Post by cviller on Oct 6, 2007 8:42:50 GMT -5
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Rich Rodriguez insists his team’s goals have not changed in the face of last week’s 21-13 loss to South Florida.
Heading into today’s noon game with Syracuse (1-4, 1-0 Big East) at the Carrier Dome, the No. 13 Mountaineers (4-1, 0-1) still have everything on the table in front of them. Or at least the Mountaineers have everything they had before.
Yes, West Virginia went from a national championship contender to a real long shot, if not a complete outsider. Sure, it’s possible with one loss (see Florida, 2006), but in order to get into one of the top two spots in the Bowl Championship Series standings it’s probably going to require losses by every other BCS contender (OK, that’s possible) and some serious improvement in the play of all of WVU’s opponents in order to boost the all-important computer ratings. With teams like Marshall (0-5), Western Michigan (2-3), East Carolina (2-3), Syracuse (1-4) and Pitt (2-3) struggling, that doesn’t seem likely.
Anyway, though, back to goals being intact. Rodriguez maintains that winning a national title was never one of those, so it wasn’t lost.
“We don’t ever sit down and say, ‘Our goal this year is to win a national championship.’ I’ve never done that,’’ Rodriguez said. “Our goal every year is to play West Virginia football each and every time we get out there and compete for championships. And the first goal is always the Big East championship.’’
That, too, took a hit with the loss, of course. But that might not be fatal because it just doesn’t seem likely that anyone in what appears to be a seriously balanced league is going to get through it unscathed.
“I told the team we’re behind on that because we’re 0-1 in the league,’’ Rodriguez said. “But there’s a lot of games left in our league. It’s a very, very competitive conference. And we still have over half the season to play. I’m more concerned with getting better today, not even looking ahead to Saturday. Get better today and try to get better each day.’’
Syracuse is not the worst rushing team in the country, but only because Notre Dame is somehow still fielding a team.
Syracuse averages just 40 yards per game on the ground and hasn’t gained more than 66 in any of its five contests.
“I guess they’re just playing to their strength. They throw the ball really well,’’ West Virginia cornerback Antonio Lewis said. “But we faced their running back last year and he runs hard.’’
Indeed, it’s quite puzzling why Syracuse is so inept, averaging just 1.3 yards on 154 rushes this season. Tailback Curtis Brinkley was being touted as an All-Big East candidate by the school’s sports information office before the season, but in five games has put up rushing totals of 4, 36, 54, 53 and 36 yards.
But SU coach Greg Robinson isn’t giving up on Brinkley just yet. Nor is he giving up on his offensive line. Both share the blame for the Orange Crushed running game.
“At times it’s both. There were some situations where I saw Curtis do a nice job at doing what he saw and getting out. There have been times, too, where we haven’t felt that the line is getting it done,’’ Robinson said. “I can’t tell you that it’s the line that’s breaking down because it isn’t that way all the time. Some of it is you have to feel it and work it.”
West Virginia’s defense isn’t likely to ever feel the same kind of buzz that surrounds the Mountaineers’ offense, but it has improved by leaps and bounds over the group that ranked 109th in the country in pass defense last season and gave up a boatload of points late in the season.
At South Florida, the defensive performance was good enough to win 99 of 100 games the Mountaineers play — in other words, the ones in which the offense doesn’t turn the ball over six times.
The most impressive thing the defense did was simply get off the field and give the ball back to the offense.
“[USF] only had 56 snaps [compared to WVU’s 86], the guys made a few plays on the ball in the air and there weren’t a lot of missed assignments. We tackled pretty good, too,’’ Rodriguez said. “I thought they did a good job and had a pretty solid game for the most part. The only really glaring mistake was coming up on the scramble. We kind of let them get the big play there. But other than that they did a nice job.’’
For the record, West Virginia’s defense now ranks in the top 25 in the country in rushing defense (24), pass defense (18), total defense (11) and scoring defense (23).
Briefly
• Check out the officials’ whistles today. Big East officials will use pink ones all this month as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
• If you don’t believe South Florida has West Virginia’s number, check this out: WVU has scored at least 40 points in 14 of its last 24 games and at least 30 in 20 of those 24. The only times the Mountaineers have been held below 30 in the past two-dozen games (dating to the triple-overtime win over Louisville in 2005) were East Carolina in 2006 (a 27-10 win) and three games against South Florida — a 28-13 win in 2005 and losses of 24-19 and 21-13 the past two seasons.
• Syracuse will recognize its unbeaten 1987 team today. That’s the team that led Auburn 16-13 in the Sugar Bowl with four seconds to play, only to see Tigers’ coach Pat Dye elect to kick a field goal. There was no overtime procedure at the time and the Orange finished 11-0-1. That’s also the year SU scored a touchdown with 10 seconds to play and coach Don McPherson had the guts to go for the win, converting it for a 32-31 victory.
To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.
