NOWHERE TO GO BUT DOWN

Yes, we WVU fans understand that being preseason media darlings hasn’t turned out for the best.

As for your analysis of last year, you forgot one thing: the minor but major starting lineup change. Slaton started in which games? White started in which games? In fact, White proved himself first string-worthy when he came in late in the WV/Louisville game, and led the Eers to the 3OT victory. Slaton didn’t even play against UMD, and with only 11 carries against VPI he managed 90 yards.

WVU has always had a good defense. Only recently we’ve had a good offense as well. Louisville has a great offense, but their defense is swiss cheese. Pitt needs to run faster, and oh btw, the Terps come to Morgantown at NIGHT.

The Sugar Bowl qualifies as “little to no recent championship success”??

/rant over

just to clarify. I didn’t think that AU vs. SC was going to be the BES T revenge game. Just the most underrated.

It wouldn’t make the Top 20 revenge games. It’s just that no one is talkng about it at all. The other 20 are getting lots of play.

pwd

Good article. The first game I thought of when I read the title “most underrated revenge game of 2006” was Louisville/WVU. That game is definitely a toss up and I think both teams are BCS game worthy.

I understand your criticism of WVU, but like Phil Steele, you neglect to realize that the WVU team that beat Louisville and steam rolled through the rest of its schedule was not intactu until the Louisville game. Pat White didnt become “the man” until Adam Bednarik went out with an injury in the second half of that game. Steve Slaton was the fourth rb on the depth chart and didnt start until the Louisville game. We also return, mostly intact, both d and o lines. the secondary where we lost the most is being replaced largely by juniors and seniors who have seen pt since they were freshman.

I have no ridiculous expectations that we will DEFINITELY go undefeated and DEFINITELY play/win the NC game. Thats just absurd for any team in the nation. There is a lot of luck involved, no matter what team you are talking about.

I would take exception to the steamroll comment. WVU deserves all the credit in the world for winning the sugar bowl as a big underdog. However, winning by 3 points because of a well timed and executed fake punt is not a steamroll. WVU won and is a BCS bowl champ, but it’s a little like Ben Davis bunting to break up Curt Schilling’s no hitter. It worked, but I’m still not going to be that impressed.

2 WVU fans, 2 references to WVU not having the White/Slaton combination until halfway through the UL game. What’s not mentioned here is the combination getting housed the entire second half of the Sugar Bowl, and this has a lot to do with the fact that WVU’s offense is 100% Slaton run right, White run left.
Unfortunately for WVU in the grand tradition of Rasheed Marshall Pat White can’t hit the broad side of a barn and until he can I think WVU is going to be very succeptible to anybody with a run defense (say like UL).

Couple things so we can debunk this horrible attempt of an editorial.

1) WVU has played for a national championship in 88 and 93. That is hardly a program with “little or no” success.

2) WVU’s has played in a New Year’s Day Bowl game 8 times in the last 20 years ( Feista, Sugar Bowl ( 2 times), and Gator Bowl 5 times).

3) WVU has now won a share or were outright champs in 5 of the 13 years of Big East football. Only Miami with 8 titles has more than WVU.

4) Regarding the Louisville game, WVU’s two sensatonial Freshman in running back Steve Slaton and QB pat White didn’t start this game. It was only until they were inserted into the lineup together in the 4th quarter did WVU explode for 17 points in the final 10 minutes. At that point is when WVU became a very godo team to an ELITE team the rest of the season.

5) You are alos discounting Fullback Owenn Schmitt ( who had 500 yards rushing last year) and WR Darrius Renauld who were huge playmakers in the Sugar Bowl were playing their first year of major college football last season.

6) WVU’s offensive line has 2 bonafide All American candidates in Dan Mozes and Jermey Sheffey. Throw in Freshman All american from last year in Ryan Stancheck and WVU’s O line will continue to allow for 300 plus yards ala Nebraksa 1996 numbers every game.

