United Bank Playbook
November 29, 2011 03:27 PM | General
WEST VIRGINIA GAME NOTES | USF GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Raymond James Stadium has not been a very hospitable venue for the West Virginia Mountaineers through the years, particularly the last two times they have played there.
In 2007, West Virginia took an undefeated record and a No. 5 national ranking into RayJay and left with a 21-13 loss that wasn’t really as close as the final score indicated.
Two years later in 2009, the 20th-ranked Mountaineers were 6-1 with only a road loss at Auburn, but they surrendered 20 first half points and wound up losing 30-19. Both times, USF’s stingy defense stymied West Virginia’s no-huddle spread attack.
Even the 2005 game West Virginia ended up winning 28-13 was a tooth extraction. West Virginia needed a 76-yard touchdown run from Pat White early in the fourth quarter to put away the Bulls.
On Monday, West Virginia first-year coach Dana Holgorsen was asked about the Mountaineers’ troubles against South Florida in Tampa. All he could do was offer a shrug.
“I don’t care,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
What does make a difference to Holgorsen is this year’s South Florida team, which, with a few breaks, could be 9-2 instead of 5-6 and fighting to keep its six-year bowl streak alive.
“Their record doesn’t reflect what kind of team they are, how well coached they are, or what kind of players they have,” said Holgorsen. “They started well at 4-0, beat a good Notre Dame team, then the last six or seven games they’ve come up a little bit short.”
USF has a six-point loss at UConn on Oct. 15, a three-point loss to Cincinnati on Oct. 22, a three-point overtime loss to Rutgers on Nov. 5 and a three-point loss to Miami on Nov. 19.
Even in last week’s 34-24 defeat against Louisville, USF led the Cardinals 17-3 late in the second quarter before giving up 24 second-half points.
South Florida also played the Louisville game without starting quarterback B.J. Daniels, who injured his right shoulder in the 6-3 loss to Miami two weeks ago. Whether or not Daniels plays Thursday night is still a mystery. During Monday’s Big East coaches’ teleconference, US coach Skip Holtz was not sure if Daniels would be ready to go with a short week of prep time.
“That’s one of those things that you’ve got to be careful how you prepare for,” said Holgorsen. “You don’t know who you’re going to see. When guys are injured, you don’t know if they’re truly out or if they’re going to play.”
Against the Cardinals, the Bulls were also without leading receiver Sterling Griffin, absent the last four games with an ankle injury sustained in the Cincinnati loss. Griffin is expected to be back in the lineup against the Mountaineers.
USF is still not sure who will line up in the secondary, though. Starting cornerbacks Quenton Washington and Kayvon Webster suffered concussions in the Miami game, although Washington did play in the Louisville game. However, Washington left in the fourth quarter with a shoulder injury.
Also, two other potential starting corners, George Baker (ribs) and JaQuez Jenkins (hamstring) have been slowed with injuries while two other backups, Ricardo Dixon and Ernie Tabuteau, have already been lost for the season. And those losses came after Spencer Boyd was suspended following the third game of the season.
As a result, Louisville was able to exploit USF’s thin secondary by throwing for 241 yards and three touchdowns last Friday morning.
West Virginia, possessing the Big East’s top-ranked passing offense, will certainly try to take advantage of that if the Mountaineers can buy enough time for junior quarterback Geno Smith.
Keeping Smith upright has been a problem for West Virginia in its last two games against Cincinnati and Pitt. In those two games, West Virginia was forced to scrap most of its downfield passing plays to compensate for protection issues up front.
In fact, during last Friday’s loss to Pitt, the right side of West Virginia’s offensive line was replaced at halftime and those two replacements, right tackle Curtis Feigt and right guard Quinton Spain, are expected to start on Thursday night.
“They were not fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, but they came in, didn’t bat an eye and just played,” said Holgorsen. “Feigt didn’t know very much – he’s played offensive line for a year (after playing defensive tackle last season) and Spain is a freshman, so we’re talking about young kids, but they’re massive. They’re big-bodied guys that can physically handle the game.”
West Virginia has faced some outstanding defensive lines this year and Holgorsen believes USF’s two interior guys Cory Grissom and Keith McCaskill rank right up there with the best the Mountaineers have played. Keeping those two from blowing up the passing game will be West Virginia’s No. 1 priority.
“They’re No. 1 in the country in sacks,” said Holgorsen. “They’re top three in negative plays. They don’t blitz too much, which means those guys up front are probably pretty good. They rotate some guys in there, too, so top to bottom they may have the best defensive line that we’ve faced.”
