Dana Holgorsen has hit the pause button on football practice this week for spring break, but the Mountaineers are scheduled to be back at it on the practice field next Tuesday afternoon.
The team will practice Thursday and then will have a Saturday morning practice that media will be permitted to observe for the first time this spring.
The team will conduct its annual Pro Day for NFL scouts on Monday, April 4, followed by another full week of work for the current players.
Three practices are scheduled for the week of April 11, followed by another full week of practice leading into the spring game to be played at The Greenbrier on Saturday, April 23.
The game will kick off at noon and a portion of the proceeds again benefit WVU Medicine Children’s, formerly known as WVU Children’s Hospital.
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The theme for spring practice last year was how much farther along the defense was than the offense. Well, this year it’s the opposite with the vast majority of the experienced players returning on the offensive side of the football.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked Holgorsen how he was going to approach the defense this spring. Was he going to take the turnover in personnel in mind or was it full speed ahead for his offense?
“I’m going to try and beat (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson) every time we play,” Holgorsen joked. “Last year, he just completely shoved it right where it counts. The offense was in a bad spot last spring and everyone is walking around the halls saying that this is the offense’s time to be able to have some success.”
Turning serious, Holgorsen said he has full confidence Gibson will get things ironed out on that side of the football before the games count this fall.
“All of last year’s backups know what Gibby’s talking about. They had a lot of reps, and they are going to compete just fine,” he said. “In the papers, the perception is that we are not going to be any good, especially on defense, since we lost so many guys. I don’t buy into that. We have a lot of guys that look pretty good. They think they are pretty good, and they feel pretty good."
Gibson has already hit up new offensive coordinator Joe Wickline for any patterns or tendencies that he may have detected from Gibson’s defenses when he was preparing for them at Oklahoma State and Texas.
Wickline says he will tell him what he wants to know – once spring ball is completed.
“Gibby has already (hit him up for information) and I’ve lied most of the time,” Wickline laughed. “I pretty much say what doesn’t really make much sense because we’re actually going against each other this spring. You can call it what you want, but it’s all about winning – even the drill. It’s about getting touchdowns and first downs. I won’t be relaying a whole lot about what I thought (about the defense), although the fact of the matter is, they have good players, they play a 3-3 and they are good on defense.”
Good stuff.
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Holgorsen recently filled a void on his staff when he hired Blue Adams to coach the Mountaineer cornerbacks, but now he has another position to address with the recent departure of wide receivers coach Lonnie Galloway.
Holgorsen can take his time with this hire, however, because he’s already got the best wide receivers coach in the country on staff – himself.
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Karl Joseph
One recent NFL draft list I saw had West Virginia safety Karl Joseph rated No. 43 among the top 50 prospects in this year’s draft class. If that holds up, that would make Joseph a comfortable second or third-round choice.
There seem to be no concerns about the knee injury he suffered last fall in practice before the Oklahoma State game, and he is expected to be available by the time the regular season begins in September.
The current NFL player most scouts compare Joseph to is Denver safety T.J Ward.
Another draft website, NFL Draft Scout.com, has five West Virginia players rated among the top 250 prospects in this year’s draft – Joseph, safety KJ Dillon, cornerback Daryl Worley, running back Wendell Smallwood and linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski.
There were 256 players selected in the seven-round NFL draft last season.
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Work continues on Milan Puskar Stadium’s East and North concourses, as well as the removal of the crown on the field. I am told both projects are on schedule. Demo work has also begun at the WVU Coliseum, where construction crews have overtaken the concourse level of the arena.
Work on the Coliseum will last through the summer and fall leading into the start of the 2016-17 regular season.
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Mickey Furfari relayed the sad news that former WVU guard Dave Steindler passed away recently. Steindler, from Elkins, West Virginia, was three-year regular for WVU on the 1950, 1951 and 1952 Mountaineer teams playing for coaches Lee Patton and Red Brown.
Steindler, 88, was living in Richmond, Virginia, at the time of his death.
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More sad news: well-known Morgantown radio personality Jim Stallings has died, according to a tweet sent out from West Virginia Metro News’ Hoppy Kercheval earlier today.
For years, Jim and Kay Murray co-hosted the popular local radio program “Morgantown AM” on WAJR, where he served as station manager. Stallings had worked for the West Virginia Radio Corporation since 1985, and he was also heavily involved in Mountaineer Sports Network radio broadcasts when West Virginia Radio had the University broadcasting rights.
