Post by cviller on Sept 3, 2007 10:34:47 GMT -5
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
By Mitch Vingle
Sports Editor
MORGANTOWN — By the time Noel Devine made his much-anticipated debut for West Virginia Saturday, the game was well in hand and the crowd had thinned from a high of 60,563 to maybe 40,000.
In a game in which No. 3 West Virginia was on its way to crushing Western Michigan 62-24, the fact that as many as 40,000 stuck around for the fourth quarter was unusual. By that time the score was 49-21, traffic was beginning to back up in the exits and grills were being fired up again.
It was no doubt the lure of seeing Devine play that kept a lot of those seats filled. That became even more obvious when, on the fourth play of the fourth quarter, he touched the ball for the first time.
He gained nothing. And he got a standing ovation for it.
“It made me feel comfortable,’’ said the true freshman from North Fort Myers, Fla. “It made me feel like I was at home.’’
Devine and fellow freshmen Jock Sanders and Brandon Hogan — the three players who seem to have a real chance of contributing to West Virginia’s already obscenely talented offense — didn’t step onto the field until the fourth quarter when the game was out of hand. Waiting that long wasn’t something coach Rich Rodriguez was adamant about doing, but it was exactly what he had hoped to do. As it turned out, veterans like Patrick White, Steve Slaton and Darius Reynaud were more than capable of handling the load, and Rodriguez didn’t need to add any more weapons to the arsenal.
At least until the pressure was off and the freshmen could relax a little bit and not feel like they had to make plays.
“Sometimes you find out what kids can do by putting them right into pressure situations. But it’s easier when you’re in control,’’ Rodriguez said. “It takes the pressure off of them and you can call some base plays and see what happens.’’
What happened, at least in the case of Devine, was a solid debut, one that could very well lead to earlier playing time in the future. He carried the ball seven times for 44 yards and scored on an 8-yard run with less than 90 seconds to play. He also caught a pass and turned it into a 19-yard gain.
Dorrell Jalloh wasn’t used to doing some of the things he did Saturday.
Like playing most of the game.
“Some guys were making fun of me,’’ the junior wide receiver said. “They were saying, ‘What are you doing in the game? It’s not overtime.’ ’’
Jalloh, you may recall, caught the two-point conversion passes that provided the winning margin in two of West Virginia’s biggest wins in the past two seasons — triple overtime games with Louisville in 2005 and Rutgers in 2006. But aside from those catches, his moments in the spotlight have been few.
But on Saturday he scored the first of what are sure to be many points by the Mountaineer offense this season. He pulled in a 19-yard touchdown pass from White and finished with three catches for 39 yards.
He was also part of a West Virginia offense that passed for 226 yards, which is unusually high for the run-oriented Mountaineers.
“It’s just another weapon in our arsenal,’’ Jalloh said. “Teams have to say, ‘Oh, now they can throw the ball, too.’ Coach Rod has been preaching that all along.’’
Pat McAfee had, well, just one of those days. Either it was really, really good or it was really, really bad.
First the good.
Remember all the consternation over moving kickoffs back 5 yards? Well, it’s not going to affect West Virginia much. McAfee’s first kickoff went 2 yards deep in the end zone and later he sent one 3 yards deep. He sent two others to the 1-yard line and two more to the 5 or inside. Only one of his 10 kickoffs was caught outside the 8-yard line.
But it wasn’t a perfect day. McAfee also kicked one out of bounds (although even that was 2 yards deep), missed the point-after following Devine’s touchdown and, worst of all, shanked his only punt out of bounds.
For the record, he is now averaging 6 yards per punt.
Some find it hard to describe WVU, Slaton and White. Western Michigan coach Bill Cubit isn’t one of them. Over and over in his postgame press conference he used one adjective: great.
“They just have great team speed,’’ Cubit said.
And . . .
“They’re just a great football team. They’ve got talent, great speed and I guess that’s why they are expected to finish so high. We hung in there for a moment when it was 28-14 in the second quarter. They just play so fast and we’re not used to that. [Slaton] just has great speed.’’
One “great’’ to go on?
“Both [Slaton and White] are great players. They’re outstanding and play so hard. You think you have Pat White for a sack and, next thing you know, he turns it into a first down.’’
Briefly
• Rodriguez said the only injury he knew of was a “tweaked hamstring’’ to linebacker Archie Sims.
• Seven Mountaineers made their first starts: center Mike Dent, tackle Derek Hayes, cornerback Kent Richardson, linebacker Reed Williams, defensive lineman Scooter Berry, linebacker Mortty Ivy and safety Ryan Mundy.
• White’s 289 yards of total offense moved him into seventh place on WVU’s all-time list. He passed Dan Kendra (4,752) and stands at 4,943.
• WVU is 23-3 in its last 26 games and has won 36 of its last 42 regular-season games.
• The 62-point win marked the sixth time WVU has scored 50 points or more under Rodriguez. The point total was the second-most scored in a Mountaineer home opener. WVU dropped Richmond 66-22 in the 1958 opener.
• West Virginia held Western Michigan to 32 yards rushing on 32 carries. The last time a team failed to gain 100 rushing yards against the Mountaineers was 76 by Wofford on Sept. 10, 2005.