7) WVU isn’t the 17th ( soon to be 16th) winningest college football program in America for no reason. I

I suggest you get use to WVU competiting for national championships and playing in BCS bowl games. Its going to happen a lot more times than not happen.

Class Dismissed.

ACeer – I would describe winning the Big East and Sugar Bowl last year as “little recent championship success,” yes. I was really referring to before last season, anyway. WVU’s last conference title before last year was in 1993, when it went undefeated, beat Miami and got busted into little pieces by Florida in the Sugar Bowl (I believe it was 41-7 – it was the first bowl game I ever attended and I remember being upset we had to watch that clunker instead of the classic FSU-Nebraska game often falsely remembered today as THE mythical championship game in the Orange Bowl). West Virginia’s never won a national championship, mythical or otherwise.

If Richt sniffs out the most obvious fake punt in history, we spend the entire offseason talking about West Virginia’s catastrophic defensive collapse.

SMQ: I was splitting hairs in my rant, my apologies.

And smack talk from a Herd fan. Quaint.

Ian: What’s crazy about that punt is that Rodriguez called for the same punt formation at least 2 previous times. Just happened that the third time he pulled the trigger. That kind of ballsy coaching is why we like college football.

Ian – This offseason Richt has alluded to the Sugar as a huge coaching blunder from the jump. He knew the guys weren’t motivated and taking WVU seriously in the weeks leading up to it, and for no explicable reason he shortened practices anyway.

At a recent dawg function he and ALL the coaches owned up to that loss as almost totally coaching related.

That said….Richt has said the team was sent into the game knowing it was a fake punt. They just blew it.

If we show up for the game from the jump, no one would’ve ever talked about the ending.

Lville beats WVU this year b/c WVU can’t play a lick of defense. But LVille loses 2 others. WVU wins Big East again 11-1 or so is what I’m thinking.

SMQ — great call on the WVU vs. Lville game being one to watch this year.

pwd

MountainEER – good thing I checked back before posting this, because I’m toning it down after your ‘splitting hairs’ comment. But case definitely NOT dismissed.

Here are a few more reasons I think WVU is headed for an inevitable – if slight – letdown:

First, on the “little to no championship success” front, I’m talking on a national level, because this team is getting mythical title hype. West Virginia’s never won a national championship. That’s NO recent, or even past, championship success. The team only finishes in the top 25 sporadically – I count one ranked finish in the decade preceding last year (No. 25 AP, 20 USA Today, in 2002), and never two straight years in the past few decades – and its major successes are complete aberrations: true, WVU has three top 10 seasons in the past 20 years, but it wasn’t ranked in the final polls of the seasons before or after any of them. Or even two years before or after. That means pretty much exactly what I’m trying to say: West Virginia pops up every few years, surprises everybody, then goes away. How is 2005 different than 1988 or 1993?

(BTW, the 1993 Sugar Bowl was in no way a championship game, even if West Virginia hadn’t been demolished, whatever you may say – the UN-FSU winner was going to take those polls, and the other team I referred to above was Notre Dame, which actually should have been No. 1 after the Nebraska loss. I’d have voted 11-0 Auburn over WVU, too. The Mountaineers finished 6th in the 1993 polls, the same as last year’s team).

WVU is a perfectly respectable program, but it’s never been regarded by any reasonable assessment – before now – as a potential championship program on a national level. I don’t think that’s debatable. Last year was taken as a “breakthrough” year because it was an unexpected improvement, and this season – exactly like the recent teams I compared them to – is by far the highest I have ever seen this program ranked in the preseason.

Also note that, just as in its undefeated runs and 2004, when it was the preseason league favorite and ranked in the mid-teens early on, the main element most people seem to think the team has going for it in terms of winning the mythical championship is it’s (relatively) very easy schedule. This is why I still think WVU can significantly devolve and still win nine-ten games, but at any rate, I think 2005 was the peak for this group, and it won’t be repeated. That’s just the general historical trend I see them falling into this season – they may be back on top in ’07, but I think they definitely slip in ’06.

