Walking in the Dark
September 03, 2009 02:06 PM | General
August 3, 2009
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| Jeff Casteel |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel will be taking a walk in the dark this Saturday in the season opener against Liberty.
Most of those good skill players Liberty flaunted on offense last year are gone. Casteel believes their replacements will be good - he just doesn’t have any visual evidence to go on.
“It’s the unknown so we really don’t have a whole lot to go on,” Casteel said Tuesday evening.
South Carolina transfer Tommy Beecher is listed as Liberty’s starting quarterback. He’s more of a pro-style pocket passer. Sophomore Mike Brown is also expected to play. He’s more of a running threat.
“We’ve not seen the Beecher kid on tape and we know the Brown kid is a great athlete and he’s very explosive,” Casteel said. “They are using him in a lot of different roles. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up being a multi-position guy on Saturday. How they’re going to use him we don’t know.”
The same can be said for running back, wide receiver, tight end … you name it.
“It’s always like that with the first ballgame,” Casteel said. “You don’t know what you’re going to get. We have to try and concentrate on ourselves and try and be physical and be a team that gets off of blocks, tackles well and plays assignment football. If we can do that hopefully that will give us a chance to be a good defense.”
Going back to when Liberty Coach Danny Rocco worked for Al Groh at Virginia to study the Cavaliers doesn’t really help either.
“Who knows how their spring and summer has gone and their fall? I know they’re excited. They’ve got a lot of good football players,” Casteel said. “They were very good last year and we’re happy some of those guys are gone. They had some wideouts that can go. They had a running back that was drafted. I’m sure they have very capable players coming in and filling in for those guys. They will be ready to go. They’re going to be excited to come into Mountaineer Field.”
Unlike Casteel, offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen has a little more to go on. He knows his young offensive line is going to have a big challenge moving 6-foot-5, 377-pound nose guard Asa Chapman off the ball.
“Watching him on tape he can hold two gaps pretty easily,” Mullen said. “For our centers they are going to have their hands full this weekend.”
Mullen is also impressed with what he’s seen from the two guys flanking Chapman – former Virginia Tech transfer Daryl Robertson and Trey Jacobs, a pair of 280-pounders.
“Three of them up front are all really good players,” Mullen said. “(Robertson) is a 6-3, 280-pound kid who is very physical. They play that two-gap style of defense where they’re going to knock the dog out of our offensive line and try and free up the linebackers to run to the ball. Those three guys up front will all present a problem.”
The biggest issue is not necessarily the size, but the scheme Liberty employs with its impressive size up front.
“When you’re in that situation you just try and hold a point,” Mullen said. “And when you’re a big guy you tend to hold a point a little bit better.”
Briefly:
“As a whole, anytime you come into a first game without any scrimmaging and without any preseason games, when you’ve got to tee it up and it all counts on every snap you’re really looking forward to seeing everything go,” Mullen said.
Mullen noted his offensive staff and players are much more comfortable heading into this year’s opener.
“Not only for myself but our entire staff, we know each other, we know the offense as a group, our kids know us as a group,” he said. “There is a tremendous amount of confidence as a group going into this year as opposed to last season.”
“He pushed the truck all by himself,” Devine laughed. “We didn’t even have to get out.”
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| Jarrett Brown |
Head coach Bill Stewart vividly remembers Brown’s Rutgers performance because he was in charge of quarterbacks then.
“We didn’t know until we came out that Pat White couldn’t go,” Stewart said. “So I told Jarrett he was going and he gave me a big smile. That was probably one of the hardest games I have coached in my life. But he did a nice job and played like a champ. I am hoping that is what happens this weekend and if not, we will settle him down.”
