Beatty: Experimenting at a Minimum
July 28, 2010 10:52 AM | General
July 28, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia football staff is spending this week sequestered in meetings in preparation for fall training camp, which begins next Friday.
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| Running backs/slot receivers coach Chris Beatty says West Virginia's offensive plan is already in place for the fall.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
According to running backs/slots receivers coach Chris Beatty, the offensive staff is putting the final touches on what they plan to install when the coaches getting their first look at the players since last spring.
“We don’t have time to experiment too much once camp starts,” Beatty said recently. “Spring is the time to look at some different things and you want to see if some people are capable of doing some different things. During fall camp, you are really just focusing on getting ready for Coastal Carolina and getting ready for what you’re trying to do all season.”
But that doesn’t mean their plan is etched in stone.
“We’ll do some little things and sprinkle some things in here and there, but for the most part it’s getting better at what we do,” Beatty said.
The coaching staff has a pretty good idea what the returning players can do. It’s the new players such as Ivan McCartney, Barry Brunetti and Jeremy Johnson that the coaching staff must get a quick evaluation of to determine if they are capable of helping the team immediately this fall.
“There may be a guy that surprises us or some personnel things that might change, but the schemes won’t change,” explained Beatty. “For the most part, what we have is in – we have kind of agreed that this is what we are going to ride with and you just go ahead and get better at it.” One thing Beatty believes West Virginia has to get better at in 2010 is getting the football into the hands of its best playmakers.
“We didn’t do a good job as a group of getting Tavon (Austin) the ball,” Beatty admitted. “He needs to get the ball. He is as good as there is anywhere so he’s got to get the ball. For us to be successful we’ve got certain guys that need to get touches and we need to have a way of guaranteeing they get touches and just through a progression in the pass game or what have you.”
Beatty understands, too, that getting the ball in Austin’s hands comes at the expense of giving the football to Noel Devine, a 1,400-yard rusher last year as a junior.
“We want to make them defend the whole field,” Beatty said. “If you make them defend the whole field with guys like Bradley Starks, Tavon and Jock (Sanders), that makes it easier for seven to get what he’s supposed to get. If they try and take seven away, then we need to take what they give us and make sure that we take advantage of it with Jock and Tavon. I don’t think there are too many people that can cover (Tavon) one-on-one outside. Those are things that we’ve got to be able to take advantage of and take what the defense gives us.”
According to Beatty, the trick is being able to strike a balance between spreading the wealth and getting the right people the football in the right situations.
“That’s why you call plays for some guys when you know they’re going to get it and guarantee them touches,” Beatty explained. “You need to go through a game and say, ‘Hey, Tavon has got to touch the ball eight or 10 times’ and that doesn’t include the return game. Then here’s how we do it to guarantee he’s going to touch it, not just being the progression.
“Then you call pass plays that put them as primary and secondary options so you sit back and say, ‘Well, if they cover Jock then our check down is Tavon or our check down is Bradley Starks.’ In those kind of ways you can make sure those guys get enough touches.”
Beatty admits some of that will be on the quarterbacks on the field and some of that will be on the coaches up in the box.
“It’s a combination of both,” Beatty said. “You want to let them have opportunities to change plays and get you into good plays, but then at the same time you want to make sure you have good calls from the box. We’re all adults and we don’t want to put our whole paycheck on Geno checking everything at the line of scrimmage. Payton Manning? Yeah. Geno Smith? Eventually, but not right now.”
Beatty says Smith showed great progress last spring understanding what offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen wants accomplished.
“Coach Mullen does a great job with those quarterbacks as far as getting them to understand how the offense works. Geno being in it a year, that’s one of the things, we’ve been changing quarterbacks so much with Pat, J.B., and now Geno … he has a chance of being in there for a while where he can make this offense his offense. The same goes with Barry Brunetti and Jeremy Johnson when they get their opportunities.
“The young guys can learn their roles so they can understand what we’re trying to get accomplished with everything that we’re doing and we don’t have to de-program them of what they knew before when they were with another staff or another system. That’s one of the good things about having young guys.”
Briefly:
“He’s gotten better every year at different facets of his game and this year, there are things we are hoping to try and continue to build upon to make him the best player he can be for us and hopefully in the future for his pro career,” Beatty said.
Devine is easily West Virginia’s most versatile back since Kerry Marbury played for coach Bobby Bowden in 1972.
Marbury that season ran for 775 yards and 16 touchdowns, caught 16 passes for 127 yards and a score, and returned 20 kickoffs for 554 yards and a 100-yard touchdown to begin the Penn State game. Marbury averaged 132.4 all-purpose yards per game that season.
“We need a guy that can step up so we don’t always have to put Jock back there or Tavon back there,” Beatty said. “We want those guys to focus on their positions.”
Two possible candidates with differing skill sets are sophomore Shawne Alston and redshirt freshman Daquan Hargrett. Alston is more of a between-the-tackles power runner who can get downhill in a hurry, while Hargrett is very similar to Devine and the other elusive backs West Virginia has recruited in the past.
Both have their strengths.
“Shawne gives us something we’ve been needing as far as a bigger body who gets downhill,” Beatty said. “He had a good spring doing that and Daquan is a lot like what we have already. It’s going to be big for both of them to continue the momentum they had in the spring.”
Beatty said the backup job will be determined by the guys on the field.
“We’ll find out pretty quick who steps out amongst that group,” he said. “Hopefully they all do well, but there will be somebody that will make it a little bit of an easier choice for us. That’s the way it always seems to be. We’ll see who it is and kind of go from there.”
