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No doubt about it.  The winner will be West Virginia.  West Virginia will score three passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown.  Geno will be intercepted two times.  Clemson will score three touchdowns but the WVU defense will force them to use 7 or more plays each time to do so.  Clemson will probably jump out to a two score early lead but by half time WVU will have tied it up.  Geno will have two carries of more than 10 yards each.  Clemson will lose a fumble to the ‘eers. 

No need to even watch the game now!

West Virginia will end up ranked 19 or 20.

 

What a horrible team that is horribly coached but is such fun to watch.  Unbelievable really.  This has got to be the worst 9 and 3 team in country but who cares?  Geno Smith is a puzzle.  Why does he turn his back on the offensive line when he gets pressure?  And why when it’s third and one does he drop back and let it fly down the slide line thirty or forty yards?  I just don’t get it.  The offensive line is so painful to watch.  At the end of a play where we lose yardage two or three of those big guys are just standing there looking at the swarmed over ball carrier.  Special teams?  Forget it.

So, what does all this poor performance mean?  Not much.  After all this is sports not math class.  Good teams lose, bad teams win and no one can predict the outcome of any game with certainty.  The players are doing their best, and the coaches are doing their best.  The talent level on the player side and the motivation on the coaching side just isn’t there right now.  But, hey, the cardiac kids won again!

Go eers.

 

 

Since 2008 we have heard and seen the sheer terror created whenever an event occurs which threatens to “bring down” the capital markets.  Bank failures, credit freezing up, the collapse of the “system” all gets tossed about but what does it mean?

Suppose you work up tomorrow and all of your credit cards were cancelled.  No Visa, no Exxon card, no Macy’s card.  Furthermore, you receive notice that your home equity line is also cancelled.  Now the problem becomes that you want to go shopping, travel and buy things but all you have to spend is the $75 cash in your wallet and the $500 you have in your checking account.  Your next pay day is two weeks off.  You have bills coming due which you probably won’t be able to pay.

The same thing happens to a bank or a firm such as Lehman Brothers when its credit “dries up.”  Just like for an individual, if no one will loan to you, your ability to sustain yourself economically vanishes. 

 

If you saw the Pitt game, you saw the West Virginia squad finally gel as a team.  Now 8 and 3, 9 and 3 should be the regular season result.  Any team that can play that bad in the first half and then win is truly a good team.  World beater?  No way.  But this is the best time to finally gel as a team.  Unless Cincinnati wins out (who knows) we won’t get the Orange Bowl but quite frankly whoever gets the Orange Bowl is likely to lose.  So for WVU it is better to beat South Florida, go to a “lesser” bowl (probably the Belk Bowl in Charlotte) and win for the future.  A truly remarkable game.

 

Absolutely.

What I mean by catching lightning in a bottle is winning out our two remaining games, getting the needed tie breaker losses from other teams, play an SEC opponent in the Orange Bowl and win big.  Now that would be so nice and would put WVU back on the list of legit big time football programs in the country.

The key is no mistakes (fumbles, shanked kicks, blown coverages, missed tackles, dumb penalties) and big plays at the right time.  What Coach H needs to do is tweak his game plan to include more blitzes and always roll Geno out of the pocket. 

Will this happen?  Absolutely. 

What is wrong with the Mountaineers?  Simple.

First of all, the offense is very good.  In every game the offense has put enough points on the board to win.  The problem is the defense and the special teams.

What to do about the defense?  Blitz, blitz and blitz again.  The defense just doesn’t have the talent to play traditional smash mouth defense.  The blitz is the way to go for two reasons.  First, if it works, it hypes up the emotion beyond belief which is part of what is needed.  Secondly, if it doesn’t then at least the offense is back on the field with an opportunity to score.  High risk?  Yes.  But what have we got to lose?

Now the kicking game and special teams.  To find a kicker go talk to the soccer coach.  You need a leg.  Go get one.  Special teams?  Play your best players from offense and defense.  To heck with worrying about injuries.  What have you got to lose.

Lastly, Dana H. be more of a leader and less of a “hey, we got beat” low key interview.  You need to repeatedly point out what we do well (score quickly with awesome pass and catch and decent running) and tell folks you are going to fix the defense and special teams and tell them how.  Forget about this “we need more effort” stuff. 

If you don’t do this it looks like the Papajohn’s Bowl.  Oh my. 

 

Since WVU has now beaten the Scarlet Knights I think seventeen times in a row, Rutgers University – rest in peace is a fitting adieu.  The game was terrific…snow, come from behind, shut out in the second half … moving up in the polls.  Looking down the road, if we win out then it’s Orange Bowl against the ACC champ.  If we win then our ranking should be between 5 and 10.  If we lose that game, the ranking will be between 15 and 20.  Now if don’t win out then it’s probably the Car Crash Bowl in Charlotte again.  If we win that final ranking would be 15 to 20.  If we lose then 24 or 25 in the nation.

I still don’t think we will ever play a game in the Big 12.  Personally, I think joining the ACC would be the best fit.

Incidently, Holgorsen was not outcoached at Syracuse.  The players were out of sync.  A good coach takes the blame which is what Dana did at least partially.

Good things await the ‘eers.

 

Don’t buy your blue and gold cowboy boots just yet pardner!  I think there is no way WVU will ever play a game in the Big 12.  This whole announcement think looks terribly suspect.  Although the offer and acceptance to the Big 12 may indeed be real I think deep down everyone has their fingers crossed behind their back because as time passes – as Sherlock Holmes would say – “other game is afoot.”

To begin with I sincerely doubt Oliver Luck would move to the Big 12 without visible consultations with football boosters and other stakeholders.  How strange that we hear absolutely nothing from Oliver then some “word” leaks out of “somewhere” and suddenly here comes to “real deal.”  What is going on is that WVU is hedging its bets which is basically what absolutely everyone else is doing.  Teams are “scrambling” to be in a BCS automatic bid conference but once that picture and the “super conferences” gets a little more real, teams are going to “trade” and jump around a lot.

My guess?  WVU will end up in the ACC.  Can’t get there now so we are parking the WVU car in the Big 12 parking lot until the traffic congestion lessens then we’ll drive over to the ACC.

 

The game was just flat out awful.  We are paying millions of coaching dollars for that?  Good grief.  But….

My wife and I were in Philadelphia.  We had a private dinner at Constitution Hall with her group then went to a sports bar on 12th Street called the Field House.  It was totally crowded so we started to leave when the bouncer told us there was a WV alumi party in the back.  And was there!  About a hundred WVU fans – the Liberty Bell chapter had the back of the bar.  They welcomed us with open arms.  One guy gave us a ten dollar gift certificate.  We sat with a fellow named Hal and his wife.  Then about half time Owen Schmidt showed up.  What a great fellow.  I shook his hand, told him how much I loved his speech after the Fiesta Bowl Oklahomo game and we had our picture taken with him.

At the end of the game the fellow who had given us the gift certificate said he was going to watch the next game despite this one because he “loved those guys.”  Yeah, the team stunk.  Yeah Holgorsen stunk.  But hey we love those guys.  Go ‘eers.