MORGANTOWN — When this season started, everyone knew about South Florida defensive end George Selvie, a pass-rushing machine who had bypassed a chance to go to the NFL last year to return for another season of harassing Big East quarterbacks.
What they didn’t know was that he was coming back to join up with a player equally as special, bigger and just as quick, named Jason Pierre-Paul, to come from the other side of the line.
Ask Selvish Capers, West Virginia University’s right offensive tackle who will be paired up most of the time with Pierre-Paul, about the 6-6 junior from Haiti with 81-inch wing span, and this is what you hear.
“He’s active. He goes hard to the whistle. He has quick hands and feet,” Capers said, then thought about it for a moment, and added, “He’s like a motor. I’ve got to be the brakes.”
Make no doubt that Selvie and Pierre-Paul present formidable problems for the offense.
This is especially true for quarterback Jarrett Brown, who has spent far too much time running for his life against pass rushers far less accomplished than these two. In fact, were it not for this special talent Brown seems to have to make a pass rusher miss, escaping so that he can either run or throw on the run, WVU would not be looking at a 6-1 record when it goes into South Florida’s Raymond James Stadium on Friday night.
You ask Brown the secret to making the first man miss and he smiles sheepishly, then says:
“It ain’t no secret. You just react to danger,” he said. “All I can do is worry about myself and let those guys take care of what they do up front.”
Coach Bill Stewart has spent a good deal of time marveling at Brown’s ability to escape, especially when a Connecticut team threw caution to the wind in an all-out blitzathon. But it wasn’t the first time Brown was blitzed, nor will it be the last.
“Remember the Auburn and East Carolina games, Jarrett got loose, and Colorado, on the first play of the game, he escaped the blitz,” Stewart said. “He just makes you miss, and I hope and pray he can do that down there. If he does, he is a big man that can track and cover a lot of ground.”
The blitzing won’t stop.
“It’s kind of annoying,” Capers said, as if he were readying himself to swat away a fly.
This is different from other teams, however, because Selvie and Pierre-Paul can cause as much havoc by themselves as an all-out blitz. It’s not something Brown wants to think about.
“I don’t want to talk about the rush. That will throw my whole game off as a quarterback. I want to go through my reads and make my protection calls,” he said.
And then it’s up to Capers and his left tackle partner Don Barclay, who will spend his Friday night battling Selvie for the most part.
“It definitely gets me more hyped up, more focused,” Barclay admitted. “I like that kind of challenge. Why not? You came here to play against this kind of player.”
There are, of course, things you can do against players like Selvie and Pierre-Paul to neutralize them.
You can run draws or screens, you go out of the I more than the spread, utilizing a fullback and a tight end to help protect. You can throw quick passes that are gotten off before they can cause havoc in the passing game.
And, of course, you can give the ball to Noel Devine, who is running red hot at present.
“You’d like to say you’re going to run away from one of them, but there’s the other guy on the other side,” said offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen.
Mullen says the one thing he can’t allow these two skilled defensive ends to do is change the philosophy of the offense.
“We will never change who we are. Certainly we will adapt to matchups; that’s what college football has become,” he said.
“We are going to give them the full gamut, and do what we do,” Stewart added. “We have to run at them. You cannot play on your heels. That is what people do that have success, they come after them. We need to be aggressive, go out there and play Mountaineer football.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN - USF pass rush one of the best
- Bob Herzel
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.
-
WVU finds a way, wins in overtime
Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.
-
Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence
The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history
On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.
-
WVU backs out of Florida State game
West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement. -
WVU women upset Louisville
It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Nothing guaranteed with recruits
Signing day has come and gone, and here is something to think about.
Scout, one of the most popular online rating services, has raised West Virginia University’s crop of football recruits to No. 25 in the nation and No. 1 in the Big East. -
Who really pays WVU’s medical bills?
A couple of weeks back, West Virginia University released a post-season list of injuries to its football team, and it was a lengthy list of some injuries that required surgery and rehabilitation.
-
Louisville next test for WVU women
The last time out, the West Virginia University women’s basketball team played its usual game.
It was at South Florida, facing a pretty good team. It built the big lead it normally builds, then struggled to hold on at the end, turning the ball over and missing free throws, but somehow managed. -
Smith won’t coach WVU, to stay with Jets
A couple of days ago, coach Dana Holgorsen, knowing he was going to be changing the defensive schemes West Virginia University runs, was wondering if he would have enough quality defensive linemen.
A day after recruiting letters were returned and his first recruiting class was on hand, that worry was alleviated.
But immediately a new worry cropped up. - More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
