like what happened against Marshall.”
To begin the third quarter, Pat McAfee kicked the ball deep enough into the end zone to force the Rutgers returner to down the football.
“The next time he kicks it the ball goes clear out of the end zone and the time after that it goes to the five,” Stewart said. “I can’t tell you what he’s going to do every time because he either hits the ball perfect or he’s just a half-inch off and it hangs. I wish I knew.”
“We tried a sneak out at Colorado and two of our guys didn’t get their heads across and I didn’t want to take a chance this weekend,” Stewart said. “We used a play that was getting us pretty good yardage and we had a guy, again, miss a block at the point of attack and you can’t do that. We need to be able to bang it up in there a little bit better than we did in that particular situation.”
“He’s a good player but he’s playing enough on defense and on special teams,” Stewart said. “I may put him on one more special team because I asked the staff how many plays he played and he is usually playing about 20 plays per game.
“When you do that you take away from their practice time and then you don’t use them in the game. You are taking away time from a guy that you can have all of the time. I could put him on short yardage situations but it would be a lot of teaching and coaching and he hasn’t done it in a while.”
“I didn’t know that. The guys told me that today and I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ I didn’t have time to look that up,” Stewart said. “We’re a pretty young defense. On offense we’ve got four sophomores starting.
“We’re not world beaters right now. Like I said after the game we’re not eighth in the country (WVU’s preseason ranking) and I don’t know if we will be but we’re sure working to get into that direction,” Stewart said.
