Post by elp525 on Oct 28, 2011 5:15:33 GMT -5
Friday October 28, 2011
by Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia heads to Rutgers on Saturday ranked 13th nationally in total offense ... and at the Mountaineers' current rate, it's an offense the Big East never has seen before in the conference's 20-year football history.
WVU is averaging 489.9 yards per game, and will go against the Big East's top two defenses statistically - Louisville (ranked 15th nationally) and Rutgers (17th) - in the next two weeks.
If WVU can sustain that average, Coach Dana Holgorsen's debut season will bring a Big East record for total offense for a season. WVU's current average projects to a 6,368-yard season. The conference record is 6,179, set by Louisville in 2006.
The Mountaineers school record would be obliterated. It's 5,998, in the same '06 season as the Cardinals set the league standard. That 5,998 is No. 3 in Big East history, with the Louisville and WVU total offense numbers sandwiching a 6,074 by Miami (Fla.) in 2002.
With the proliferation of offense in major college football, however, the Mountaineers will have to go some to get another top 10 finish in total offense. In WVU history, the 'Eers have been a top-10 offense eight times.
The best total offense ranking came in 1955, when West Virginia averaged 384.5 yards and finished second behind national champion Oklahoma's 410.7.
Those Mountaineers finished 8-2 (losing to Pitt and Syracuse), won the Southern Conference, and were ranked No. 19 in the final AP poll.
Six of West Virginia's eight top 10 total offense seasons came between 1952-70.
The other two were the 11-2 team in 2006, which was fourth at an average of 461.4, and the 11-1 team in 1988, which placed fifth at 482.7 yards per game.
The Big East passing record for a season also is in danger, thanks to Holgorsen's designs and quarterback Geno Smith's arm.
West Virginia is fifth nationally in passing yardage to date, averaging 374.4 yards per game. Project that average over 13 games, and the total would be 4,868 ... which wouldn't break the big East standard, but pancake it.
The best Big East passing season was Louisville's 4,103 yards in 2007, followed by Cincinnati in 2009, at 4,014.
To date, no other team in Big East history has thrown for more than 3,770 yards (Louisville '06) in a season.
Yes, WVU traditionally has run for its yardage ... which is why it shouldn't be surprising to know that the current passing total of 2,621 yards (in only seven games) ranks fifth among WVU air-yard seasons.
With 149 yards in Saturday's 3:30 p.m. game in New Jersey, the 2011 team will pass last year's club for No. 2 on the all-time school list, behind only the very reachable 3,700 in 1998 when Marc Bulger was pitching.
n n
THERE IS no argument that West Virginia's offensive productivity has improved this season under Holgorsen. Although the new Mountaineers coach has complained about his team's lack of efficiency, the ability to move the chains has improved significantly from the 2010 team in one area.
Through seven games, WVU has gone three-and-out to punt only 11 times. It hasn't happened more than twice in any game to date. In last season's first seven games - also a 5-2 start - the Mountaineers already had experienced 26 three-and-outs.
WVU has had two three-and-outs against Syracuse, Connecticut, Marshall and Norfolk State, and one only against LSU, Maryland and Bowling Green.
* * *
TO PUT the Mountaineers' 49-23 loss at Syracuse a week ago into a different perspective, it was West Virginia's 1,197th game in school history ... and only 13 times has WVU allowed more points than it did to the Orange in the Carrier Dome.
In the 13 games in which West Virginia has allowed 50 or more points, in 11 of those the Mountaineers were outscored by 42 or more points. The other two?
WVU lost 52-20 at Boston University in 1949, and at Colorado State 50-14 to end the 1978 season.
* * *
A FORMER West Virginia athletics administrator is back in the Big East with a bigger job. Congratulations to Whit Babcock, named last weekend as the new athletic director at Cincinnati.
Babcock left WVU in 2007 after five years as an associate athletic director and executive director of the Mountaineer Athletic Club. He moved then to Missouri as the No. 2 man in the Tigers' athletic department, and is making a move just as Mizzou leaves the Big 12 for the SEC.
Babcock's fundraising skills helped him and the job at UC, which is trying to brand itself in a pro sports market. He also will face the challenge of trying to keep the Bearcats' relevant in the current college realignment game of musical chairs.
The folks in Cincinnati will find Babcock, 41, candid to a fault. When he was introduced formally on Monday at UC and asked about the tenuous future of the Big East, he didn't blink and said what the league needed was trust and stability.
"And right now, I don't know that the Big East has either," Babcock continued. "But there's a chance to pull it together with the addition of teams, and once we see what the Big 12 does, hopefully things will settle down and the Big East can build back.
"But that trust and stability right now is wavering, and we've got to get that back."
In a Q&A with the Cincinnati Enquirer, asked about what a good athletic director does, Babcock didn't flinch.
"If I have to break it down, the simplest leadership role of an athletic director boils down to character and competence," Babcock responded. "If I prove to have character in what I say and I shoot people straight and I'm the same publicly as I am privately, I believe that's absolutely key.
"At the same time, I've got to have competence. I've got to be able to have some victories under my belt and show people that I know what I'm talking about."
