Post by elp525 on Oct 30, 2011 9:18:14 GMT -5
10/29/2011
Chip Fontanazza
Piscataway, New Jersey
Adversity is something every team deals with during the season. On Saturday, the Mountaineers fought adversity, Mother Nature and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to get their season back on track.
The Mountaineers were coming off their biggest loss in 20 years after losing the week before to the Syracuse Orange 49-23. Adversity was something the coaching staff and WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen were preaching to the team all week.
All of that preaching and hard work by the Mountaineers paid off in a 41-31 win against Rutgers. After the game, the team was very happy with the way it handled everything.
“I think we responded better than we did last week and that shows signs of improvement for this team,” said junior quarterback Geno Smith. “We grew today.”
“I learned we’re very resilient,” continued Smith. “We had to battle. Like I said, last week we took a tough loss and everyone wanted to see how we would respond and everyone wanted to come out with a blowout victory.”
It wasn’t quite a blowout victory, but it was enough to boost the Mountaineers’ confidence and get them back on the winning track.
Junior running back Shawne Alston sparked things early for the Mountaineers early in the game with a 52-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. That was the first score for West Virginia. Alston says that run gave the team a lot of confidence and helped propel them to the much-needed victory.
“We know that if we face adversity, we can come out and get it done because we did it today,” said Alston. “We can just reflect. We did this before, we can do it again.”
Senior defensive end Julian Miller did his part on defense to help the Mountaineers overcome adversity. He had two fumble recovers that led to scores for WVU. That helped lead West Virginia to 20 unanswered points in the second half.
“I think it was just gut check time,” said Miller. “We realized we have to come out here and we have to respond. We realized what they were doing and we made corrections at halftime and we just knew we had to come out in the second half and play against what they were giving us and just execute.”
“Coach talked about it all week,” said Smith. “What we were going to do when we faced adversity and I think we got back into the locker room and regrouped and we came out with some fire in the second half and [we] were able to come out with a victory.”
Chip Fontanazza
Piscataway, New Jersey
Adversity is something every team deals with during the season. On Saturday, the Mountaineers fought adversity, Mother Nature and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to get their season back on track.
The Mountaineers were coming off their biggest loss in 20 years after losing the week before to the Syracuse Orange 49-23. Adversity was something the coaching staff and WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen were preaching to the team all week.
All of that preaching and hard work by the Mountaineers paid off in a 41-31 win against Rutgers. After the game, the team was very happy with the way it handled everything.
“I think we responded better than we did last week and that shows signs of improvement for this team,” said junior quarterback Geno Smith. “We grew today.”
“I learned we’re very resilient,” continued Smith. “We had to battle. Like I said, last week we took a tough loss and everyone wanted to see how we would respond and everyone wanted to come out with a blowout victory.”
It wasn’t quite a blowout victory, but it was enough to boost the Mountaineers’ confidence and get them back on the winning track.
Junior running back Shawne Alston sparked things early for the Mountaineers early in the game with a 52-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. That was the first score for West Virginia. Alston says that run gave the team a lot of confidence and helped propel them to the much-needed victory.
“We know that if we face adversity, we can come out and get it done because we did it today,” said Alston. “We can just reflect. We did this before, we can do it again.”
Senior defensive end Julian Miller did his part on defense to help the Mountaineers overcome adversity. He had two fumble recovers that led to scores for WVU. That helped lead West Virginia to 20 unanswered points in the second half.
“I think it was just gut check time,” said Miller. “We realized we have to come out here and we have to respond. We realized what they were doing and we made corrections at halftime and we just knew we had to come out in the second half and play against what they were giving us and just execute.”
“Coach talked about it all week,” said Smith. “What we were going to do when we faced adversity and I think we got back into the locker room and regrouped and we came out with some fire in the second half and [we] were able to come out with a victory.”
