The Shotgun/Throwdown: Monday (9/21/09) Edition
by WVUIE97 on Sep 21, 2009 8:50 AM EDT
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Welcome By-Godders to the Shotgun/Throwdown, brought to you today by Pepto Bismol. I don't think we need any explanation for our sponsor today.
I hope everyone who traveled to the game returned (or will return) safely. Without a doubt, that was a hard one to lose, but, life and the season goes on. The team gets a bit of a break now as we head toward the Thursday night game against Colorado on Oct. 1. Time to heal and time to learn. Send in your requests and tips. See you after the jump...
What you may have missed:
Mountaineers vs. Tigers - Box Score - SI.com
Bad finish follows fast start - PPG
Auburn Game Notes - MSNsportsNET.Com
WVU game notebook - The Charleston Gazette
from Hickman.
Jarrett Brown's injury doesn't appear serious - Big East - ESPN
What we learned in the Big East, Week 3 - Big East - ESPN
Big East helmet stickers: Week 3 - Big East - ESPN
NCAA College Football BCS Bowl Projections Week 3 - ESPN
At least we're farther up the page than last week. Whatever that means.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL OVERTIME - Stewart Mandel - SI.com
News of Note:
Learning Experience - MSNsportsNET.Com
Hard to handle - The Times West Virginian
Noel Devine rarely got the call after a strong start in a tough loss to Auburn - PPG
What now for Brown? - The Charleston Gazette
Mullen, WVU offense must get back to basics - The Times West Virginian
Hertzel Column
Mountaineers must put mistakes behind them moving forward - wvillustrated.com
He compares Saturday's game to the past USF and UL games...similar to what crossed my mind this past weekend.
Turnovers sting West Virginia University in Auburn defeat - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Sowers has no regrets - Martinsburg Journal
Mickey F. talks about our hometown boy.
Hoppy's Commentary - WVMetroNews
Some random observations about the trip this past weekend.
Recruiting:
Quinton Spain a rugged presence on football field - Charleston Daily Mail
The binding LOI date is Feb, not Nov as this guy says.
Nation's No. 2 Receiver Down to Florida and WVU? - eersports.com
A re-cap of the last weekend's visit to WVU by four Pahokee (Fla.) standouts.
Around the League (and Beyond):
South Florida QB Matt Grothe to miss rest of season - ESPN
My jaw dropped when I saw this.
USF's Daniels ready for leading role - Tampa Tribune
He better be or it will be a long season in Tampa.
A huge win for UC for a lot of reasons - The Cincinnati Enquirer
Syracuse Defeats Northwestern: Postmortem - Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician
Following up on the improbable Syracuse win
UConn 30, Baylor 22: Well, that was unexpected - TheUConnBlog.com
Rutgers defense comes up big against Florida International - NJ.com
100 games into his tenure, the jury's still out on Greg Schiano - NJ.com
Pitt holds on to beat Navy - PPG
Kragthorpe off the hot seat, back into the driver's seat with win over arch rival - Card Chronicle
"Is how this column and other national columns would read had things ended differently"
Florida Gators cite 'panic level' over recent flu outbreak - ESPN
Good Lord, please let this pass us by.
Heisman Watch: Best Gets Attention With 5 Touchdowns - The Quad Blog - NYTimes.com
Tim Tebow is still the favorite, but players like Jahvid Best and Jacory Harris have been impressive.
What's On Tap:
Indianapolis Colts at Miami Dolphins - NFL.com
Pat White on MNF Tonight at 8:30 pm EDT on ESPN (in case you missed the 100+ previews during the game Saturday night)
Miss Throwdown:
Hopefully today's Miss Throwdown can help you take your mind off of this past Saturday's result. Here's a gallery and three videos to help ease the pain. I've been subconsciously featuring top heavy ladies of late, so I thought I'd go the other direction and feature a booty-liscious babe today. Today's Miss Throwdown is Miss Jesikah Maximus.
via www.weblo.com
Pepto Bismol image via buymyown.files.wordpress.com
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we'll be back
i guess the most important thing i learned from the game is how ridiculous grown men look on television doing the “spirit finger first down thing”. is there a way we can get that changed? i will spearhead the effort if anyone agrees. hopefully there are DVRs that have the game so you can check it out for yourself. don’t replay it too many times or your DVR is liable to throw up on you.
PS – we need to have better playcalling
PPS – i titled this “we’ll be back” because i know if i titled it, “can we look any G@YER?”, no one would have read this.
Playcalling?
