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Football Notebook: The Frogs are Coming
October 17, 2016 03:20 PM | Football
The sweet taste of victory that West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen enjoyed after last Saturday’s 48-17 win at Texas Tech lasted about as long as it took for the team’s charter flight to return from Lubbock, Texas.
Once the coaches examined, reviewed and graded the video on their iPads, it was immediately on to week-six opponent TCU, which has the benefit of an extra week to get prepared for Saturday’s game in Morgantown.
“You get over it real quick,” Holgorsen noted during his Monday morning teleconference with Big 12 media. “It was a good plane ride home and then after that you pretty much settle in and get back to work.”
The chore does not get any easier for his 5-0 Mountaineer football team, which is seeking to become 6-0 for the first time since 2006.
However, the friendly confines of Milan Puskar Stadium have been extremely friendly to the Horned Frogs of late. TCU beat West Virginia, 39-38, in double overtime in 2012, and then pulled out another one-point victory, 31-30, in 2014.
In fact, the experiences here have been so pleasurable for TCU coach Gary Patterson that he may want to consider purchasing some land out at Cheat Lake to do a little fishing during the offseason, if that’s what he’s into.
“We’ve got probably our biggest test this weekend,” Holgorsen noted. “TCU does the same stuff, (co-offensive coordinators) Doug Meacham, Sonny Cumbie and those guys do a great job and it’s another spread offense that has got great talent with good quarterback play that can move the football around. You’ve got to be able to get lined up quick, you’ve got to be able to disguise things and keep people off balance.”
Defending Texas Tech and its one-dimensional offense is one thing, but defending a TCU attack that can also run the ball is something entirely different.
That is the next challenge Tony Gibson’s defense will have this Saturday.
As for the building excitement in West Virginia as the No. 12-ranked Mountaineers continue to climb the national rankings, Holgorsen said it’s great, but that excitement will only take a football team so far.
And based on the way TCU has performed here in the past, and the extra time off to heal early season wounds, those Horned Frogs are going to be plenty excited when they get here, too.
“Like I told our team (Sunday night), ‘You better put the previous game to rest and learn from it - some of the things we did wrong - and then get ready to do the whole week of preparation all over again.’ That’s tough,” Holgorsen admitted. “It’s hard to do it every week and that’s why the Big 12 is so tough because you’ve got to do it every week. We’ve got our biggest test of the year this week coming up against TCU and if you don’t prepare to be able to win you’re not going to be able to get it done.”
Briefly:
* Holgorsen was asked how the defense has been able to recover from all of the losses it absorbed last season and also the loss of top safety Dravon Askew-Henry during preseason practice.
“I think we’ve done a good job of recruiting here recently just getting some of the key components - some older guys, graduate transfers, four-year transfers, junior college transfers to be able to step in and be effective,” Holgorsen said. “It’s really hard in this league to replace guys like we replaced guys last year - the NFL guys - and then you lose our best player in Dravon Henry before the season and typically you’ve got to replace him with another scholarship guy. Well if that scholarship guy is a freshman then you are in trouble.
“You’ve got to have two-deep guys that are veterans, two-deep guys that have played ball and can physically hold up and that’s why,” he continued. “We’ve got older guys and experienced guys and when one guy goes down you are replacing them with a body that is capable of being able to go in there and compete at a high level.”
Holgorsen admitted the reason Gibson’s defense has enjoyed success is because it’s very difficult to attack because there are always so many moving parts.
“That’s why we do what we do,” Holgorsen explained. “It’s good against the spread and Gibbie does a great job of getting those guys motivated and playing hard - being able to adjust, disguise and get lined up quick against all these up-tempo offenses is very important.”
Holgorsen said having players move around as much as West Virginia does on defense can sometimes make things confusing for offensive linemen, particularly young offensive linemen.
“Because they move around so much it looks like there are 12, 13 people out there sometimes so just being able to disguise stuff is very important. Everybody tries to do it and I think Gibbie does a great job of it. Only having the three down linemen gives you more second-level players that you can move around and blitz people from different spaces but also cover people from different spots as well. They are doing a great job but they need to continue to do it.”
The key component, Holgorsen believes, is being able to recruit quality second-level guys to play behind West Virginia’s three-man front.
Signing top-quality defensive linemen remains one of the most difficult things to do in college football. Once Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and the other teams frequently in the top 10 get theirs, that leaves very little good ones left for the rest of college football.
“We try to recruit as many D-linemen as we possibly can. Those guys are really hard to find, and especially the twitchy Bruce Irvin kind of guys,” Holgorsen said. “We’ve had Bruce Irvin and Will Clarke, two D-ends in the NFL, and those guys are hard to find. You’ve got to be able to get the second-level guys - the 6-foot-1, 210-pound guys like KJ Dillon, Karl Joseph and Kyzir White is that type of guy playing for us right now that can get to the quarterback but also cover as well.”
* Holgorsen was asked if there is the urge to continually come up with innovations to counter the things defenses are coming up with to slow down spread offenses.
The coach said that mostly occurs during the offseason. During the season, there is very little time for that and it’s all about coming up with a plan to beat your next opponent.
“During the offseason there is an element of the offense trying to beat the defense and the defense trying to beat the offense (with innovations) and making it competitive,” he said. “You’ve got to go against each other for the speed of the game. You’ve got to try and go against each other to make us better and the competitive nature of what we do kicks in and we try to win.
“That was challenging and the defense probably got the best of the offense, which is the only way you are going to be successful if the defense can stop the offense when we go against each other every spring and camp. But that stuff gets put away pretty quick and it’s all about scout teams and preparing to play your next opponent,” he said.
“We haven’t tried to beat our defense in the last two months, but I’m proud of the way they are playing. Their effort is good, they are making plays and they need to continue to get better,” Holgorsen added.
* Holgorsen said on Monday that he continues to be impressed with Skyler Howard’s leadership skills. Earlier today, the senior was named Big 12 offensive player of the week after completing 21-of-31 passes for 318 yards and a touchdown and running 12 times for 89 yards with two additional scores.
“He’s had a couple of nagging injuries that we were fortunate enough to be able to avoid a year ago and that kind of limited him in practice a little bit during the beginning part of the year,” said Holgorsen. “I thought that kind of limited us in a couple of our offensive performances and now he’s back to 100 percent and he practiced his tail off last week and played his tail off this past week.
“It was probably as good as he’s played and that’s what leaders do. It doesn’t matter what the record is. It’s a long season and everybody gets nicked up and beat up and what great leaders do is they put the past game to bed and then they get out there and they practice hard for their next opponent and they are consistent with what they do each and every day,” he said.
* Later today, the Big 12 will have live coverage of its planned Board of Directors meeting currently underway in Dallas.
Holgorsen was asked if he thought the league should or should not expand. The coach admitted he had forgotten the meeting was taking place this afternoon.
“You guys (media) pay more attention to that than we do as coaches because it doesn’t affect what we’re doing here this year,” he said. “Step one is a championship game and we’ve got to get a championship game and the two best teams in our league need to be playing on that last weekend of the season on championship Saturday.
“How you get there is a little bit more challenging, I guess. There is a lot of politics involved with it with a lot of different people. Obviously presidents, athletic directors and TV people have their hand in it so I’d like to see a couple of teams added. I think six and six in two divisions is a good way of doing it. If they think there is a better way of doing it then we’re going to roll with that.”
Which way the coaches roll could become a little bit clearer later today.
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