Football Notebook
December 16, 2008 05:58 PM | General
December 16, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen is impressed with what he’s seen on tape so far of North Carolina’s defense.
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| Offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen talks with reporters at the stadium Tuesday afternoon.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“They’ve always got a new blitz package and that’s one of the most impressive things about them to be able to teach a new blitz package just about every week,” Mullen said. “What we have to do is to be able to handle something new that we haven’t seen on tape yet.”
Mullen said the trademark of Butch Davis-coached teams is a strong, physical defense designed to stop the run.
“They’ll always have an extra guy down there someway somehow,” Mullen said. “It’s always a different guy so you have to account for it in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it’s the weak safety, sometimes it’s the sam linebacker; sometimes it’s a corner coming in from the boundary. There is always an extra hat in there versus what you’re trying to do in the run game and you have to account for that each time you make a play call.”
Having gone up against North Carolina for seven years while coaching at Wake Forest, Mullen says Davis and his coaching staff have been able to upgrade their personnel in the two short years they have been in Chapel Hill.
“He has done a great job. In their recruiting they have really added an element of talent in his two years there. It’s pretty impressive,” Davis said. “He’s done a phenomenal job of adding skill, size, speed and toughness. Of course they are well coached on top of that.”
Mullen says a lot of that talent his homegrown.
“It’s their state flagship school so a lot of kids in their state grow up with the powder blue on so that certainly helps. There are 30-35 Division I signees out of the state and they usually get to handpick the ones they want,” Mullen said. “They’ve got pretty good name recognition throughout the entire Southeast. I used to run into those guys a lot recruiting Georgia, South Carolina and down in Florida, too.”
Mullen indicated that he’s talked to people he knows in the ACC to get a better feel for North Carolina’s defensive personnel.
“There are a number of guys that I still have ties with back in the Atlantic Coast Conference, not just at Wake Forest, but other staffs,” Mullen explained. “I was at Wake Forest for seven years and I befriended a lot of those people. At the end of the day there is nothing that is said over the telephone that is earth shattering that you can’t find out on tape.”
Having had the opportunity to see Davis’ team in person last year at Wake Forest will give Mullen some assistance during the preparation process leading into this year’s game.
“There is a comfort to it. You’ve seen the front and some of the things they’ve done in the past but once the ball is kicked all of that stuff goes out the window. It helps your game plan process up to that point,” Mullen noted. “They will have wrinkles and that’s the thing that we’ve got to be most prepared for. They’ve got a couple of weeks off, we’ve got a couple of weeks off and both can come in there with some tricks and we’re going to have to be ready to adjust to them.”
Briefly:
Stewart said the team’s morning practices have been walkthroughs similar to what professional teams do.
“I talked to some of my buddies in the pros and we’re going to see how this works,” Stewart said. “We’ll do like the Steelers do and some other people that I’ve talked to.”
“We grinded them hard down there the first time we were down there,” Stewart said. “We learned after that. After the first two or three we said that’s not working so we changed. We’ll use a plan similar to what we used last year for the Fiesta Bowl.”
“Jeff (Mullen) can take the tight ends, Chris (Beatty) will have the wide receivers, and Steve (Dunlap) can take Dave’s kids,” Stewart said. “We’re fine there.”
Stewart said he will be taking off to visit prospects after Thursday’s practice.
“We will recruit through Saturday and try and get back in here and see our families on Sunday,” Stewart said. “Then we’ll get on a plane Monday and fly to Charlotte.”
Despite not having a championship game the weekend of Dec. 6, the Big East chooses to extend its season by an additional week to take advantage of the national television opportunities on that weekend.
“It’s tough because we lose a week there recruiting. We have three guys out now and we should have seven guys out this week,” Stewart said.
“We’ve got the greatest young men ever. I love these guys,” Stewart said.
“It’s absolutely awesome and all it does is put accolades on the West Virginia program,” Stewart said. “It’s great that we have three neat young men representing the old Gold and Blue.”