Why is everyone so upset with the playcalling? Everything that was called and executed, worked. We rolled up 500 yards of offense on an SEC team at their place at night. It’s easy to second guess, but at no point during the game did I think to myself “now that was a dumb play call.” I’m still not sure what happened on the shovel passes that were picked off, but when the play was executed properly, it went for big yards. So I don’t have a problem with the call.
by Country Roads on Sep 21, 2009 9:41 AM EDT up reply actions
playcalling...
when people are upset about playcalling, they really mean “the person who made the decision (QB) to do something that stupid (throw the ball on those 2 screen passes) or the person who did something dumb (WR who shall remain nameless) running the wrong route leading to a pick”. blaming it on “playcalling” is a lot better than blaming it on kids making poor decisions on the plays that were called by grown men. (I’M A MAN! I’M 40!)
IMO, the playcalling was at least suspect. other than 1 play to bradley starks and one throw by bradley starks, we didn’t really try to go downfield. which explains why devine (other than the 71 yd run) ran 14 times for 57 yards. when did he make that long run? anyone? ME! ME! CALL ON ME! ok me, what’s the answer? on the drive right AFTER the one with the long pass play. so when you throw it downfield, your running game is most effective. so i believe if we would have called a few more long passes, devine would have been able to run more effectively.
also, that shovel pass is known as a gadget play (or trick play). i know that it worked once, maybe twice, but eventually, the defense will key on that blocking scheme and the fact that devine doesn’t help block or go out on a pattern. typical “draw play” setup. i think the saying “going to the well once too often” comes to mind. i’m coining the new “going to the well twice to often”. i realize that it worked once, but that’s not a normal play that should be run. it’s a play that catches a team off-guard. when those two interceptions were thrown on those plays, i personally thought “what a terrible play call”.
i don’t feel like i am being hypercritical and by no means am i a hater (you can ask WVUIE97, he can vouch for me), but i just feel like some of these decisions could, and should, have been a lot better.
and why the heck didn’t you say something about the spirit finger thing…that was most important.
I don't do spirit fingers, so I can't help you there.
Again, I don’t know what exactly went wrong on the shovel passes. Maybe it was a bad call, maybe poor blocking, perhaps a bad toss. I’d like to hear a coach or player describe what went wrong there. I mean, typically if those aren’t completed, they fall harmlessly to the ground. Instead, the first one bounced off Devine straight to a defenisve lineman. Part of that (the bounce, not the bad toss) is just bad luck.
As for not going downfield more, I think that’s a result of Auburn’s defense. Receivers may or may not have been open (hard for me to tell from the stands), but the d-line did a good job of brining pressure. Several times, JB had to scramble for his life. He ended up with 19 carries, and I’m guessing at least 12 of those were designed passes where he had to escape trouble. The line just wasn’t giving those plays time to develop. I credit Auburn for that.
by Country Roads on Sep 21, 2009 11:35 AM EDT up reply actions
you may not have been able to see it there, but on tv it was glaring...
Our mostly inexperienced OL was allowing too much penetration all night, esp on the shovel pass/screen play. I know some is desired on that play, but they were allowing them to penetrate and camp out, spy, etc. The first one was tipped by Devine and the second one I think the pressure caused.
I think it was a combination of inexperienced OL, bad decisions by JB and going to the well too many times. Not a good combination, IMHO.
Playcalling
Was a problem because Mullen needed to help JB stop the bleeding. A couple of interceptions is okay. They happen. But when your inexperienced QB is digging himself a hole you have to help him out and stop uim from digging deeper. Particularly in such a hostile environment in sloppy weather.
Devine is our best player. Use him! He’s not consistent on ecery play but he’s a threat to score on every touch. Use some of our other talented backs. We had the lead late. You don’t want to turn into Nehlen but you need to become more conservative and keep your already shaky QB from giving the game away. Trust your defense and don’t put them on any more short fields.
We needed to rely on our running game more with a late lead. Weshould be able to control the game with it in that situation.
I hate Mullen’s on the job training costing us wins again this season. He wasn’t ready for this job and it keeps on showing.
by Beamer'sGoiter on Sep 21, 2009 11:34 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
You couldn't be more wrong.
Mullen called a great game. Again, 500 yards of total offense. I’m on board.
Yes, we had a lead but it wasn’t like we completely shut them down, so you can’t go into a shell there. The last couple picks came when we were behind, so you pretty much have to throw the ball there. And two of the picks were on shovel/screen passes that are supposed to be conservative play calls. And Devine was the intended recipient of both of those. He didn’t have much room to run after the first quarter, and those plays were designed to get him in space. I thought that was a good idea, it just wasn’t executed well.
by Country Roads on Sep 21, 2009 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions
I Love Mullen's Offense
I think 80 plays, 30 points, and 509 yards of offense say all that needs to be said about the offense. It is awesome. For anyone to say his playcalling was susupect seems ludicrous, to me. I agree with Country Roads completely – for there to be two picks on shovel passes is bizarre. Is there a pass play with a lower percentage chance of interception? I don’t think so.
