Post by rainman on Oct 7, 2007 6:54:40 GMT -5
Mountaineers crush Orange in humi-dome
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — There is no air conditioner in the Carrier Dome, which is an uncomfortable irony, considering it is named after the Carrier air conditioner people who call Syracuse their home base.
No air conditioner and not very many fans, so no wonder this is the hottest spot in the state of New York short of the seat in which Syracuse coach Greg Robinson sits.
Driven away by a football team that has become the closest thing the Big East has to an embarrassment since the conference banished Temple, the local gentry missed out on a what turned out to be a pretty good showcase for West Virginia coming off the devastating loss at South Florida eight days earlier.
The Mountaineers played everyone at quarterback but that old Fairmont State player-coach Dusty Rutledge, partly out of sympathy for Syracuse, more out of fear of further injury at the position after what was a spectacular day for starter Patrick White came to an early end with a scary injury.
The final play of a day in which White rushed 14 times for 89 yards and a touchdown and completed 12 of 15 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown ended with him being dragged down from behind right after he’d made a nifty move.
Coach Rich Rodriguez described it as a “strained muscle.”
White was a bit more blunt about the injury that he pinpointed to his chest area.
“Pain,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
With an extra week to get ready, White expects to play. But the injury will be further evaluated.
This was anything but a typical WVU showing, save for the final score of 55-14, which represented the most points ever scored against Syracuse at home, filled with any number of crossover performances that had to have the Syracuse people wondering what in the world was going on
Who could have imagined, for example, that nose guard Keilen Dykes would score a touchdown while Steve Slaton was kept out for the second straight week.
“I just was in the right place at the right time,” said Dykes, wearing a 6-point smile.
Dykes had been knocked down on the play, and as he got up the ball, jarred loose by a crushing hit from linebacker Reed Williams, floated toward him. He plucked it out of the air and then shook the ground with his 300 pounds as he rambled into the end zone.
“That was the longest 20 or 25 yards of my life,” he said. “Man, I wanted to keep that ball, but I couldn’t hold onto it. I just let it fall out from my hands. I was needing oxygen real bad.”
You might say, therefore, it was a breathtaking play
It took not only the breath away from Dykes, but in the end actually left Syracuse gasping for air.
“That was a huge, huge play in this game,” Rodriguez said. “It got all the players on the sideline excited.”
Dykes is one of the most popular players on the team.
“He’s a leader, not just of the defensive line, but he has an influence on the whole team,” said the veteran defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich. “It’s an intangible you need to win.
And then there was Owen Schmitt, 260 pounds of muscle, making more like Slaton than Slaton himself, scoring two touchdowns, being the pitch man on Patrick White option plays, and catching passes as he accounted for 70 total yards.
What’s more, he added a new dimension to his game when Rodriguez called on him to punt out of short punt formation, pooching a neat 31-yard punt that seemed to roll dead at the Syracuse 2 but that was spotted at the 11 when the officials claimed a WVU coverage man inadvertently touched it.
That led one of the wiseacres in the media to ask Schmitt if he thought he was the best punting fullback in the Big East.
“When I kicked it I thought I blew it,” he said. It was a short kick, it had a punter’s roll to it.
“I was telling myself before the game that we’d practiced that for a year. It might be time to use it,” Rodriguez said.
They had also been working on an option play that didn’t have Slaton as the trailing pitch man, but Schmitt.
“The way they play us, we know going in Owen was going to get more runs and catches than normal,” Rodriguez said.
He showed it on the first possession of the game as the Mountaineers used a Ryan Mundy interception to set up in Syracuse territory, then drove to the Orange 7 looking at a third and 6. White took the snap, pulled off a slight-of-hand fake ball to Slaton that was so good Slaton had to even think he had the ball.
White then rolled to his left, pitched back to Schmitt and the big man ran into the end zone.
“We practice that option pitch almost every practice. I never actually thought we were going to use that. When it was called, I went ‘What was that? Oh, OK,’” Schmitt said.
In all, WVU put together a balanced attack for this game with 251 rushing yards and 235 passing, but the time the final yard was gained, there were maybe 10,000 fans left in the Carrier Dome, most of them wearing WVU old gold and blue and all of them sweating.
