MORGANTOWN — Two years ago, in a season in which West Virginia University reached the doorstep of a national championship game before being upset by Pitt, the Mountaineers averaged 41 points a game.
A year later that total had fallen to 24.5 points a game.
There were any number of factors entering into the loss of two touchdowns and a field goal per game, beginning with losing Steve Slaton, Owen Schmitt and Darius Reynaud to the professional ranks and losing head coach Rich Rodriguez to Michigan.
That turned last season into a period of adjustment as Bill Stewart took over, brought in Jeff Mullen as his offensive coordinator, and changed the emphasis of the offense from a team that ran the ball 70 percent of the time to one that ran it 61 percent of the time.
And Stewart promises that total will shrink even further this season as Jarrett Brown takes over at quarterback.
The focus fell naturally on Mullen last season as the offense struggled early, scoring just three points at East Carolina and 14 at Colorado, 17 against Syracuse, 15 at Pitt and 13 against South Florida.
As the dawn of the second camp in the Bill Stewart era and the first camp in the post-Patrick White era draws near, the time had come to visit with Mullen and see just what he has up Jarrett Brown’s sleeve to create a more productive offense.
To begin with, Mullen says the offense will not appear much different on the surface.
“The same terminology, the system, the things Jarrett Brown learned 17 months ago will be the same,” Mullen promised.
So, too, he said, will be the play calling.
“That is based on what the defense is giving us,” Mullen said. “While we take a proactive approach, we react to what we see. What I can’t tell you is what the defense will give us because we don’t know right now how they will defend Jarrett Brown.”
With White, you knew there would be eight players in the box, maybe nine, and that teams would try to contain him to the inside and stop the running game, something they were quite successful doing as the average per rush fell from 6.2 in 2007 to 5.3 in 2008.
With the promise being a switch more to an aerial assault, Mullen was asked if the 31-30 victory over North Carolina in the Meineke Car Care Bowl in which White threw for a career high 332 yards on 26 of 32 passing might not serve as the model for what was to come this year.
“That came down to what North Carolina was giving us,” Mullen said. “In truth, it wasn’t a lot different than what we had all year. The difference was in the execution. You have to execute. There weren’t the drops or the missed assignments in that game that we had in other games.”
As Mullen looked back on his first season as offensive coordinator after coming over from Wake Forest, he is pleased that he felt the offense got better each week as the season went on. Even in some of the late-season failures such as against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, one has to understand that the Mountaineers were facing strong defensive teams.
Having had a full year to put in his system and to work with the players, Mullen believes that leads to a smoother running offense.
“It makes a tremendous difference,” Mullen said. “I know what the staff is about. I know what the players physically can do. And the players know us better. They know what we expect of them.”
This should make practices more efficient, meetings more to the point.
In many ways, last year’s 9-4 season, while disappointing when looked at in terms of pre-season expectations, can be written off as a learning experience.
“It probably was split down the middle (between the coaches and players),” Mullen said. “Everyone knows a relationship takes two, especially those who are married.”
And those who are married know that relationships take time to develop and have to be worked at, which is what this camp will be about as Mullen tries to figure out how to use Noel Devine’s talents as a complement to Brown’s throwing, how to keep Wes Lyons performing as the tall wide receiver did in spring practice and how to improve the Mountaineers’ short-yardage game.
With the quarterback change, Mullen finds himself holding perhaps the key to the season.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
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