Post by cviller on Sept 8, 2007 6:59:51 GMT -5
Enough with the hype: Mountaineers, Herd ready for morning start in Huntington
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
HUNTINGTON — This week has been a different one for West Virginia’s football team, at least from the standpoint of dealing with all the peripherals that go along with college football.
There was the now-annual hype that goes with playing Almost Heaven brother Marshall.
AP Photo WVU coach Rich Rodriguez
AP Photo WVU coach Rich Rodriguez There was the buzz over coach Rich Rodriguez signing — finally — the new contract to which he agreed in principal nine months ago.
There was even Friday’s four-hour bus trip to a brand new (for WVU) venue and an afternoon walk-through at sweltering Joan C. Edwards Stadium.
Here’s what hasn’t changed for the Mountaineers, however — anything that is not peripheral to the game.
When No. 3 West Virginia (1-0) visits Marshall (0-1) for today’s eye-rubbing 11:02 a.m. game, it will take until maybe 11:03, perhaps 11:04, until all of the hype wears off and it is just another game. Blocking and tackling will matter. Rivalries — real or imagined — won’t.
“We’ve tried not to pay too much attention to anything except the task at hand,’’ West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said about today’s ESPN2-televised game. “When it comes time to play the game, that’s all that matters.’’
Putting aside West Virginia’s first trip here since 1915 — and only the seventh meeting ever between the teams — it boils down to this: The Mountaineers are 24-point favorites and, quite frankly, it will take an exceptional effort by rebuilding Marshall or a poor one by loaded West Virginia — or both — to make the game competitive.
It is entirely possible that could happen, of course, which again brings the discussion back to ignoring the distractions and just playing football, exactly what West Virginia did last year in beating Marshall 42-10 in Morgantown. But sometimes that’s difficult to do.
“It’s obviously been a very long time since we’ve played down there, there’s a lot of excitement in the state about the game and it’s been sold out for a long, long time,’’ Rodriguez said. “Our guys know we’re going to take a great shot from them. It’s going to be a highly emotional atmosphere.
“It’s going to be a very intense atmosphere and our guys know that. It was like that last year. It’ll be even tougher this year, especially at their place.’’
In truth, analyzing the game itself seems rather obvious and not unlike analyzing any other West Virginia game — be it Marshall or last week’s opponent, Western Michigan, or next week’s, Maryland. First, can the Thundering Herd find a way to limit the effectiveness of WVU’s Patrick White- and Steve Slaton-fueled offense? And the answer to that, of course, begets the natural follow-up: Can Marshall’s offense then take enough advantage of a still-evolving West Virginia defense to score enough points to win?
First, the second part. The Thundering Herd managed just a field goal in last weekend’s 31-3 loss to Miami at the Orange Bowl, largely because the Hurricanes limited Marshall to 51 yards rushing and sacked two MU quarterbacks six times. A significant part of that was the play of Miami’s superb defensive line, but the Hurricanes also had significantly more speed on defense.
“Miami’s got some really good players. They’ve got a lot of guys with great speed,’’ Rodriguez said. “But I think the difference for them was they have a great defensive line. They’ve got a couple guys who are probably first-round NFL draft picks rushing the passer.’’
West Virginia’s defensive line isn’t going to match Miami’s, but the Mountaineers might be nearly as fast.
“You’d like to think our speed compares to a team like Miami. That’s one of the best in the nation,’’ WVU linebacker Reed Williams said. “We move pretty quick and we hustle to the ball and just attack.’’
The Mountaineers do, however, have some liabilities, not the least of which is defending against the pass. Western Michigan lost lopsidedly to WVU 62-24 in last week’s opener, but the Broncos completed 60.4 percent of their passes, many on the same kind of underneath routes that hurt WVU last year when the Mountaineers ranked No. 109 in the nation against the pass.
“We just need to stick on those guys a little bit and try to kill those little short under routes,’’ Williams said. “They were kind of eating away at us, just moving down the field.’’
As for the flip side — Marshall’s defense against the West Virginia offense — that’s intriguing, if for no other reason than MU’s defensive coordinator is one of WVU’s all-time leading tacklers. Steve Dunlap was not only that in the mid-1970s, he coached at West Virginia for two decades.
Rodriguez, who decided not to retain Dunlap from Don Nehlen’s staff when he arrived in 2001, isn’t intimate with Dunlap’s schemes because the two never worked together. But he did face Dunlap defenses when Dunlap was at Syracuse and saw a few games the past two seasons when Dunlap was at North Carolina State.
“We can go back and look at some of those films. He was at N.C. State and you can look at that. And obviously you can watch what they did against Miami,’’ Rodriguez said. “But Steve’s got a lot of experience as a coordinator. He’s done a little bit of everything. So going into this game you’re not really sure what his plan of attack is going to be.’’
Still, facing Dunlap actually isn’t much different than facing any other coordinator.
“You can’t prepare for everything,’’ Rodriguez said. “You can have an idea, but at the same time you’ve got to be able to adapt.’’
To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.