Post by cviller on Sept 20, 2007 21:18:50 GMT -5
By Tony Caridi for MSNsportsNET.com
September 19, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Like father like son. That, my friends, is what we’re dealing with this week as the Mountaineers get set to entertain the pesky Pirates of East Carolina.
For those of you that don’t follow this stuff real close, Skip Holtz is ECU’s head football coach. He’s doing a very nice job resuscitating the once proud program after it was run aground by the previous coaching staff.
If his last name sounds familiar it should. Yes, it’s that Holtz - Lou’s son - who just like his dad is a very good coach. Skip has another character trait of his dad: an ability to over-hype the opponent to such a level that your own fans think you’ve got no shot at winning and the opposing team thinks there’s no way it can lose.
Don Nehlen was pretty good at it, but the Holtz family has their master’s and doctorate degrees in opponent hype-azation.
Here’s a sample of Coach Skip’s love fest of the Mountaineers from earlier this week.
"We have a great challenge as we are playing an incredible football team in West Virginia,” said Holtz. “Breaking down their offense, they have one of the fastest teams that I have seen on tape in a long time and they put you in space. I have had the opportunity to coach our team against White and Slaton for the past two years. I think they have great talent, speed, and athleticism.
“If you add Devine to the mix, he may be better than Slaton as he is averaging 15 yards per carry. Their players on the offensive line are very athletic because they can run and be extremely physical,” Holtz said.
Pirates aren’t supposed to be nice. Skip Holtz is too nice and it doesn’t make sense. I had the same problem with H.R. Pufnstuf as a kid. Firey breathing dragons aren’t supposed to be friendly and football coaches aren’t supposed to say really nice things about their opponent.
Yes, Holtz did say on his weekly conference call that he would be willing to trade his quarterback Patrick Pinkney for West Virginia’s Patrick White in what would be college football’s first-ever Patrick for Patrick quarterback transaction.
The point is Skip Holtz isn’t coming to Morgantown this weekend with his Sports Illustrated college football edition looking for a Steve Slaton autograph. Coach Skip is coming to town with a plan to shock Steve and the boys and get his Pirates on the cover of the next SI.
If any coach and team can pull it off it just may be Skip and the Pirates. Without question they’ve done the best job of any team the last two seasons of slowing down West Virginia’s high-octane rushing offense. In their last visit to Morgantown, they limited WVU to just 20 points and 127 yards rushing. They’ll take the field with a better quarterback than they had in their last visit, and a confidence that they can win the game.
That confidence is being instilled in them by the aforementioned Skip Holtz, who like his dad, says one thing to the media while telling an entirely different thing to his team in the locker room behind closed doors.
That’s just part of coaching and Skip Holtz learned it well from his old man.
***
On a somewhat unreleated related topic, I’ve got something I’d like to share with fans who attend the games. My opthamologist Dr. Richard Goellner and I did some experimenting with binoculars before the season began. The goal was to find the best pair of binoculars to watch a football game. Despite being an Ohio State grad, Goellner is on the ball. We concluded that the majority of binoculars offered too strong of a magnification and too narrow of a field of view. We needed a lower power magnification and a wider field of view. The goal was to find a pair of binoculars that would show all 22 players on the snap of the ball.
After a careful bit of research I located what I think is a great pair. In fact, it’s the only pair that I found that are specifically made for this application. The best news is that they are very affordable. Allow me to introduce you to the Bushnell Xtra-Wide binoculars. I’ve used them in each of the first three games and I think they’re absolutey fantastic. You can find them on Amazon.com for just under $60.
I’m not getting any kick-backs from the boys at Bushnell, but I wanted to turn you on to a great product. I know many of you who use binoculars can’t see what’s happening away from the ball and these will aleviate that problem.
All right, enough of my unsolicited QVC hawking. I’ll see you on the radio this Saturday.