He does know. His vision in the MAC job at WVU boosted the program significantly.
by Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia heads to Rutgers on Saturday ranked 13th nationally in total offense ... and at the Mountaineers' current rate, it's an offense the Big East never has seen before in the conference's 20-year football history.
WVU is averaging 489.9 yards per game, and will go against the Big East's top two defenses statistically - Louisville (ranked 15th nationally) and Rutgers (17th) - in the next two weeks.
If WVU can sustain that average, Coach Dana Holgorsen's debut season will bring a Big East record for total offense for a season. WVU's current average projects to a 6,368-yard season. The conference record is 6,179, set by Louisville in 2006.
The Mountaineers school record would be obliterated. It's 5,998, in the same '06 season as the Cardinals set the league standard. That 5,998 is No. 3 in Big East history, with the Louisville and WVU total offense numbers sandwiching a 6,074 by Miami (Fla.) in 2002.
With the proliferation of offense in major college football, however, the Mountaineers will have to go some to get another top 10 finish in total offense. In WVU history, the 'Eers have been a top-10 offense eight times.
The best total offense ranking came in 1955, when West Virginia averaged 384.5 yards and finished second behind national champion Oklahoma's 410.7.
Those Mountaineers finished 8-2 (losing to Pitt and Syracuse), won the Southern Conference, and were ranked No. 19 in the final AP poll.
Six of West Virginia's eight top 10 total offense seasons came between 1952-70.
The other two were the 11-2 team in 2006, which was fourth at an average of 461.4, and the 11-1 team in 1988, which placed fifth at 482.7 yards per game.
The Big East passing record for a season also is in danger, thanks to Holgorsen's designs and quarterback Geno Smith's arm.
West Virginia is fifth nationally in passing yardage to date, averaging 374.4 yards per game. Project that average over 13 games, and the total would be 4,868 ... which wouldn't break the big East standard, but pancake it.
The best Big East passing season was Louisville's 4,103 yards in 2007, followed by Cincinnati in 2009, at 4,014.
To date, no other team in Big East history has thrown for more than 3,770 yards (Louisville '06) in a season.
Yes, WVU traditionally has run for its yardage ... which is why it shouldn't be surprising to know that the current passing total of 2,621 yards (in only seven games) ranks fifth among WVU air-yard seasons.
With 149 yards in Saturday's 3:30 p.m. game in New Jersey, the 2011 team will pass last year's club for No. 2 on the all-time school list, behind only the very reachable 3,700 in 1998 when Marc Bulger was pitching.
n n
THERE IS no argument that West Virginia's offensive productivity has improved this season under Holgorsen. Although the new Mountaineers coach has complained about his team's lack of efficiency, the ability to move the chains has improved significantly from the 2010 team in one area.
Through seven games, WVU has gone three-and-out to punt only 11 times. It hasn't happened more than twice in any game to date. In last season's first seven games - also a 5-2 start - the Mountaineers already had experienced 26 three-and-outs.
WVU has had two three-and-outs against Syracuse, Connecticut, Marshall and Norfolk State, and one only against LSU, Maryland and Bowling Green.
* * *
TO PUT the Mountaineers' 49-23 loss at Syracuse a week ago into a different perspective, it was West Virginia's 1,197th game in school history ... and only 13 times has WVU allowed more points than it did to the Orange in the Carrier Dome.
In the 13 games in which West Virginia has allowed 50 or more points, in 11 of those the Mountaineers were outscored by 42 or more points. The other two?
WVU lost 52-20 at Boston University in 1949, and at Colorado State 50-14 to end the 1978 season.
* * *
A FORMER West Virginia athletics administrator is back in the Big East with a bigger job. Congratulations to Whit Babcock, named last weekend as the new athletic director at Cincinnati.
Babcock left WVU in 2007 after five years as an associate athletic director and executive director of the Mountaineer Athletic Club. He moved then to Missouri as the No. 2 man in the Tigers' athletic department, and is making a move just as Mizzou leaves the Big 12 for the SEC.
Babcock's fundraising skills helped him and the job at UC, which is trying to brand itself in a pro sports market. He also will face the challenge of trying to keep the Bearcats' relevant in the current college realignment game of musical chairs.
The folks in Cincinnati will find Babcock, 41, candid to a fault. When he was introduced formally on Monday at UC and asked about the tenuous future of the Big East, he didn't blink and said what the league needed was trust and stability.
"And right now, I don't know that the Big East has either," Babcock continued. "But there's a chance to pull it together with the addition of teams, and once we see what the Big 12 does, hopefully things will settle down and the Big East can build back.
"But that trust and stability right now is wavering, and we've got to get that back."
In a Q&A with the Cincinnati Enquirer, asked about what a good athletic director does, Babcock didn't flinch.
"If I have to break it down, the simplest leadership role of an athletic director boils down to character and competence," Babcock responded. "If I prove to have character in what I say and I shoot people straight and I'm the same publicly as I am privately, I believe that's absolutely key.
"At the same time, I've got to have competence. I've got to be able to have some victories under my belt and show people that I know what I'm talking about."
He does know. His vision in the MAC job at WVU boosted the program significantly.