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — There is no air conditioner in the Carrier Dome, which is an uncomfortable irony, considering it is named after the Carrier air conditioner people who call Syracuse their home base.
No air conditioner and not very many fans, so no wonder this is the hottest spot in the state of New York short of the seat in which Syracuse coach Greg Robinson sits.
Driven away by a football team that has become the closest thing the Big East has to an embarrassment since the conference banished Temple, the local gentry missed out on a what turned out to be a pretty good showcase for West Virginia coming off the devastating loss at South Florida eight days earlier.
The Mountaineers played everyone at quarterback but that old Fairmont State player-coach Dusty Rutledge, partly out of sympathy for Syracuse, more out of fear of further injury at the position after what was a spectacular day for starter Patrick White came to an early end with a scary injury.
The final play of a day in which White rushed 14 times for 89 yards and a touchdown and completed 12 of 15 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown ended with him being dragged down from behind right after he’d made a nifty move.
Coach Rich Rodriguez described it as a “strained muscle.”
White was a bit more blunt about the injury that he pinpointed to his chest area.
“Pain,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
With an extra week to get ready, White expects to play. But the injury will be further evaluated.
This was anything but a typical WVU showing, save for the final score of 55-14, which represented the most points ever scored against Syracuse at home, filled with any number of crossover performances that had to have the Syracuse people wondering what in the world was going on
Who could have imagined, for example, that nose guard Keilen Dykes would score a touchdown while Steve Slaton was kept out for the second straight week.
“I just was in the right place at the right time,” said Dykes, wearing a 6-point smile.
Dykes had been knocked down on the play, and as he got up the ball, jarred loose by a crushing hit from linebacker Reed Williams, floated toward him. He plucked it out of the air and then shook the ground with his 300 pounds as he rambled into the end zone.
“That was the longest 20 or 25 yards of my life,” he said. “Man, I wanted to keep that ball, but I couldn’t hold onto it. I just let it fall out from my hands. I was needing oxygen real bad.”
You might say, therefore, it was a breathtaking play
It took not only the breath away from Dykes, but in the end actually left Syracuse gasping for air.
“That was a huge, huge play in this game,” Rodriguez said. “It got all the players on the sideline excited.”
Dykes is one of the most popular players on the team.
“He’s a leader, not just of the defensive line, but he has an influence on the whole team,” said the veteran defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich. “It’s an intangible you need to win.
And then there was Owen Schmitt, 260 pounds of muscle, making more like Slaton than Slaton himself, scoring two touchdowns, being the pitch man on Patrick White option plays, and catching passes as he accounted for 70 total yards.
What’s more, he added a new dimension to his game when Rodriguez called on him to punt out of short punt formation, pooching a neat 31-yard punt that seemed to roll dead at the Syracuse 2 but that was spotted at the 11 when the officials claimed a WVU coverage man inadvertently touched it.
That led one of the wiseacres in the media to ask Schmitt if he thought he was the best punting fullback in the Big East.
“When I kicked it I thought I blew it,” he said. It was a short kick, it had a punter’s roll to it.
“I was telling myself before the game that we’d practiced that for a year. It might be time to use it,” Rodriguez said.
They had also been working on an option play that didn’t have Slaton as the trailing pitch man, but Schmitt.
“The way they play us, we know going in Owen was going to get more runs and catches than normal,” Rodriguez said.
He showed it on the first possession of the game as the Mountaineers used a Ryan Mundy interception to set up in Syracuse territory, then drove to the Orange 7 looking at a third and 6. White took the snap, pulled off a slight-of-hand fake ball to Slaton that was so good Slaton had to even think he had the ball.
White then rolled to his left, pitched back to Schmitt and the big man ran into the end zone.
“We practice that option pitch almost every practice. I never actually thought we were going to use that. When it was called, I went ‘What was that? Oh, OK,’” Schmitt said.
In all, WVU put together a balanced attack for this game with 251 rushing yards and 235 passing, but the time the final yard was gained, there were maybe 10,000 fans left in the Carrier Dome, most of them wearing WVU old gold and blue and all of them sweating.
