MORGANTOWN —
West Virginia may have to go into its opening game against Coastal Carolina without its injured starting linebacker Pat Lazear but outside linebacker J.T. Thomas, who has battled a neck problem all through pre-season drills, has been cleared to play.
Lazear was leg whipped in his knee during a play a week ago and is still being treated for it.
Coach Bill Stewart evaded a question as to whether Lazear has been practicing, saying only “he’s getting treatment” and he would not predict whether he would be out for the game.
The Big East this year has instigated a new policy for injury reporting. Coaches will release on Monday players who are out for the year or undergoing surgery and on Thursday will report on players’ conditions for the coming week’s game, listing them as out, doubtful or probable.
If Lazear can’t play, redshirt freshman Branko Busick out of Steubenville, Ohio, would be his replacement. It would also mean that Najee Goode would probably get some time at the position.
While Thomas has been cleared to play, it’s almost a play-to-play thing with him.
“The doctors say he needs to play to see how he reacts,” Stewart said. “He’ll get in there and bang and we’ll see how he does.”
According to Stewart, Thomas’ neck injury is not severe and he has undergone and MRI and been cleared to play.
Lazear and Thomas were last year’s two leading tacklers, Lazear with 78 tackles and Thomas with 76.
o o o o o o
Stewart still refuses to say how he will use his two freshmen backup quarterbacks, Barry Brunetti and Jeremy Johnson. Both are freshmen and have never played a down of college ball.
Stewart maintains he doesn’t know if he will redshirt one or the other or play both of them this year to get them some experience.
He also faces a decision in this game, should it get out of hand as expected, whether or not to take starter Geno Smith out. Smith needs playing time but you’d hate to see your only experienced QB injured if the Mountaineers have a big lead.
o o o o o o
This Friday and all Friday’s throughout the season have been dubbed National College Colors Day and Stewart is urging all fans to wear the WVU old gold and blue not on Saturday for the game, but on Friday’s.
o o o o o o
Four days before kickoff the right side of the offensive line remains unsettled, Stewart hoping out of having too much talent rather than too little.
He is leaning at present toward starting veteran Eric Jobe at right guard and Jeff Braun at right tackle with redshirt freshman Cole Bowers backing up both positions.
“We have eight linemen ready to play and Bowers is in that eight,” Stewart said.
There is a chance, too, that Stewart will look at Jobe back at center at times. The starting job there belongs to Joey Madsen.
o o o o o o
Stewart has settled on three different to do the three different kicking jobs.
Tyler Bitancurt, the hero of last year’s Pitt victory, will be the placekicker with Corey Smith kicking off and Greg Pugnetti punting.
Smith and Pugnetti both showed they could punt in pre-season campe and that was a hard-fought battle.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
WVU’s Thomas cleared to play, Lazear may be out
- Bob Herzel
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
Lee Patrone says he remembers it vividly, even though more than 50 years have passed, and while it was the greatest accomplishment in his life it has nothing to do with the West Virginia University basketball career that has lifted him into the Class of 2012 that will be inducted into the Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame in September.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: No doubt WVU made out well
There was a cold, ill wind blowing in from the north on Friday.
It was the kind of wind that blows whenever a Pitt man opens his mouth, as the Pittsburgh athletic director Steve Pederson did. -
Tears and memories: VIDEO
It was mid-Thursday afternoon at the Morgantown Event Center and the crowd stood mostly silently in line that wound out of the Events Hall and into the hallway toward the staircase.
A young lady was there holding a singular golden rose
“I wish,” Rebecca Durst said, “it could be gold and blue.” -
HERTZEL COLUMN: Stew fondly remembered by players
The tributes have poured in all week for Bill Stewart, the former West Virginia University football coach whose sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack at age 59 on Monday stunned the state, but it wasn’t the administrators or executives or politicians who really knew him.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: White right there with Hall of Famers
Back on New Year’s Eve, 2008, shortly after West Virginia University had edged North Carolina, 31-30, to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl, an attempt was made to put Mountaineer quarterback Patrick White into his proper historical perspective.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Pat Beilein follows in father’s path
In a day filled with the sorrow of former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart’s sudden and unexpected death, there was a ray of sunshine that managed to slip through, a happening that shows us all that even in death there is life and as one son grieves, as does Stewart’s son, Blaine, somewhere else a father basks in pride over his son.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Stewart’s gift was giving
It was the kind of cosmic happening that defies description. We all come across them from time to time, leaving us in a state of disbelief.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: This ‘Maniac’ makes music with Kilicli
Mike Martin wasn’t long removed from his New York roots, a somewhat rare import in these parts compared to the migration of New Jerseyites who matriculate at West Virginia University.
-
Van Zant fired as WVU baseball coach
West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck believes with a new coach and a new stadium the Mountaineers can compete with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma for the Big 12 baseball championship but understands it will not come easily or quickly.
-
SEC, Big 12 team up for bowl
Even before the full impact of West Virginia University’s 2014 season-opening meeting with Alabama in Atlanta has been grasped, the opportunity presented itself for the two to meet again later in that season or future ones in a bowl agreement between the Big 12 and SEC that is much like the Rose Bowl agreement between the Big Ten and the Pac-12.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