Weakside linebacker DeDe Lattimore (87 tackles, seven sacks and 13 TFL), defensive end Ryan Giddins (44 tackles, 5 ½ sacks and 11 TFL) and Giddins’ backup, Claude Davis (6 sacks and 7 TFL), are also disruptive players.
South Florida is ranked second in the country in sacks this week with 38 and is also No. 2 in tackles for loss with 93. The Bulls are tied for 33rd in the nation in scoring defense giving up 22 points per game and are 34th in total defense allowing 350.2 yards per game. The USF defense has allowed just one play longer than 50 yards this year.
“They play back and they’re sound,” said Holgorsen. “It’s going to be up to us to block and win one-on-one matchups. If we can win one-on-one matchups, they’re going to start adding people (to the line of scrimmage). Once they add people, there’s more space. They’re sound schematically and they’re not going to make a lot of mistakes. They make you earn everything you get.”
WVU fans are well acquainted with USF defensive coordinator Mark Snyder, once the head coach at Marshall.
“Coach (Steve) Dunlap was with him at Marshall,” said Holgorsen. “Skip Holtz has a philosophy of what he wants to do defensively and just like it was when Skip was at East Carolina, I remember him being a very sound, four-down team that had good defensive line play. They remind me a lot of that. Coach Snyder is a great defensive coordinator and we’ve got a great amount of respect for him and have competed against him in the past.”
On the other side of the ball, West Virginia will have to spend time preparing for both Daniels and 6-foot-5 sophomore Bobby Eveld, who passed for 210 yards and a touchdown in the Louisville loss, at quarterback.
Eveld has appeared in six games this year and is completing 55.2 percent of his passes for 354 yards and a touchdown.
Daniels has taken the majority of the snaps for the past three seasons and is now third on USF’s career passing list with 6,113 yards. The junior also ranks third in USF history in total offense (7,724 yards) and touchdown passes (37).
Mountaineer fans can certainly recall Daniels’ freshman-season performance against WVU in 2009 when he passed for 232 yards and three touchdowns and also ran 14 times for 104 yards in USF’s 11-point victory in Tampa.
“He can make it with his feet or he can make it with his arm,” said Holgorsen. “Even if he does play, he’s probably not going to run very much with a shoulder like that. That’s pretty dangerous.”
Griffin (40 catches for 493 yards and two touchdowns) was on pace to have a big year before going down with an ankle injury, while converted defensive back Victor Marc shows 30 catches for 328 yards and a pair of TDs.
Senior A.J. Love, who was granted a sixth season after missing 2010 with a torn ACL, has caught eight passes for 116 yards and a touchdown in 2011. Love caught a touchdown pass in the 2009 victory over West Virginia and finished the game with 71 yards receiving.
South Florida has a pair of outstanding runners in 6-foot-1, 240-pound Colorado transfer Darrell Scott and 6-foot, 210-pound sophomore Demetris Murray, the two combining for 1,100 yards and 13 touchdowns this year. Scott had a season-high 146 yards against Florida Atlantic while Murray went for 115 in the Western Kentucky win.
In West Virginia’s 20-6 victory over USF in Morgantown last year, Smith completed 24-of-31 passes for 219 yards and two touchdowns.
Smith continues to lead the Big East in passing with 3,741 yards and 25 touchdowns, but he has managed just two TD tosses in his last two games against Cincinnati and Pitt. Smith is also averaging 8.3 yards per pass attempt in his last two outings after averaging 10.5 yards per attempt through his first nine games.
West Virginia (8-3) has two of the Big East’s three 1,000-yard receivers in sophomore Stedman Bailey (60 catches for 1,117 yards and 11 touchdowns) and Tavon Austin (82 catches for 1,009 yards and four TDs) in an offense that leads the conference in scoring with an average of 35.4 points per game.
Junior Shawne Alston is second in the Big East with 10 rushing touchdowns and shows 332 yards on 72 carries, while true freshman Dustin Garrison has a team-best 655 yards on 120 attempts. The vast majority of Garrison’s yards (291) came in the Bowling Green game, though.
A West Virginia victory over USF will give the Mountaineers a share of the Big East regular season title. WVU also still has a shot to earn the Big East’s BCS bowl berth with a win Thursday night combined with a Cincinnati win on Saturday against UConn.
“This game is what this team is going to be remembered for,” said Holgorsen.
Kickoff Thursday night is set for 8 p.m. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN.
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