Unvarnished Anaylsis
August 17, 2008 10:18 AM | General
August 17, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bill Kirelawich usually has something pretty interesting to say. Whether it’s because he is the most experienced coach on a vastly experienced coaching staff or the fact that he’s sent more than his fair share of defensive linemen to the NFL, people usually tend to sit up in their chairs and listen when Kirelawich speaks.
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| Bill Kirelawich says this year's defensive line is an athletic bunch.
Brian Persinger photo |
Aiding Kirelawich’s presentation is a colorful vocabulary that would make a sailor snicker. Saturday afternoon the Sports Communication Office was able to pry Kirelawich away from the film room long enough for the salty old coach to field some questions from inquiring minds.
As usual, he took the bark off and provided an unvarnished analysis of his unit and his players.
Asked about redshirt freshman defensive end Julian Miller getting shaken up during Saturday’s scrimmage Kirelawich offered this: “He babied himself today and he needs to grow up,” Kirelawich said. “I can’t stand that. Football is a game where you get knocked around and it’s a game of bumps and bruises and that’s what happens. Live with it.”
Later, Kirelawich softened his stance. “Julian Miller is our most improved kid from the summer until now,” he said.
Asked about junior college transfer Larry Ford Kirelawich had this to say: “Larry has done pretty well. This is what some of the younger guys don’t understand: there is playing football and then there is playing our way of football. It may sound like an awful egotistical, self-serving thing to say but there is our way of playing football.
“We play fast, we get to the ball and we hit,” Kirelawich said. “We do all of the little things that the other guys wish their teams did. When the recruits come in here they have to understand that they have to take what they have and take it to another level. We’re not asking them to do it – we’re going to demand that they do it.”
That means playing when you’re tired and straining a little harder than the guy lined up across from you.
“You’re going to have to play when you’re tired and Larry found that out today,” Kirelawich said. “He’s going to have to push himself when he’s tired because that’s what good football players do. Good football players play hurt. Good football players push themselves when they get tired. Good football players go above and beyond what they have to. Larry is a good football player and he’s going to do all of those things. It just has to be made known to him that there are no exceptions – that’s the rule.”
Kirelawich, as much as anyone, has always managed to squeeze the most out of his players. Of the many players he’s sent to the pros for longer than a cup of coffee only two, John Browning and David Grant, came to West Virginia as natural defensive linemen. Others like Mike Fox, John Thornton, Antwan Lake and Renaldo Turnbull were made into defensive linemen through sheer persistence on Kirelawich’s part, and a determination to work hard and listen to the man on their part.
Kirelawich sees some of those attributes in his current crop of defensive linemen.
“We’re very athletic but I think we have to get better,” he said. “We make way too many mistakes and I think our conditioning has to get better as a unit. We have to be ready to go eight, nine plays in a row and I don’t think we’re there yet. I think they learn quickly, they are easy to coach and they’re good kids.”
Kirelawich says there is a difference between having good players and having game-ready players.
“A guy can be good but he may not be ready to be put in the game just yet in a rotation,” Kirelawich said. “If you think of a baseball rotation it’s the same thing. Every fourth or fifth day you are going to pitch. You have X amount of guys that you are going to rotate in and out of the game so you have a number of guys that can play different positions.”
So far Kirelawich thinks he has a usable rotation of players with big guys Chris Neild, Scooter Berry and Pat Liebig, and lighter, quicker guys like Zac Cooper, Larry Ford and Julian Miller.
“Next week I’ll start with Pat Liebig at tackle, Chris Neild is going to stay at nose and Scooter Berry is going to go to end because I want a bigger group,” Kirelawich said. “If someone wants to get snot-nosed with us and try to push the ball down our throat I want to get the big guys out there who can hang in there with them.”
On the other hand, if West Virginia is facing a passing team Kirelawich has the flexibility to get some pass rushers into the game.
“I’ll have Larry at one end and Zac Cooper at the other end and I’ll have a quick team,” Kirelawich explained. “This gives me some flexibility. And I can add Julian to that too because he’s getting better by the week.”
Pat Liebig is Kirelawich’s wild card because he knows all three defensive line positions. He’s also 25 years old.
“There’s a little bit of rust and there has to be,” Kirelawich said of Liebig’s time away from football last year. “It’s not as much rust as you think. The more he’ll play the better he’ll be. I have no worries about Pat Liebig because he’ll fit right in and he has fit right in already.”
Will the six or seven game-ready players Kirelawich has right now be enough?
“No coach ever thinks he has enough depth and I’m one of them,” Kirelawich said. “You can’t have too many good players.”
That’s honest, unvarnished analysis from the man who usually doesn’t mind taking the bark off anyway.
