MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It's that time a year again. The West Virginia University football team is growing tired of practicing against each other, the offense going up against the stack and the defense dealing with the air raid.
It's time for them to face someone else.
The problem is, the Mountaineers have to wait another week to do so.
This long preseason, which will span a total of five weeks dating back to Sunday, July 30, will not conclude until Sunday, Sept. 3, when the No. 22 Mountaineers take on No. 21 Virginia Tech at FedExField in Landover, Maryland.
Call it whatever you want … The Longest Yard, The Longest Mile, The Longest Ride … it's just flat been long, and not quite yet long gone.
"I really wish it was game week," was how West Virginia University coach Dana Holgorsen began his Tuesday afternoon news conference. "It seems like we've been practicing for a month."
Then he corrected himself. "We almost have been," he said.
Holgorsen wishes the FBS would adopt the NFL model, or even what FCS schools are doing by opening the season this weekend.
"By the time we play our first game, all the NFL preseason games are going to be over," he said. "Why do they practice for about 10 days and then have a preseason game? They'll go practice with some people, then go play another preseason game.
"There are a whole lot of FCS games this weekend. There's only so much you can do practicing against each other. It's going to be a full five weeks before the first game and to me, that's insane."
It's difficult enough to keep the attention spans of 18-, 19-, 20- and 21-year-olds for short periods of time these days, so you can imagine what Holgorsen is dealing with trying to maintain the interest and focus for 125 of them for five straight weeks.
Talk about an impossible task.
Week one is good. Week two is usually okay. Week three it starts getting a little stale but then you are into game week.
Right now, teams around the country are sort of in suspended motion until game week arrives.
"For three weeks, I was happy with their work," Holgorsen admitted. "We gave them more time off than we ever have. I do think it was beneficial for our student-athletes to get a little bit more time off, and how we practiced, I thought, was really good.
"I just think you can get that done probably in two weeks, two-and-a-half weeks, and then you have game week and go play ball."
The idea of a closed scrimmage game similar to what is done in basketball is usually brought up and quickly shot down.
"(Having a scrimmage) would be cool but it's never going to happen," Holgorsen said. "I went down to (The Greenbrier) see the Texans and Patriots last week. It was the first day of school on Wednesday and that was our off day, so I shot down there for a day and watched them practice against each other.
"That's the first time I've seen an NFL practice like that. I've been to plenty of camps and have seen plenty of practices, but I've never seen two teams practicing against each other. It's unbelievable how much work you can get done."
Holgorsen added, "(Texans coach) Bill O'Brien told me that if he ever went back to college he'd campaign for (a closed scrimmage with another team). I said, 'You're wasting your time' and he goes, 'I know that' so he's probably not coming back to college."
Even into his fourth week of practicing, Holgorsen admits he's still not sure what he has with this year's football team.
"Virginia Tech is probably at the very same spot that we are. When you're going against each other for two, three weeks, you really don't know until you go out there and play somebody else.
"We aren't going to have answers for another two weeks. We'll have answers (12) days from now when we're sitting here on Monday and evaluating the video and seeing what it looks like, so I'll tell you two weeks from today - or you can tell me," he concluded.
Briefly:
* The team remains relatively healthy two weeks out from the opener. Holgorsen said he expects (Syracuse transfer) Corey Winfield to be back "in a couple of days." Senior safety Marvin Gross Jr., in Holgorsen's words, "is progressing nicely," and the two long-term guys - David Long Jr. and Jacob Buccigrossi - remain a ways out from being cleared. Kennedy McKoy
* Holgorsen listed his No. 2 running back, Kennedy McKoy, as probably his fourth-best wide receiver right now.
Easily the top three receivers are juniors David Sills V and Gary Jennings Jr. and senior Ka'Raun White. You can write their names in the starting lineup in ink.
"Those guys have been starting and those guys do everything right and I'm excited about what years they are going to have," Holgorsen said.
However, no one behind them has stepped up to put themselves into the mix, according to Holgorsen. That leaves open the option of using McKoy in a lot of different ways, including wide receiver in certain situations.
"In my opinion, he's one of our top four guys right now," Holgorsen said.
* Holgorsen mentioned that two veteran players were awarded scholarships for their senior seasons, Morgantown's Shane Commodore and wide receiver Alejandro Marenco III from Houston, Texas.
"(Commodore) is a fifth-year senior that has obviously played some, but his GPA is really good as well," Holgorsen said. "Alex as well. He's a junior college guy who hasn't really played a whole lot, but his GPA is out of sight and his work ethic is out of sight. So, those two guys have been put on, and deservedly so."
* The veteran coach concluded his Tuesday remarks by returning to his wide receiver corps, "We have bodies. I'm not going over to (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson) and saying, 'I need to borrow three corners and a safety to move them.' We're a little low on scholarships there, I realize that, but we still have guys on scholarship that need to earn it and get out there and play hard, practice hard, and improve."