So do I think West Virginia’s still going to be pretty good? Yes. I said that. I’ve said it before. I said it above. I just said it again. I just think Louisville’s going to be better.

SMQ: MountainEER and I are two different people.

I think my fellow Eer fan is quite excited about this season, as am I. But it’s easy for us who root for ‘there but not quite all the way there’ teams to get defensive when someone’s raining on our parade. Eers fans are passionate about their team.

I follow the ‘lets prove ’em wrong’ philosophy. This year’s Eers are devoid of talented yet problematic children like Pacman and Chris Henry. No Willie Williams’ for them. If they stay humble and hungry as the coaches ask, it’ll be an awesome season for us.

One last observation—it seems as though WVU has lately been either very underrated or much overrated by the preseason polls year to year. Weird.

Excellent analysis. I’ve been saying for a while that Louisville-WVU could turn out to be one of the best dogfights of the 2006 season, and have gone on record as saying that it’s probably not going to go the way the Mountaineers want — good to know I’m not alone.

Of course, the elephant in the room (at least as far as the Big East is concerned) is the residual effect of the UL-WVU game on the two teams going forward in the season. Regardless of who wins or loses, each team has enough potentially upset-happy opponents down the stretch that either overconfidence following a win or going into a funk following a loss could really sink their season. We’ve been kind of predisposed to think that UL and WVU were the juggernauts-in-waiting who might salvage the conference’s reputation on the national level, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see either the Cardinals or the Mountaineers holding two or three losses even as they hoist the conference trophy. Rutgers is much-improved, Pittsburgh has got to be better in ‘06, and South Florida made it very clear last year that they’re not afraid of anybody.

Cardozo:

I didnt say we steam rolled Louisville. I said “the WVU team that beat Louisville and steam rolled through the rest of its schedule”.

 I said we beat Louisville.

I said we steamrolled through the rest of the schedule.

Live up to that handle.

“Lville beats WVU this year b/c WVU can’t play a lick of defense. "

hahaha, I was taking you serious until that comment. That is the most preposterous, untutored comment I have read in a while. WVU was carried by their defense through the first half of the season last year until White/Slaton were inserted as starters. lol, you know not what you speak.

Just so you know. Its not of importance to me if you tone it down or yell it up. Do as you please.

Your topic started off with an emphasis on how Louisville can seek revenge against WVU for blowing a 17 point lead in the 4th quarter. This is certainly a much anticipated game between what should be two top 10 teams. The winner has a great chance of playing for the National Championship. The loser of this game ( assuming Louisville smokes Miami as they chould in Pappa John Stadium) has a great chance to pick up an at large bid to the 4 other BCS games.

However, instead of focusing on this game and the revenge aspect. You proceeded to bash WVU and throw worst case scenerios of why WVU isn’t a naitonal championship caliber program.

Furthermore, Lets apply your same useless logic of the Sugar Bowl. You statedUGA took WVU lightly thus explaining WVU’s victory. We could apply the same logic to WVU and Louisville. WVU took Louisville lightly and only in the 4th quarter did the better team wake up to rally to win the game.

The interesting thing is WVU came back to win against Louisville & UGA didn’t in the Sugar Bowl. WVU had the ball deep in UGA territory and up 3 points as the game ended. You are insinuating UGA had the football knocking on door as the game ended. That is harldy the case. WVU marched the football down the throats of UGA’s defense in the 4th quarter in a close game. The reality is the veteran Bulldog Defense had no answer for WVU’s sensational sklled underclassman ( many of them first year players). WVU’s offensive line destroyed UGA front 5.

WVU flat out manhandled UGA playing a physical brand of Big East football. The reason the game was close in the end is because WVU’s young players let their foot off the gas. The matruring MountainEERS won’t be so chartiable in the next couple of years.

Class dismissed, AGAIN.

Sorry ACeer, my bad. Obviously you’re different but I mixed you up – I was responding to EER. So just add on to that post vitriolic stuff about EER being annoyingly, unjustifiably arrogant.

