Perception vs. Reality
December 01, 2008 01:37 PM | General
I have heard veteran West Virginia assistant basketball coach Billy Hahn explain many times about the difference between perception and reality. Oftentimes the two don’t meet.
Consider West Virginia’s three-year run in football from 2005-07. During that period the Mountaineers won 33 of 38 games and captured significant bowl game victories against Georgia, Georgia Tech and Oklahoma. It’s easily the best three-year stretch the school has ever enjoyed.
But what if the oblong had bounced a little differently a few times as it has been known to do? What if in 2005 West Virginia doesn’t get it done in the fourth quarter and loses that triple-overtime game to Louisville? What if the refs don’t award that onside pooch kick that the Mountaineers recovered in the second half? What if Eric Wicks doesn’t make that INT return up at Syracuse in the season opener – West Virginia’s only TD of the game – and Ernest Hunter doesn’t get that safety against a very bad 1-10 Orange team? And what if West Virginia doesn’t get the sack on the final play of the game against East Carolina and James Pinkney’s desperation heave from midfield somehow makes its way into the end zone for a touchdown?
Don’t forget, too, West Virginia’s 28-13 victory down at South Florida wasn’t a cakewalk. If West Virginia loses the Louisville game then the Cardinals win the tiebreaker for the BCS game and it is Louisville playing in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia instead of the Mountaineers.
What if two years ago West Virginia doesn’t get its act together in the second half against Pitt after trailing 27-24 at halftime? And what if Rutgers pulls out that triple-overtime game in Morgantown? A loss against Rutgers would have given West Virginia a 4-3 conference record and a trip to the Texas Bowl instead of another appearance in the Gator Bowl against Georgia Tech.
And last year, what happens if Pat White doesn’t make that 50-yard scramble on second and eight to score the winning TD with 1:36 left in a game West Virginia almost let slip away? Louisville had one of the nation’s best kickers in Art Carmody waiting on the sidelines to win it. Remember it was Carmody who tied the game with three minutes remaining.
If you recall, last year’s Cincinnati game ended up coming down to Boogie Allen recovering an onside kick to preserve a 28-23 WVU victory. It was Cincinnati that had the momentum with 13 fourth-quarter points, helped along by some butter fingers on the part of the Mountaineers.
If West Virginia doesn’t pull out those two games then the Mountaineers would have been fifth in the Big East standings with a 3-4 record.
This is not to belittle what West Virginia has accomplished the last three years. For the most part, the Mountaineers have made the plays when they’ve needed to make them – the exception of course being the last two Pitt and South Florida games.
The point is this: regardless of what you read before the year in those football magazines and Internet blogs, West Virginia’s margin of error has been a lot closer than some of you believe - or more likely, what some of you are willing to believe.
It’s not like West Virginia is rolling out five to 10 NFL draft picks a year like USC, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas and Ohio State does.
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| Steve Slaton |
I wanted to get a better handle on some of the differences between this year’s and last year’s offense that ranked third in the country in rushing, ninth in scoring and 15th in total yards.
After some quick research I discovered that this year’s unit is averaging 14.6 points, 97.1 yards and a ½ yard per carry less per game in 2008.
Well, of course, the quick answer for this is that Steve Slaton, Owen Schmitt and Darius Reynaud are all playing in the NFL.
You will get no argument from me that Slaton had the worst of his three seasons statistically in 2007. He averaged just 5.0 yards per carry (hard to slight that) and ran for 1,051 yards – nearly 700 yards fewer than his 2006 total. But what people fail to consider is that Slaton reached the end zone 17 times during his “off year.”
That’s 12 more rushing TDs than West Virginia’s sophomore tailback tandem of Noel Devine and Jock Sanders have combined to score in 11 games.
Throw Owen Schmitt’s 272 yards and four rushing touchdowns in there and you’re looking at a combined 1,323 yards and 21 touchdowns from those two guys. Don’t forget, too, that many of the 1,300 yards they produced last year were the tough ones between the tackles.
Also lost deep in last year’s stat sheet is Darius Reynaud’s 12 touchdown catches. That just happens to tie Chris Henry for the most ever in a season by a Mountaineer wide receiver. Reynaud quietly put together one of the finest seasons in school history by a WVU receiver.
