Stew's Review
April 11, 2008 07:16 PM | General
April 11, 2008
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| Bill Stewart |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia did a 180 on Friday. Wednesday afternoon coach Bill Stewart kept his post-practice remarks to one sentence: “We hit the snooze button today.”
On Friday, Stewart was considerably happier after a Friday afternoon workout in shorts and shoulder pads in the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility.
“We had a heck of a workout. I’m very pleased,” Stewart said. “What we needed today was a big move-the-chains-pass skeleton so I wanted that to be real sharp and that was really good.
“We had some big plays on both sides of the ball. Pat (White) was sharp today. We made some nice long catches.”
Wide receiver Alric Arnett capped off the practice by making a long touchdown reception down the sideline that got the white shirts excited. The entire offense ran down to congratulate him in the end zone to finish practice.
“We needed a good two-minute drill and that worked out pretty well,” Stewart said. “The defense was flying around. Third and three the offense wasn’t real good; third and six and third and five the offense was great. Third and eight the defense just wore out the offense so it was a good, spirited practice.”
West Virginia’s scrimmage on Saturday has been moved up to 10:30 am. The team will have hitting drills before going into its second officiated scrimmage. The Mountaineers will have one more officiated scrimmage before the Gold-Blue Game on Saturday, April 19.
Briefly:
“(Jarrett) is picking it up pretty quick. I’m real pleased with Jarrett and Patrick. Patrick White … it’s coming, it’s really, really coming,” Stewart said.
The coach cited others for their Friday afternoon efforts.
“Jock Sanders made some big plays today,” he said. “Brandon Hogan made three or four plays catching the ball today but he fumbled a couple of times when he got hit.
“I saw Kent Richardson make some big plays. I saw JT Thomas and Mortty Ivy flying around. Quinton Andrews was making some plays on defense. It was great to see old Scooter Berry out there,” Stewart said. He was flying around and doing a nice job out there. Will Johnson made some more plays out our hybrid position. Alric Arnett took a long touchdown down the sidelines. There were some big plays today,” Stewart said.
“In high school he never left the field. I asked his coach my golly, why would you do that? He said, hey, you want to keep a ship safe you keep it in the harbor. But where does the ship get its best work? Out in the seas. You’ve got to play ball.
“That’s why I don’t worry so much about Patrick White. He carried the ball 197 times last year,” Stewart said. “Patrick White is going to be out there playing quarterback, slot … wherever we put him he’s going to be out there on the field. You cannot keep the ship in the harbor.”
“We had a wonderful bonding session the other day at 0600 hours. I had coffee in my hands. Not one coach was dressed; we came in our street clothes and we watched our strength staff and they performed admirably,” Stewart said. “We ran 80s and that was so neat to see.”
