Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Mountaineer Players Confident in Chugunov
December 24, 2017 06:31 PM | Football
DALLAS - The fate of West Virginia University's offense for the 2017 Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl is in the hands of sophomore quarterback Chris Chugunov.
Chugunov replaced starting quarterback Will Grier in the first quarter of West Virginia's 28-14 loss to Texas in the next-to-last game of the year after Grier dislocated his finger trying to score the game's first touchdown.
Chugunov entered the game in fire-drill fashion and completed 14-of-26 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown.
A week later at Oklahoma, the Mountaineers chose to add the Wildcat formation to their offensive attack, with Chugunov frequently motioning out to wide receiver while sophomore tailback Kennedy McKoy took direct snaps from center to run 25 times for career highs of 137 yards and three touchdowns.
On Tuesday, who knows what offensive coordinator Jake Spavital has cooked up for a very good Utah defense that ranks 32nd nationally allowing just 353.8 yards per game?
The Utes could very easily be 9-3 this season and possess one of the best defenses West Virginia will have faced this season.
"They are a multiple front," Spavital said Friday. "They will be moving in and out of three-down fronts to Bear, to four-down to over-under and all sorts of things. There have been some good conversations just to make sure we're all on the same page."
What that page or pages entail with Chugunov under center remains to be seen.
"We've put in three different offenses this week," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen joked earlier today.
On a more serious note, the one thing in West Virginia's favor is the time Chugunov has had since Grier's injury to get his timing down with the wide receivers.
That was something clearly missing in the Texas and Oklahoma games.
"The one thing I kind of applaud Chris for when we were out on the road recruiting and we weren't in the facility is he was getting those receivers out there and running routes with them and starting to build some continuity," Spavital said. "You throw with Will Grier the entire year and there are a lot of unknowns between each other."
The work Chugunov put in with All-American David Sills V, Gary Jennings Jr., Ka'Raun White and Marcus Simms is beginning to show.
"Starting out, the timing is going to be a little shaky sometimes, but we've got some practices in now and I think our timing is down pat," senior fullback Elijah Wellman said this morning. "It's all about full-speed plays and practicing full speed."
To a man, the entire team now has complete confidence in Chugunov.
The way he battled against Texas and Oklahoma won over a lot of his teammates, especially the Texas game when the Longhorns chose to heat him up constantly and he stood in there against blitz after blitz after blitz.
"I kind of knew the toughness he had, but I'm glad everybody else got to see that," senior linebacker Al-Rasheed Benton said. "It just energized the whole team when your leader, who is leading us out on the field takes those kinds of shots, gets up and shows that kind of toughness and fight and shows you that anybody can do it.
"If Chugs can do it at quarterback, all positions can play with that kind of toughness," he added.
The players say Chugunov is a quiet guy who doesn't really get too worked up about much. But when it's time to go they believe their guy will be ready.
"He doesn't say much and he kind of stays out of the bright lights; quiet guy and sometimes when guys like that get smacked, they stay down but he didn't," Wellman said. "He got back up and started slinging the rock again."
"I think Chugs is a really good quarterback," Benton added. "He makes some really good throws, and he makes a lot of throws that people don't expect him to make. Once he gets a little more confidence, he will be perfect."
Spavital said he can see Chugunov's confidence growing over the last several practices.
"They've started to work things out a little bit, and you are starting to see that in practice," he said.
Now, it's a matter of fine-tuning what they've done and figuring out the group of plays that are going to work best against Utah's defense.
The one thing clear on tape is that the Utes get extra people in the box to stop the run and dare teams to throw the football down the field. That's how Spavital was able to beat them last year when he was calling plays at Cal.
Spavital said Chugunov is now comfortable throwing the entire route tree to all of West Virginia's regular receivers. Now, it will be a matter of the Mountaineers being able to protect Chugunov when Utah brings pressure, which could be quite frequently.
"His footwork has to increase and the trajectory of the ball has to change, and I've been putting him in those situations throughout the last month and you can tell that he is getting comfortable with the timing," Spavital said.
Added Sills, "We've got a good scheme coming in and we are comfortable with it and we feel there are some areas where we can beat them. We've just got to do our job and when the plays are there we've just got to make it."
Bowl Bits: Spavital said having Will Grier on the sidelines will be very beneficial to Chugunov on Tuesday … Grier can offer him suggestions on what he does in certain situations, his thought process on things and why he did it … Another way Grier can help Chugunov is his knowledge of West Virginia's receivers and with what they are most comfortable … Downfield passing could be extremely important against Utah on Tuesday, something of which the players are well aware, "If the ball is in our hands we've just got to make the catch," Sills V said … Spavital admitted he's going to have to pivot from some of the things he did against Oklahoma because Utah has studied that tape closely for the last four weeks, "What can we do that's unique that they haven't seen? That's the beauty of bowl games and the first game of the season," Spavital said. "We need to be creative with our packages." … On the other side of the ball, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said his guys are going to prepare for both Utah quarterbacks - Tyler Huntley and Troy Williams, "Huntley is more of a runner and Williams is more of a thrower so we've got to be ready for both," he said … Gibson said they plan on seeing Huntley first and they will adjust from there … The Utes have a 1,000-yard rusher in 5-foot-10-inch, 210-pound sophomore Zach Moss (1,023 yards) and a big physical offensive line with four out of the five starters weighing at least 312 pounds … That could mean a WVU defense that gave up 204.8 yards per game on the ground could face a heavy diet of runs … The Mountaineers are scheduled to have a light workout today and a final workout tomorrow before playing Utah on Tuesday afternoon.