I got to know Jim a little bit when I used to go into the WAJR studio for the football pregame show, and he was always a real pro.
Jim was just 54.
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WVU signee Sagaba Konate’s Kennedy Catholic team recently defeated Math, Civics and Sciences High to capture its seventh Pennsylvania state championship.
The 6-foot-8-inch, 240-pound Konate, a native of the Republic of Mali in West Africa, scored 17 points, grabbed 22 rebounds and blocked two shots in the championship game.
Konate’s performance came after his coach, Rick Mancino, pulled him aside and gave him a little motivational speech before the title game.
“I said ‘Sagaba, here’s the deal. You’re 6-foot-7, 6-8, you were recruited by a lot of major colleges in the country, you signed a letter of intent to go to West Virginia. You’ve got to dominate; you’re the best. It’s that simple,’” Mancino told Josh Verlin of the website Philly Basketball 24 * 7 * 365.
Konate and 6-foot-10-inch, 240-pound Maciej Bender from Mountain Mission High in Grundy, Virginia, are the two bigs West Virginia has signed in this year’s recruiting class.
Bender is said to be the more offensively skilled of the two right now, with the ability to step out and hit perimeter jump shots.
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March Madness just doesn’t have the same appeal when your team gets knocked out of the tournament, does it?
I will watch the games tonight and tomorrow night, particularly tomorrow’s Notre Dame-Wisconsin game in Philly, wondering how West Virginia might have stacked up against the 20-12 Badgers. Either sixth-seeded Notre Dame or seventh-seeded Wisconsin is going to face the winner of North Carolina-Indiana for the right to go to the Final Four.
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I’m sure Morgantown High graduates Jay Jacobs and Nathan Adrian are pleased to see their alma mater capture its first West Virginia state basketball title.
The Mohigans recently capped a perfect season by defeating Huntington, 65-62, in the state championship game.
MHS is coached by Dave Tallman, the son of Dave Tallman, Sr., who I got to know really well when I played at Magnolia High in New Martinsville in the mid-1980s.
The Tallmans are developing quite a basketball name in the Mountain State, the elder Tallman winning three state titles at Magnolia and just missing a fourth this season. When Tallman began coaching basketball at Magnolia, winter sports usually took a break between football and baseball seasons.
A good number of the top athletes in New Martinsville would frequently skip basketball season to lift weights in preparation for football in the fall, or rest up to play baseball or run track in the spring.
That’s because Magnolia played in the same section as Wheeling Central when the Maroon Knights were coached by the likes of Skip Prosser and Dino Gaudio, and that meant advancing beyond the sectionals was a near impossibility for the Blue Eagles.
It took a while, but eventually Tallman was able to change the culture at Magnolia to make the wintertime just as important as the spring and fall – a true testament to his skills and abilities as a basketball coach.
Now, the younger Tallman is making his mark at Morgantown High after previously working at St. Mary’s (Md.) Ryken, where former Mountaineer forward John Flowers once played.
If the Tallmans continue to win state titles, they are going to join an elite circle of West Virginia prep basketball coaches that include Prosser, Jennings Boyd, Jerome Van Meter, Everett Brinkman, Dave Barksdale, Lewis D’Antoni, Lou Romano, Sam Andy, Don Nuckols, Willie Akers, Mel Stephens, Sam Mandich, Dave Rogers and some of the other greats through the years.
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Randy Mazey’s young West Virginia baseball team has hit a rough stretch in the season, losing all three games last weekend at TCU and dropping a midweek game at Penn State on Tuesday.
The Mountaineers, with four freshmen in the lineup, are now 10-8 and travel to Kansas for an important three-game series against the Jayhawks this weekend. A couple of wins in Lawrence will help offset the three-game hole West Virginia has dug itself to begin Big 12 play.
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Bria Holmes
And finally, West Virginia University senior Bria Holmes recently completed one of the finest basketball careers in school history.
The New Haven, Connecticut, resident scored 2,001 career points, becoming just the third WVU women’s player in school history to eclipse the 2,000-point barrier. The other two are Cathy Parson (2,113) and All-American guard Rosemary Kosiorek (2,061).
Holmes, like Kosiorek, played on teams that reached the NCAA tournament multiple times during their Mountaineer careers.
Counting the men, who have three 2,000-point scorers – Jerry West (2,309), Rod Hundley (2,180) and Da’Sean Butler (2,095) - there have only been six male and female basketball players in school history to accumulate more than 2,000 career points.
That’s some really good company Ms. Holmes has joined.
Enjoy your Easter weekend!
