By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — The traffic on Alligator Alley, from Fort Lauderdale to Naples, Fla., then up I-75 to Tampa, ought to be a little heavier than normal today.
See the Mountainators are in town.
Mountainators?
That’s right. Part Mountaineer, part Gator.
See, there’s 24 players on the West Virginia roster who are from Florida, beginning with the two biggest offensive names and maybe the best defensive player – quarterback Jarrett Brown, running back Noel Devine and linebacker J.T. Thomas.
If these old ears were hearing right the other night, Brown said his mother was coming over with two busses full of family and friends.
“J.T. Thomas has more people coming. I think he got about 80 tickets,” Brown said.
With that in mind, you know that the 8 p.m. battle between 6-1 West Virginia and 5-2 Florida State that will be televised by ESPN2, is an important game to all of those players, although Brown wants to try and keep it as low key as two busses full of family and friends will allow him to.
“I told myself I’d never do anything to impress the crowd,” Brown said. “I want to stay within myself. If you don’t, your emotions start to take over. You have to keep calm as the quarterback. You’ve got to be the thermostat.”
On a personal level, the game may be most important to Devine, who has avoided any talk about personal achievements since he arrived on the WVU campus three seasons ago.
Coming home to Florida, of course, is special.
“It is most definitely going to make me play harder, going back to Florida to play,” he said. “It is like a homecoming and half of the people that I played against and my old teammates are there, so it is exciting.”
Then there is this growing Heisman Trophy talk that he is avoiding.
After last week gaining 178 yards rushing with a game-winning 56-yard touchdown dash gave him his second Big East Player of the Week honor in three weeks, missing out only on his best game, a 220-yard outburst against Colorado, the chatter began.
WVU maintains it is not going to promote him for the award, just as it did not promote Patrick White last year. That special Web site for him wasn’t a promotion, they remind you, because the term Heisman Trophy was never mentioned.
Of course, if a voter wanted to read that into it, that’s his business.
Anyway, Devine certainly has legitimate credentials. He is third in the nation in rushing with 130 yards a game, 11th in scoring averaging 11.43 points a game, has five 100-yard games in a conference where only one other back has more than three, averages 6.0 yards a carry and is 16th nationally in all-purpose yards at 152.86 yards a game.
But when people think Heisman, they think in other directions.
Can you say Tim Tebow?
See what he needs is a huge game on national television, especially on a Friday night game when he is playing in the only game in town.
If you are watching college football tonight, you are watching WVU and South Florida.
“To me, Thursday and Friday night football is exactly what Monday night football is to America,” coach Bill Stewart said.
That might be something of a stretch, considering the heights Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, John Madden and Al Michaels lifted Monday Night Football to in its glory days, but you can make a career with a big outing in an important game televised nationally.
It would seem Devine is poised for a big game. With South Florida’s ability to rush the passer, WVU will probably want to establish some kind of run and it might just use a lot of the I-formation, which Devine runs best out of.
“It’s all about vision,” Stewart said. “I said the same thing to the NFL about Steve Slaton. I told them to trust me. When you put these guys seven or eight yards back and give them the ball, first of all their visions are identical.
“Noel is probably quicker, where Steve is faster getting around the edge, but when you give these guys the ball, they just run around them.”
Devine has become a different runner this year than the skittering waterbug of a the last two years.
“Last year he was a runner. Now he’s a running back,” said running backs coach Chris Beatty.
Devine has developed patience to go with his vision, speed and power.
“It used to be every time he had the ball he went as fast as he could,” Stewart said. “He’s not doing all that back and forth stuff like a Play Station game now.”
Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