Chugunov replaced starting quarterback Will Grier in the first quarter of West Virginia's 28-14 loss to Texas in the next-to-last game of the year after Grier dislocated his finger trying to score the game's first touchdown.
Chugunov entered the game in fire-drill fashion and completed 14-of-26 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown.
A week later at Oklahoma, the Mountaineers chose to add the Wildcat formation to their offensive attack, with Chugunov frequently motioning out to wide receiver while sophomore tailback Kennedy McKoy took direct snaps from center to run 25 times for career highs of 137 yards and three touchdowns.
On Tuesday, who knows what offensive coordinator Jake Spavital has cooked up for a very good Utah defense that ranks 32nd nationally allowing just 353.8 yards per game?
The Utes could very easily be 9-3 this season and possess one of the best defenses West Virginia will have faced this season.
"They are a multiple front," Spavital said Friday. "They will be moving in and out of three-down fronts to Bear, to four-down to over-under and all sorts of things. There have been some good conversations just to make sure we're all on the same page."
What that page or pages entail with Chugunov under center remains to be seen.
"We've put in three different offenses this week," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen joked earlier today.
On a more serious note, the one thing in West Virginia's favor is the time Chugunov has had since Grier's injury to get his timing down with the wide receivers.
That was something clearly missing in the Texas and Oklahoma games.
"The one thing I kind of applaud Chris for when we were out on the road recruiting and we weren't in the facility is he was getting those receivers out there and running routes with them and starting to build some continuity," Spavital said. "You throw with Will Grier the entire year and there are a lot of unknowns between each other."
The work Chugunov put in with All-American David Sills V, Gary Jennings Jr., Ka'Raun White and Marcus Simms is beginning to show.
"Starting out, the timing is going to be a little shaky sometimes, but we've got some practices in now and I think our timing is down pat," senior fullback Elijah Wellman said this morning. "It's all about full-speed plays and practicing full speed."
To a man, the entire team now has complete confidence in Chugunov.
The way he battled against Texas and Oklahoma won over a lot of his teammates, especially the Texas game when the Longhorns chose to heat him up constantly and he stood in there against blitz after blitz after blitz.
"I kind of knew the toughness he had, but I'm glad everybody else got to see that," senior linebacker Al-Rasheed Benton said. "It just energized the whole team when your leader, who is leading us out on the field takes those kinds of shots, gets up and shows that kind of toughness and fight and shows you that anybody can do it.
"If Chugs can do it at quarterback, all positions can play with that kind of toughness," he added.
The players say Chugunov is a quiet guy who doesn't really get too worked up about much. But when it's time to go they believe their guy will be ready.
"He doesn't say much and he kind of stays out of the bright lights; quiet guy and sometimes when guys like that get smacked, they stay down but he didn't," Wellman said. "He got back up and started slinging the rock again."
"I think Chugs is a really good quarterback," Benton added. "He makes some really good throws, and he makes a lot of throws that people don't expect him to make. Once he gets a little more confidence, he will be perfect."
Spavital said he can see Chugunov's confidence growing over the last several practices.
"They've started to work things out a little bit, and you are starting to see that in practice," he said.
Now, it's a matter of fine-tuning what they've done and figuring out the group of plays that are going to work best against Utah's defense.
The one thing clear on tape is that the Utes get extra people in the box to stop the run and dare teams to throw the football down the field. That's how Spavital was able to beat them last year when he was calling plays at Cal.
Spavital said Chugunov is now comfortable throwing the entire route tree to all of West Virginia's regular receivers. Now, it will be a matter of the Mountaineers being able to protect Chugunov when Utah brings pressure, which could be quite frequently.
"His footwork has to increase and the trajectory of the ball has to change, and I've been putting him in those situations throughout the last month and you can tell that he is getting comfortable with the timing," Spavital said.
Added Sills, "We've got a good scheme coming in and we are comfortable with it and we feel there are some areas where we can beat them. We've just got to do our job and when the plays are there we've just got to make it."
Bowl Bits: Spavital said having Will Grier on the sidelines will be very beneficial to Chugunov on Tuesday … Grier can offer him suggestions on what he does in certain situations, his thought process on things and why he did it … Another way Grier can help Chugunov is his knowledge of West Virginia's receivers and with what they are most comfortable … Downfield passing could be extremely important against Utah on Tuesday, something of which the players are well aware, "If the ball is in our hands we've just got to make the catch," Sills V said … Spavital admitted he's going to have to pivot from some of the things he did against Oklahoma because Utah has studied that tape closely for the last four weeks, "What can we do that's unique that they haven't seen? That's the beauty of bowl games and the first game of the season," Spavital said. "We need to be creative with our packages." … On the other side of the ball, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said his guys are going to prepare for both Utah quarterbacks - Tyler Huntley and Troy Williams, "Huntley is more of a runner and Williams is more of a thrower so we've got to be ready for both," he said … Gibson said they plan on seeing Huntley first and they will adjust from there … The Utes have a 1,000-yard rusher in 5-foot-10-inch, 210-pound sophomore Zach Moss (1,023 yards) and a big physical offensive line with four out of the five starters weighing at least 312 pounds … That could mean a WVU defense that gave up 204.8 yards per game on the ground could face a heavy diet of runs … The Mountaineers are scheduled to have a light workout today and a final workout tomorrow before playing Utah on Tuesday afternoon.
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