1) WVU fan, read this slowly. (well, slower than usual) I wasn’t talking about the UL game. I was talking about the sugar bowl. You’re living up to your handle.
2) no need to be a dick just because I disagreed with you, grow up.
3) next time you insult somebody for allegedly not reading something carefully, make sure you do it yourself first.

“physical brand of Big East football”

I did not realize such a thing existed.

“physical brand of Big East football”

I did not realize such a thing existed.

Comment by King Harvest — July 21, 2006

Perhaps you have not West Virginia play. WVU plays smash-mouth football with the best of them.

no need to be a dick just because I disagreed with you, grow up.
3) next time you insult somebody for allegedly not reading something carefully, make sure you do it yourself first.

wow, I love when somebody cusses you, insults you, and tells you to grow up all at the same time, lol.

I will type this slowly since you still havent figured it out:

Georgia . . . was . . . a . . . bowl . . . game.

i.e. not on our schedule.

Hey just another ignorant Eer fan here, but the big difference in the 1988/1993 years are this..
1. Don Nehlen not here anymore(love(d) him, but he is not Rich Rod. or vice versa).
2. The teams those years had 5th yr linemen and either second year or senior qb’s with a lot of other senior help.(‘93 we lost 5 from the o-line, out starting backfield and at least one of our top 2 wr’s on offense, and about 6 players on a defense that helped that team win the Miami/BC and a few other games.)
3. As per the 2nd statement, our schedule is weak, but we do have many returners on offense to keep scoring/running to let the defense come along. Our defense returns alot of kids with paying time(’93 we lost 26 seniors that year.)
4. You are a boob…lol just had to say it.

I guess that’s where the confusion comes from, WVUfan. At UGA, we pretty much pencil in our bowl games every year. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

“the UN-FSU winner was going to take those polls, and the other team I referred to above was Notre Dame, which actually should have been No. 1 after the Nebraska loss.”

SMQ, you just made my day!

I had the earnest pleasure of watching the 1993 Notre Dame / FSU game (what was clearly the “Game of the Century” by many standards), as well as having to sit through the 1993 Notre Dame / Boston College debacle. But what really makes me happy is that someone who is not a blatant, outrageous, uneducated Notre Dame fan actually believes that the Fighting Irish got gipped out of the National Championship in 1993 following the Nebraska loss. I thought it was only us die-hard alumni (who always hold the 1993 season in out hearts as the “One that Got Away”) as the only college football fans who thought we deserved the NC that year.

It is nice to see one other unbiased fan.

Now, if only the LSU Tiger fans could be so reasonable…

Some points for the Mounty bashers:

1) WVU didn’t get blown out in the second half of the Sugar Bowl. They scored 10 points and were killing the clock the rest of the time. These two key facts are omitted from every single review of the game I’ve ever seen.
2) Georgia’s gigantic deficit actually made WVU look worse on defense than it was. WVU’s weakness was mid-to-long range pass defense. (It had one of the top rush defenses in D-I) Georgia was forced to pass after going down 28-0, going directly into soft coverage as WVU tried to sit on the lead (which never works.)
3) Word out of Motown is that Pat White’s passing has GREATLY improved (as you would expect from freshman to sophmore year as a QB). He’s also got 4 serious threats as receivers (Myles, Reynaud, Bolden, and Barrett.)
4) While WVU has come close to tasting the championship, it hasn’t yet. However, WVU is the winningest college football program to never have won a national championship. While admittedly, this is like being the smartest kid in a special ed class, it’s still worth mentioning if you’re going to bring up our lack of pedigree.
5) Maryland, at night, in Morgantown, on a Thursday, is going to beat WVU? Seriously- the spread is going to be like 15 points for that one. You don’t beat WVU at night in Morgantown- it’s common knowledge at this point.

Ok, that’s enough.

Visit www.wemustignitethiscouch.com for some more wvu knowledge… lol

“physical brand of Big East football”

I did not realize such a thing existed.