Turnovers are killers. Especially four straight turnovers in the fourth quarter. It was obvious that we had asked too much of our defense at the end of the game. They were just gassed.
A friend of mine said to me Sunday that if you want to believe you are a great program, you can’t panic and call for the coach’s head everytime you lose one game. Is there a Fire Pete Carroll website yet? I mean, they lost to a team with virturally the same players that last year went 0-12. I think we are still the class of the Big East, and I fully expect us to win the conference. This is one game where, clearly, we were as good or better than our opponent. We could have routed them, had we not given them so many extra possessions.
Now, let’s come out next week on a clear night in Mo’town and play angry and with revenge. I sure hope so, because it is going to be the first game I get to attend this year!
by JP Fanshawe on Sep 21, 2009 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions
We can’t put teams away.
We need to be able to close the dooe and relyingon our rjnning game more (not completely) can help do that.
I don’t think we should be pass first but that’s what we have become.
Running should still be our bread and butter, not our inexperienced qb and wrs.
That’s my opinion.
by Beamer'sGoiter on Sep 21, 2009 12:39 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Brown had a great start to the season but the competition was weak (even ECU).
I’m afraid Mullen put too much on his shoulders.
When you get an early lead like we had you don’t shut it down and play not to lose, but you lean more towards running the ball, controlling the ball, and limiting mistakes.
You don’t stop throwing or anything, but I think putting Brown in a situation to make so many mistakes should have been prevented.
He’s still a first year starter in an incredibly tough environment. I think that may have been lost on the coaches. I also really think we under utilize Devine. He is elite. He has proven himself against the best yet we are relying more on Brown than him. That I don’t get.
by Beamer'sGoiter on Sep 21, 2009 1:11 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
509 yards
we had 509 yards on 80 offensive plays, which is a 6.365 yd/play avg. they had 400 yards on 59 plays, which is a 6.779 yd/play avg. they are higher.
i know that it was a play and you can’t discount it, but let’s take away all gains over 50 yards (which i consider outliers from normal plays). take away the devine td run and we had 438 on 79, which is 5.544 and take away starks’ 58 yd catch and we had 380 on 78, which is 4.871. i know that we can’t take those away, but they had more yards on 59 than we had on 78 in that scenario. take away their 82 yd gain, and they have 318 on 58 for an avg of 5.48. 5.48 to 4.87. that is a major ass kicking by the other offensive coordinator.
and the lack of the attempt at going long again is what kills me the most. i don’t care if brown takes 2 steps back and throws it as far as he possibly can and overthrows a receiver by 20 yards. it still serves a purpose.
Let's just take away all the plays that went for 0 and negative yards
by 5th Year Senior on Sep 21, 2009 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions
if you think...
that 71, 58, and 82 yard plays are “significant” in finding a good average for then that is fine. in the essence of smartassness, i have actually calculated the numbers of taking away all the 0 and negative yard plays, so now, we are only counting positive yard plays that doesn’t include any play over 50 yards.
we have 406 yards (adding the 26 we lost on those plays) on 53 plays, which is a 7.66 average.
they had 354 yds (36 lost) on 32 plays, avg 11.06.
so anyway it is sliced, they still made more yards per play than us…straight up (6.779 to 6.365), take away long plays (5.48 to 4.87), and long and negative plays gone (11.06 to 7.66). i’m not trying to be asinine with this conversation, i just think that before we look at “we had 500 yards”, we should realize that we had 80, and i did say 80, plays from scrimmage. they had 400 on only 59 plays. that tells me that their playcalling and execution was better on offense. we still should have won by sheer numbers, but that doesn’t excuse our inability to score with 21 more plays than the other team.
No
Why do people only want to take away the positives and ignore the fact that there was some good in the game.
Here we go again…
by 5th Year Senior on Sep 21, 2009 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Yes
why should we pat ourselves on the back for good things when we LOST THE GAME? i realize that there are some positives, but when you lose, the negatives outweigh the positives. unfortunately in football and in life, finding the good in every situation doesn’t help you get better or win. i didn’t say there wasn’t any good in the game, i would just like to see us repair the problems. no team has ever gotten any better by being happy with the positives after a loss. i’m as big a fan as you are, so i hope you don’t want to see us playing in another crappy bowl because no one wanted to dwell on the negatives.
obviously, we don’t succeed when we do the things as well as we did against auburn. the only way to better ourselves is to make the bad things better, not do the good things over and over.