Here are Reynaud’s numbers in 2007 as the team’s No. 1 receiver compared to Jock Sanders’ 11-game totals this year:
To me, the total yards lost from Slaton, Schmitt and Reynaud in 2007 are not nearly as critical as the combined 33 touchdowns they scored.
In three years those three players accounted for 94 touchdowns. That’s a lot of touchdowns.
It’s not a big secret that the Achilles heel of this year’s offense has been its inability to convert short yardage plays. Against Pitt last Friday the Mountaineers even resorted to trying a trick play on third and goal at the Panther three. Pat White’s reverse pass to Wes Lyons was ruled incomplete.
Bill Stewart points out that the Mountaineers currently don’t have that big, power back that sometimes has to get the tough yards on his own.
“When you see a good running football team you are going to see a big back that breaks tackles and you are probably going to see a fullback in front of him,” Stewart said Sunday. “We are just too young right now to line up and bang our heads and that to me is where the problem is. In the off-season we are going to get bigger, stronger and tougher at running the football.”
Stewart also plans to cure some of that through recruiting.
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| Pat White |
Out of curiosity I decided to dig really deep into last year’s stat sheet to see how that team performed on third and less than five yards.
The answer is West Virginia did reasonably well.
The Mountaineers converted 58.8 percent of its third-and-less-than-five tries last season, with 30 of those successful plays coming on the ground.
Pat White was by far the most effective short yardage ball carrier in 2007, converting 16 of 22 of his third-and-less-than-five running attempts. Steve Slaton was 5 of 10, Owen Schmitt 3 of 5, Jarrett Brown 3 of 3, Noel Devine 2 of 5 and Jock Sanders 1 of 1. Overall, West Virginia was 30 of 46 (65.2 percent) when running the ball on third and less than five.
On third and one the Mountaineers were a more impressive 12 of 16 for 75 percent, with four of those runs resulting in touchdowns. One of the four failed attempts was due to a procedure penalty.
This year, West Virginia’s success rate on third and less than five is not far off of last year’s performance (43 of 82 for 52.4 percent). However, the big difference has been on third and one where the Mountaineers are only 14 of 28 for a 50-percent success rate.
That is a major drop.
Pat White has converted only 14 of his 29 third-and-less-than-five rushing attempts for 48.3 percent, compared to his 72.7 percent success rate in 2007. A big reason for that is because defenses last year also had to account for Slaton and Schmitt in the backfield and Reynaud in the short passing game.
West Virginia’s short yardage woes have been exacerbated in its four losses to East Carolina, Colorado, Cincinnati and Pitt. In those games the Mountaineers are just 12 of 32 on third and less than five.
A few more first downs to keep the sticks moving may have made the difference in games West Virginia lost by three points to Colorado, by three points to Cincinnati and by four points to Pitt.
Once again, you are looking at a pretty small margin of error.
For some of you old timers, think back to 1970 during Bobby Bowden’s first season at West Virginia after taking over for Jim Carlen. I see many similarities with this year’s team under first-year coach Bill Stewart.
Carlen had built West Virginia’s football program into a Top 20 contender by 1969 before leaving for Texas Tech after the Peach Bowl when WVU couldn’t meet all of his demands. Bowden took over a pretty good football team with very big expectations (West Virginia was preseason ranked for only the third time in school history).
He inherited senior quarterback in Mike Sherwood, a loaded backfield with Bob Gresham, Eddie Williams and Pete Wood, and an NFL fullback in Jim Braxton who was moved to tight end because the team lacked quality receivers.
The Mountaineers also didn’t have a lot of defensive line depth that season and that proved to be the difference in losses to Duke and Pitt. If you recall, West Virginia’s biggest defensive player in 1970 was linebacker Dale Farley, who got injured in the first half of the Pitt game.
And we all know what happened in the second half of the Pitt game.
Unfortunately for Bowden, after that ’70 season there was a faction of Mountaineer fans that never gave him a chance. It wasn’t until many years after Bowden departed WVU that his coaching abilities were fully appreciated by West Virginians.
