Gibson's Catch The Spark WVU Needed

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Play by play and game by game, Shelton Gibson continues to get a little bit better … and a little bit better.

On Saturday, we saw Gibson take another big leap forward with his three-catch, 104-yard performance in West Virginia’s 17-16 come-from-behind victory over annual nemesis Kansas State.

Before yesterday’s victory, the Wildcats were to West Virginia what the U.S. Open is for golfer Phil Mickelson or the Pittsburgh Steelers are to the Cincinnati Bengals - an obstacle tucked inside a burden wrapped around a hardship.

But Gibson’s gigantic 52-yard catch in the fourth quarter while Kansas State cornerback D.J. Reed was committing assault and battery was the play the Mountaineers needed to finally clear one of their biggest hurdles.

What Gibson did to haul that pass in was truly amazing, considering how much concentration was required to locate the ball through the ear hole of his football helmet while Reed was ripping it off his head.

“I saw it a bunch when SportsCenter put it out there,” quarterback Skyler Howard said after the game. “When he gets up beating his chest and brings that energy that just gets everybody going. That was one of the sparks to the comeback.”

It sure was.

Incidentally, if you recall, concentration - or a lack thereof - was one of the biggest criticisms leveled against Gibson last year. Not anymore - not with new wide receiver coach Tyron Carrier hounding him every day.

Without a doubt, Gibson’s newfound dependability is a direct result of his willingness to work hard and improve his craft, which he did over the summertime, but Gibson also admits Carrier has had something to do with it as well.

“We always do ball drills right before practice and he always asks me, ‘Shelton, how many passes did you drop?’ I will tell him none and he will be like, ‘You know why? Because you’re doing ball drills every single day,’” Gibson said.

But that’s only part of it.

In the short time Carrier has been here, he has worked hard with his group on the simple fundamentals of pass receiving - catching the football in your hands and not against your body, getting your thumbs on top when the ball is below your waist or flipping them down when the ball is above your waist.

There is a lot more to being a great wide receiver than just running fast and catching the football, and Carrier is slowly but surely starting to get that out of Gibson.

“This summer we were constantly catching tennis balls, catching passes like this (showing his thumbs pointed up), like this (showing his thumbs pointed down), behind us, up in the air … everything,” Gibson said. “Whatever pass comes to us, whether it’s to us, behind us, or all the way back here (motioning over his shoulder) we’ll be able to catch it because we practice it every single day.”

Well, they practice almost everything except those rare situations when the other guy is ripping your head off.

“I saw it through my chinstrap and the bottom of my facemask,” Gibson said. “The chinstrap was on my mouth and I was looking through it until the last second when I could see the ball.”

“They usually call penalties on that,” added West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen.

That catch got West Virginia out of a big hole and led to the team’s first touchdown, a Justin Crawford one-yard run.

Saturday’s victory was particularly pleasing to Gibson because he felt he played poorly in last year’s loss to the Wildcats in Manhattan.

“I would say K-State was the worst game of my career and every single day, every single week, every single month, I would just think K-State, K-State, K-State,” he said.

Now, at least for a couple of days with another open week on the horizon, he can think the catch, the catch, the catch.

Gibson admitted that he had already watched the play 20 times before he made his way upstairs to the team room to talk to the media.

“That’s why it took me so long to get up here,” he laughed. “I’ll probably watch it 50 more times (on Sunday).”

Looking at the bigger picture, what Gibson has been able to do in his last five games, dating back to last year’s bowl victory over Arizona State, is starting to line up with some of the better wide receivers Holgorsen has coached and some of the better wide receivers that have ever played here.

Four of Gibson’s seven career 100-yard games have happened since the Arizona State win, and his 10 catches of 50 yards or longer over his last 17 games are more than some pretty fair wideouts such as Stedman Bailey (seven), Chris Henry (six) and Tavon Austin (five) had during their WVU careers.

Danny Buggs, still considered WVU’s gold standard for home-run hitting wide receivers, only had eight catches of 50 yards or longer during his three seasons playing for Bobby Bowden in the mid-1970s.

So that’s where Gibson is right now with a whole lot of football left in his college career.

“Shelton can get behind people,” Holgorsen said. “I thought Skyler missed him a couple of times or he would have had another 200-yard day. I’m proud of him.”

Howard said Gibson is growing into the guy he looks to whenever the team needs a big play like the one he made on Saturday.

“That just goes into him maturing as a receiver and maturing as a football player, knowing the situation that he has to make a play,” Howard said.

Even the other Gibson on the team - defensive coordinator Tony Gibson - marvels at the force Shelton is starting to become on the other side of the football.

There are enough Shelton Gibson big plays on film now to force opposing defenses to use more guys to cover him, which means fewer guys left to cover the other guys.

“Any time you play a great wideout, the only time that you have a chance with a guy like him is you’ve got to high-low him,” Tony Gibson said. “You’ve got to put somebody underneath banging him and then have a guy over top. You have roll coverage toward him because if you don’t he’s going to get you.”

Just like he did on Saturday afternoon against Kansas State.

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