Post by cviller on Oct 8, 2007 6:21:05 GMT -5
Bye week arrives at just the right time for injured QB
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
MORGANTOWN — Pat White’s latest injury appears to be nothing from which he can’t recover in two weeks, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said Sunday.
Fortunate then, isn’t it, that the Mountaineers have two weeks for him to do just that?
“He’s got a strain of a chest muscle,’’ Rodriguez said. “But we have an open week, so he’ll take it easy this week and go kind of day by day. We have two weeks before we play a game, so he should be fine.’’
White, West Virginia’s star junior quarterback, was injured in the third quarter of a 55-14 rout of Syracuse Saturday at the carrier Dome.
With West Virginia leading 38-7 during what seemed certain to be White’s last series of the game, the 185-pounder was converting a third-and-5 from his own 16-yard line with a 27-yard run when 256-pound Jameel McClain and 210-pound Joe Fields combined to bring him down.
One of the two landed hard on the White, who got up and took a few steps but then went to his knees and then back to the turf.
It was the second week in a row that White didn’t make it through a game.
A week earlier in a 21-13 loss at South Florida he took a helmet to the thigh at the end of an 18-yard run late in the first half and left that game for good. That injury kept his status for the Syracuse game in doubt most of last week, but he started and really showed no effects from his bruised thigh. Against the Orange he completed 12-of-15 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown and ran 14 times for 89 yards and a score.
Getting White immediately healthy now, though, isn’t nearly the issue it was last week because for the first time all season the Mountaineers don’t have a game for which to quickly prepare.
West Virginia (5-1), which climbed back into the Top 10 following a brief one-week absence — No. 8 in the Associated Press poll, No. 9 in the coaches’ poll — doesn’t play again until a week from Saturday. That’s the Oct. 20 homecoming game against Mississippi State.
Rodriguez said Sunday his team would practice through Thursday before taking a couple of days off and then resume regular work on Sunday.
The primary goal this week, he said, will be to work on the basics.
“We’ve got a lot of fundamentals to get corrected [on both sides of the ball],’’ Rodriguez said after watching the game tapes. “We need to take the right steps on some of our run blocks, we need to get more precise in some of our [pass] routes. I thought we played hard and made a few plays, but we can certainly use this week to do a lot of work fundamentally that we were a little sloppy in, on offense and defense and special teams, too.
“When you play six games in 36 days you don’t have as much time for fundamentals. And that’s our mistake as coaches. We have to make sure we get that covered, even during game weeks.’’
Briefly
• Mississippi State is 4-2 after a 30-13 win at home over Alabama-Birmingham. The Bulldogs also have wins over Tulane, No. 22 Auburn and Division I-AA Gardner-Webb and lost 45-0 to No. 1 LSU and 38-21 to No. 7 South Carolina. MSU doesn’t have the luxury of a week off before facing West Virginia, playing hosting No. 25 Tennessee this Saturday.
• The Mountaineers will be the fifth Top 25 team the Bulldogs have faced in eight games. A week later will come the sixth — No. 17 Kentucky.
• Rutgers dropped out of the AP Top 25 after losing 28-23 at home to Cincinnati, but the Big East still has three teams in the Top 15 — No. 5 South Florida, No. 8 West Virginia and No. 15 Cincinnati.
To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.