No
You should pat yourself on the back and figure out hoe to improve the mistakes. You need to have a balance of both.
You get better by fixing the mistakes and further improving on the things you do well. It is obvious but you want to improve in every aspect of the game from week to week.
“Dwelling” on the negatives only makes you think about the negatives. Instead of saying “Don’t throw interceptions” you should say, “Go through your progression, have an internal clock and then run or throw it away.”
You absolutely need to look at both the positives and the negatives week to week. Win or lose there will be aspects of the game in which you performed weel and aspects you performed poorly.
by 5th Year Senior on Sep 21, 2009 5:47 PM EDT up reply actions
maybe?
the coaching staff needs to look at the first quater in its entirety and figure out what was so good then and what was so bad the remainder of the game. im still trying to figure it out. the o line looked shakey but was that because of the numerous pass plays called or the fact the group is young? i dont know but on devines td jaunt it looked like a eer’s o-line of old (suagr bowl era)honestly. i think the only reason why jb was left in the game was because it is a learning experiance and at somepoint this season he will have to step up in the fourth quater on the road.
positives to take from the game:
run d (stout to say the least)
special teams (yeah those guys were solid also)
noel as usual
negatives to work on:
pass coverages, both zone and man
pass rushing
o-line footwork and general overall play
qb decision making. take the hit jb, or put it in the stands.
" Lord Stanley, etch thier names on your fabled cup" Mike Lange june 12, 2009
by oldtimehockey09 on Sep 21, 2009 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions
Short Answer
Auburn made some adjustments. Chizik said they didn’t tackle well in the first half, but that tackling improved throughout the game. I agree with that. I also think that once they got down, they started playing with a chip on their shoulder. Happens to a lot of teams when they get down early. JB’s first pick was huge because it gave the momentum right back to AU, and you know who the blame falls on? Lyons, because he broke off his route. Play call was fine—-we were trying to go for the jugular, rather than take a FG. JB’s decision was fine—-he was expecting Lyons to be there. Bad execution on Lyons’ part. Not excusing it. Lyons needs to be there. But let’s place blame where it’s due.
by Country Roads on Sep 21, 2009 9:51 PM EDT up reply actions
oh i dont put the blame solely on jb, or the coaching staff. im kinda treating it like parmesean cheese on pizza. spinkleing blame everywhere :p.
didnt issues like that happen twice where a reciver broke off thier route and jb threw it where the guy was supposed to be? thought it happened alter in the game also.
" Lord Stanley, etch thier names on your fabled cup" Mike Lange june 12, 2009
by oldtimehockey09 on Sep 21, 2009 9:57 PM EDT up reply actions
One Critical Thing You Are Missing
WVUDDSO8…I like your analysis. I do the same thing all the time. One thing you aren’t considering though, is that we gave them six turnovers, and they gave us one. All those extra possessions drastically alter the number of plays and potential yardage we might have gained.
I don’t know that there is a lot to be gained by such conjecture though. The stat sheet is there…those big plays did happen for both teams. There is no stat I trust more, in college or pro, than yards per pass attempt. The team that wins that stat wins the game almost 80 percent of the time, and covers the spread almost 60 percent of the time (higher in the pros). Auburn won it this time, and the game, and the spread as well.
Your central point is well-taken. My brother and I were both in favor of more vertical passes. We seemed to go away from them as the game progressed. But then, we might not know the wholse story, there. Perhaps there was an erosion of confidence in our pass-blocking as the game went on? I don’t know. I do know, though, that most coaches would tell you that if you are minus-5 in turnovers, you aren’t going to win much. And a piss-poor review of an obvious incomplete pass deprived of us getting one more shot late.
Again, I think we should also remember that Berry and Williams were out. Taking two guys like that out our rotation had to have an effect on the defense as the game entered the fourth quarter.
I am sick to have lost when so much of what we did, we did well. No one has mentioned that we held AU to 17 yards per kick off return, and 12 yards per punt return. But it’s one game, and I think it will provide a great learning experience for this team. I especially liked Mullen’s comments in the Gazette…regarding just that fact. (Anyone know why Mullen was quoted so much, and Stewart so little…Hickman couldn’t find HCBS?)
Oh, and Grothe out for the season! Ouch…
yard on o
take away jb’s big strike at the begining of the game, noels sacmper and what do you have on total offense? fact is i dont think that we did enough to mix it up. particularly in the second half
" Lord Stanley, etch thier names on your fabled cup" Mike Lange june 12, 2009
by oldtimehockey09 on Sep 21, 2009 1:34 PM EDT reply actions
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