Eastern Football has been playing physical football for a very long time. Pitt won by trouncing Georgia twice in the early 80’s ( once for a national championship) with physical football. A medicore middle of the pack BE Boston College beat up on Georgia in the Music City Bowl. WVU just smacked around UGA in their backyard.

As a matter of fact, UGA is 0-4 against the last 4 Eastern teams in bowl games. I guess the poster that alluded to Georgia is accustomed to winning their bowl games didn’t do their research on how Big East teams OWN Georgia in Bowl games. The perception in the Northeast is Georgia football is SOFT.

WVU’s 400 yards rushing proves this. Good luck next time against an Eastern team. Sounds as if UGA needs it.

no doubt, chris. i was a youngster and ’93 was the first year I followed cfb pretty closely. and nd beat fsu head-to-head, no controversy. that should have made the irish no. 1 at the end of the season. i remember myself and 2 or 3 of my little classmates snuck around a weekly poll on mondays in either homeroom or science class, and the last one ended with notre dame on top of all but one of our lists (a biased fsu fan).

pretty much the same scenario happened again in 2000, when fsu was sent to the orange bowl to get whapped by oklahoma instead of miami, which beat fsu head-to-head in october, though computers were to blame for that one. and nebraska over colorado in 2001 (and oregon, too)? blech…

first of all, wvu is not a mediocre football program…it has had far too much success to have that moniker laid on them…

but my main reason for posting is some of the excuses offered by georgia fans like paulwesterdawg and benjamin cardozo (obviously lacking the intellect of the real cardozo) for their sugar bowl loss…

1-The UGA didn’t come to play excuse…gimme a fe-reakin’ break…this is the most convenient way to explain that your overrated team from the big, bad sec got beat by an underrated team from the li’l ole big east…if uga didn’t come to play, then it is lacking as a program…any team that can’t get up for the sugar bowl in their own back yard has no heart and also has its head up its a$$…

but i don’t buy the excuse…uga came to play, but the dawgs got flustered when they found out wvu was as quick or quicker than they were and were more physical…just as good a case could be made that wvu coasted when they ran it out to 28-0 and then kicked it back into gear when uga got close…

2-a variation of the first excuse is the “uga lost it in the first half” excuse and “we dominated in the second half”…sorry, dawgies, this one doesn’t cut it, either…

if you check the facts, uga had closed the lead to 31-21 by halftime…if uga was as dominant in the second half as you claim, they win going away…

fact is, uga lost the game in the SECOND half…uga had two chances to pull ahead when they close it to 3 at 31-28, but couldn’t…then, in the fourth quarter wvu marched the ball 90 yards for a touchdown and converted a 3rd and 13 on a run by white against the vaunted uga defense…slaton followed it soon after with his second 52-yard TD run in which greg blue did an oscar-winning portrayal of a stop sign as slaton ran by him…

the only reason the game was close at the end was a blown coverage by a wvu safety on mcclendon’s TD catch which made it 38-35…

but wait, the dominating uga team in the second half had more than five minutes to get the ball back and score the winning touchdown, but they couldn’t get the ball back from wvu…some domination…

3-the “we stop the fake punt and we win” excuse or the “we get the ball back at the end and we win” excuse…maybe, maybe not…shockley was under pressure all night from the wvu defense…wvu wouldn’t have tried the fake punt if the great uga coaching staff hadn’t gift-wrapped it, so there was little chance that once it was on, uga could have stopped it…

so if wvu punts and uga gets the ball on its own 20 or so with about 1:40 to go, i say there is a better chance uga doesn’t score…like i said, they were lucky to score the TD that brought them close and wvu would have been bringing it to pressure shockley against a uga o line that had trouble with wvu’s d line all night…

but that is, as they say, a moot point because wvu did get the first down on the fake punt because in addition to outplaying uga, they outcoached them, too…

by the way, even after the fake punt, georgia still had a couple of time outs left and would have been able to get the ball back with about 30 seconds left, but wvu ran for ANOTHER first down on a 3rd and 5 run by white…only then did wvu go into victory formation…in your hurry to explain away georgia’s loss and to demean the victorious side, you forget that part of it…

