MORGANTOWN — Now that West Virginia University has its defensive unit together and healthy, safety Sidney Glover and defensive tackle Scooter Berry playing and middle linebacker Reed Williams feeling no pain in his shoulders, the unit is playing its best football of the season.
The goal now is to get the offense back on track in time for West Virginia’s regular-season ending road date at Rutgers Saturday, a game coach Bill Stewart simply says is “colossal” in importance.
And, despite appearances, he feels he’s getting closer to getting the offense clicking.
The Mountaineers have not scored 30 points in a game since winning at Syracuse, 34-13, on Oct. 10. They scored only 19 at South Florida, 17 at home against a weak Louisville team, 21 at Cincinnati and 19 against Pitt.
They rank fifth in scoring in the Big East Conference averaging 26.8 points a game, barely ahead of South Florida’s 26.4 points a game. Total offense is fourth and that vaunted passing attack that came into the season is fifth, averaging 205.5 yards a game.
Most of that just won’t crack it in the big time and Stewart knows it.
“Up to the Auburn game, even Colorado, we were clicking, we were freewheeling, our quarterback was exciting,” Stewart said. “Once he got whacked at Marshall, it changed. Did you see Oklahoma shut out Oklahoma State? What did that quarterback come back from? Same thing.”
The same thing was a concussion. Jarrett Brown’s was diagnosed as a mild concussion, but something did happen with him.
“The medical people played Jarrett Brown when it was right to play him, when it was safe to play, but there was something about it that it wasn’t clicking,” Stewart said. “It’s not all on Jarrett. There were some other guys.
“I thought we really strained on offense,” Stewart continued. “To play Louisville and get one touchdown, we’ve not really clicked since the Marshall game. We started to get it back against Cincinnati. I thought we got it back the other night. We were just a play here, a play there.
“Honest to gosh, we got that 88-yard trap that Noel Devine ran but there were three other times when one block and we’ve got it — No. 7 to the house.”
Stewart refuses to sugarcoat it though.
“We hit a wall in the middle of the season and we pressed. I don’t think we’re playing very well (on offense),” he said.
Certainly the offense isn’t what he had pictured.
If you recall, he came in talking about throwing the football all over the lot, stretching the field deep.
But as the season went on, as Brown went into his brief funk, there was less of that and more a run mentality, more emphasis on an I-formation, more Ryan Clarke in the offense, a big fullback.
Believe it or not, WVU leads the Big East not in passing but in rushing, averaging 185.5 yards a game. It has run the ball 426 times, thrown it 308.
In a way, what has happened is that the Mountaineers have not been able to establish any kind of offensive identity. They have stumbled around trying to find a personality and that hinders the development of an offense.
Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt talked about the philosophy of offensive football on Monday’s Big East coaches’ conference call. He has gone steadily with a pro-set, power offense that features play action passes and a big fullback.
When asked why he felt that was the right way to go, he answered it this way:
“It’s not the best way, obviously, for everyone. I remember an analogy when we first went to the Dallas Cowboys from the University of Miami. The Giants had won the Super Bowl with a 3-4 defense and Lawrence Taylor. San Francisco used a 4-3 and won a Super Bowl. We won one at Dallas with our college 4-3.
“The point is there are a lot of ways to win. The key is to have some philosophy. The coaches who have a little bit of everything and are not good at anything are the ones who have problems.”
And that is what West Virginia has to avoid. It has to have a system, a philosophy, recruit to it and win with it. To think that you can be a running team one week and passing team the next isn’t where it’s at.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
WVU’s goal to get offense started
- Bob Herzel
-
-
WVU, Big East reach agreement
West Virginia University and the Big East have reached a conditional agreement that will allow the Mountaineers to join the Big 12 on July 1 and play football there next season, the Charleston Daily Mail reported Thursday night, citing an unidentified source.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: This WVU team different from previous squads
Games may be won or lost under glaring lights of a college arena, filled with faithful fans and the prying eye of the ever-present, unblinking television camera, but teams are built in a far different way.
They come together in a gym that smells of sweat and yesterday’s hotdogs. -
Notre Dame stops WVU, 55-51
If Kevin Jones could have scored 20 points against Notre Dame on Wednesday night before a disappointing crowd of 9,258 in the Coliseum he would have joined Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley in the West Virginia record books.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: It’s unfair to consider Truck villain
The zero next to Truck Bryant’s name stood out like an obscene gesture during a Super Bowl halftime show.
Some even said he was M.I.A. as West Virginia University lost a heartbreaker, if not a season-breaker, to Notre Dame, 55-51. -
Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games. -
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar
Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.
-
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
-
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.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
WVU, Big East reach agreement
