Three Things
August 06, 2009 03:21 PM | General
(3:21 pm)
Post your comments
We are now two days away from the start of fall football camp. West Virginia fans have spent another summer analyzing and reviewing the program’s strengths and weaknesses. Although by no means an all-inclusive list, among the items getting most of the attention from fans this summer include:
 |
|
| Jarrett Brown |
Quarterback Jarrett Brown … How will he perform in his new role as Pat White’s replacement? Also, who will be the guy behind Brown?
The overall passing game … Can Jeff Mullen build on the impressive showing his offense had against North Carolina in last year’s Meineke Car Care Bowl?
The offensive line … How will it jell with new faces across the board and one of the few returning veterans, Don Barclay, spending his summer rehabbing a broken foot suffered during the spring game?
Beefy running backs … Can West Virginia find a reliable big back to convert those critical third and short yardage situations that ultimately win football games?
Cover corners … Can West Virginia locate a pair of corners to stick with all those fleet wide receivers out in space so Defensive Coordinator Jeff Casteel can dial up more pressure on the quarterback this fall.
A dominant defense … Can West Virginia field a dominant defense that can get off the field on third down this fall?
Impact newcomers … Which newcomers will come in and help the team this year? Of equal importance, which newcomers will be here when training camp opens on Saturday?
Naturally, all of these are legitimate issues.
Well, I am going to throw out three more things that rarely get the attention they deserve but more often than not determine the outcome of seasons:
1.) Schedule
2.) Injuries
3.) Kicking Game
Let’s take all three of them individually. I will use history as an example (with the hope that history does not repeat itself).
Schedule – Does anyone recall Frank Cignetti facing eight 10+-win teams during his brief four-year tenure at West Virginia from 1976-79? Does anyone remember that the combined record of the 44 teams Cignetti faced while coaching at West Virginia was 280-215-6?
Of course not!
What everyone remembers is Cignetti’s 17-27 record.
 |
|
| Art Lewis |
Art “Pappy” Lewis was the same coach in 1958 and 1959 that he was in 1953, 1954 and 1955. There were two differences, however. One, he no longer had Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley, Chuck Howley, Joe Marconi, Fred Wyant and the gang playing for him. And two, Waynesburg, Washington & Lee, Furman. Fordham and Marquette were replaced with Oklahoma, Indiana, Syracuse, Maryland and USC.
That’s why Pappy was scouting for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1960.
Hit the fast forward button to 1998. Don Nehlen will tell anyone within earshot that his Mountaineer team in ‘98 was talented enough to run the table if not for West Virginia opening the season with No. 1-ranked Ohio State. He wanted to face Dairy Queen in the opener, but Dairy Queen couldn’t get out of its game with Burger King.
Who knows if Nehlen was right about his team running the table in 1998? But he was correct that schedules do matter.
West Virginia had a great team in 2007 that whipped Oklahoma in the 2008 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. It will always rank among the finest teams in school history. Can you guess the combined record of the teams West Virginia faced that year in order to get to the Fiesta Bowl? Try 79 wins and 72 losses.
The best team in school history – the standard bearer for all West Virginia teams – was Nehlen’s undefeated ’88 team. It was the only Mountaineer squad to ever play in the national championship game. Do you know how West Virginia got to the title game that year? By playing a regular season schedule that included just two teams with winning records (Pitt and Syracuse) and a combined record of 50-71-1.
There is an age-old football adage: Good coaches have good schedules, and great coaches have great schedules.
If you need further convincing then go research Joe Paterno’s record. Before the Big Ten days, football practice at State College didn’t start until Paterno was certain he already had eight wins in the bag.
 |
||
| Bobby Bowden |
Injuries – Bobby Bowden had everything lined up in 1974 with a large group of returners that included marquee players Danny Buggs on offense and Jeff Merrow on defense.
Then Buggs blew out a tire in the season opener against Richmond and later was slowed by calcium deposits on his hip. Top running back Dwayne Woods joined Buggs on the injury list, and then Merrow blew out his knee in the Tulane game (he tried to play on one leg for the remainder of the year). Center Al Gluchowski broke his hand, while offensive tackle Dave Van Halanger and linebacker Ray Marshall also missed games. There were several others that I am forgetting … The result was Bowden’s worst season in more than 50 years of college coaching. If those guys would have remained healthy it is highly likely that Bowden wouldn’t have been hanging from trees in Woodburn Circle that fall.
Do you remember the 1999 season?
That was the year quarterback Marc Bulger broke his hand and West Virginia’s record slipped to 4-7. How often does a team with NFL caliber talent such as Anthony Becht, Jerry Porter, Barrett Green and Marc Bulger lose seven games?
Well, it happens when you have injuries.
Kicking Game – There is certainly a lot of ground to cover here.
For starters, the kicking game cost West Virginia BCS bowl berths in 2008 (Cincinnati), 2007 (Pitt) and 2004 (Boston College).
The Colorado game in 2008 was decided on a missed kick. A punt return for a touchdown helped provide the winning margin for Louisville in 2006 that sent the Cardinals to the Orange Bowl. In 2004, BC went through West Virginia’s punt team like a hot knife through butter.
Everyone remembers the 1996 Miami game, and then the Syracuse debacle the week afterward.
You can name just about any Virginia Tech game you want. I will pick two. How about the one in 2000 in Blacksburg when West Virginia spent three hours chasing Andre Davis into the night?
Or, take the game in 2004 (also played in Blacksburg). Virginia Tech scored 12 points on four field goals. The Hokies’ other seven points came as a result of a blocked field goal returned 74 yards for a touchdown. Tech won the game 19-13.
Before each football game the Virginia Tech sports information department provides a lengthy list of the blocked punts, blocked field goals and touchdown returns the Hokies have made during Coach Frank Beamer’s tenure there. Get your hands on that list sometime and you will discover that about half of them came against West Virginia.
We digress.
There were about 215 fumbles in the 2003 Cincinnati loss … and despite that a missed field goal at the end of the game could have given West Virginia a 16-15 win.
Who could forget the Purdue game to begin the 1995 season, or the Mountaineers marching down the field to kick a field goal against Missouri in the Insight.com Bowl … and then Missouri running the other way with the football for a touchdown!
In the early 1990s, West Virginia had two first-rate kickers on its roster. Yet for some reason we wound up getting them backwards. The most accurate field goal kicker in NFL history, Mike Vanderjagt, was shanking punts, and the guy with the strongest leg in college football history, Todd Sauerbrun, was duck-hooking field goals.
Even back during the Bowden years, the kicking game was sometimes an exercise in self-mutilation.
 |
||
| Bill McKenzie |
Before Bill McKenzie forever etched his name into WVU history, the kicker Bowden sent out onto the field to try field goals usually had the look of a condemned man taking a walk to the electric chair. There was good reason; Bowden’s kickers in 1974 combined to make just 71 percent of their PAT attempts!
In ’75, it’s no wonder Bowden went for it a lot on fourth and 15 on the other side of the 50. West Virginia was the last school in the country to make a field goal that year, a mere seven games into the season when McKenzie’s 20-yard boot was the difference in a 10-7 victory over Virginia Tech.
The kicking game is a lot like homeland security: if you're talking about it then it's probably not a good thing.
So keep on reading about how the offensive line is progressing, or how Jeff Casteel plans on bringing more pressure against opposing quarterbacks this fall.
But don’t forget about those other three things that I mentioned. In the end, those things sometimes have a way of coming up and biting us on the rear. History proves that.