the most hilarious excuse, though, is the allegation that uga didn’t come to play…

let me ask you dawg fans this…say wvu had fallen behind 28-0 and closed it to 38-35 at the end before losing when they couldn’t get the ball back for a final drive and wvu fans started saying, “well, we took uga lightly and after we got serious we tore them up but we just ran out of time,” what would your response be?…

i’ll tell you what it would be…you’d say, yeah, right, you guys couldn’t hang with us and now you’re making excuses, etc. … you’d say we knew you wouldn’t be able to pull it out and we played as good as we had to when we had to…

well, back at ya…

the truth be known uga was the third best team wvu played last year…vocational tech was better and louisville was better…

if uga was the sec champs, then the league surely was overrated…if uga played in the big east last year, they likely finish third behind wvu and louisville…

i came away from the sugar bowl thinking wvu should have won the game by two touchdowns or more…the poor-tackling on the run by brown and the goof on the late td pass to mcclendon kept uga in the game…also, wvu probably should have scored a td on the dirve where owen schmitt ran the ball 54 yards to the uga 10, but a bad read by slaton allowed uga to hang on to only give up a field goal…

how many 50-yard runs did wvu have against uga anyway? i lost count…

who had the sugar bowl rushing record set against them by a true freshman? the champs of the dreaded sec? really? the big east champs did that? really?

you uga fans should be glad it wasn’t worse than it was…

but cardozo and paulwesterdawg (it seems you are a replacements fan, which tells me you aren’t a complete idiot), cut the ca-ca…

I didn’t really have much of an opinion on West Virginia before this thread, but I certainly do now. I can’t believe someone is claiming “Maybe West Virginia took Louisville lightly.”

Were they were overlooking the preseason league favorite for the big UConn showdown looming the following week, or was the ABC televised game against the only team in the conference people outside the BE took seriously a letdown game following the classic tilt with Rutgers the week before?

This did not start out as a bash WVU post, but the arrogance of a couple fans who make Auburn supporters look rational by comparison helped turn it into one.

You’re not 1995 Nebraska. Twenty five percent of your games are still MACtastic Wed/Thur/Fri affairs for God’s sakes.

The worst case scenario is not “WVU isn’t a naitonal [sic] championship caliber program.” That is your most likely scenario. The worst case scenario is WVU gets smacked by Louisville and loses two or more to the flotsam and jetsam that makes up the rest of your schedule, leaving people to scratch their heads 20 years from now and say, “Wait a minute. West Virginia won a Sugar Bowl? Really? Did it have something to do with that big hurricane where they moved the real bowl to Houston or something? Was that like a replacement ‘Sugar Bowl’ to raise money for charity?”

The funniest thing is the claim, “The perception in the Northeast is Georgia football is SOFT.” Apparently, MountainEER makes regular jaunts from the southeast midwest? northwest southeast? to New England to take the region’s college football pulse. Either that, or he just calls the guy.

Georgia 1-4 against Eastern Teams in last 5 bowl games.

This really bothers you, ehh?

PS

Is Greg Blue still trying to catch Steve Slaton?

Keep us posted, ok?

UGA is 1-4 against Big East teams in bowl games.

What part of that is not registering?

This really bothers you, ehh?

PS

Is Greg Blue still trying to catch Steve Slaton?

Keep us posted, ok?

uga was the third best team wvu played last year, behind vt and louisville…uga would have finished no better than third in the big east last year, primarily because its defense was a step slow…this makes you wonder how tough the sec actually is…

why won’t you run my post about uga fans excuses? it is not any more inflammatory than the posts from dawg fans…

To a certain extent I agree with this, however in my opinion the single most intriguing off-the-field storyline game is South Carolina-Florida.

UGA’s rolling along pretty well at the moment, but anybody who claims that it “pencils in a bowl game every year” hasn’t been a Georgia fan for too long . . .