West Virginia vs. Liberty: Thoughts?

Looked liked the same team as last year. D couldn’t get off the field, kickoff coverage was bad, and offense is turning us into field goal U.

Other thoughts: why isn’t a guy like will johnson on kickoff coverage? he’s a big athletic backup.

i think you have to go for it on fourth and inches from your opponents 39, ESPECIALLY against an inferior foe like Liberty. If you can’t get 6 inches, maybe you shouldn’t be D-1.

just a personal preference, but i wish we would runa triple option at least once.

jarret brown and noel devine are great runners. i wish they were used in that capacity more often.

1. JB looked OK, not great by any means.
2. Offensive Line was not great. JB was forced to scramble far too many times.
3. Punt and KO coverage was horrific. They need to hire a REAL special teams coach. The players on the unit seemed very un-athletic.
4. Wes Lyons seems to be very injury-prone. Too bad after hearing about him so much lately.
5. Why didn’t Heastie get in the ballgame? I don’t think that he did.
6. Hopefully we’ll put the ball in Noel, Jock, and Tavon’s hands a bit more vs. ECU.
7. The CB’s need to step up in a major way.
8. Safety Robert Sands is going to be a beast IMO. Maybe the first DB drafted from WVU in a long, long time.
9. We still seem to lack a killer instinct in terms of putting teams away. The same sort of issues were around last year.
10. Stew really needs to develop some sort of sideline presence. Really seemed to lack that again this game.

….who shall remain unnamed, but I am shocked, SHOCKED….to read C, D, F….a call-out on fourth down, a woulda-coulda-shoulda play-call (you woulda run the triple option?) and the QB with a 73 percent efficiency was “not great by any means” etc….

We don’t have a frame of reference yet, but it seems Falwell U. has some talent…well, at least 2 really talented guys (think Spurrier is missing Beecher right about now?).

I would skew higher on the offensive side…like B+. I am pretty sure we were vanilla in this game. Brown 19-of-26, Devine for 112…unimpressive I guess… Defensively….in Casteel I trust. B- Might not have seemed like it but Liberty was 3-for-13 on 3rd down, and ran for just 3.4 per carry. Remember Villanova moved the ball also, and we wound up Ok.

Special teams, I have to agree. WTF? I don’t see it as a lack of effort, though. Rather, a lack of execution. None of those kids looked pleased with the results. Were they apathetic, then I would be concerned. Seriously, though….solve this problem.

A win is a win…and I am heartened by (B-team broadcaster) John Saunders (sp?) factoid that 22 players on the Liberty roster had transfered from D-1 schools (to get closer to Gawd, I suppose)…and the fact that ECU, Ohio St., Iowa, and others all struggled with supposedly inferior competion. But then, of course, I am heartened. I am a positive kind of guy….

That was painful to watch. Looked like last year minus #5. How can our kick coverage be that pathetic against Liberty after emphasizing it since January? Only one answer… Coaching.

As for JPs “rationalization” about Liberty’s talent, it’s still an unranked FCS school. We should have had the 2s in for the entire second half and still won by 30+.

Mullen’s play calling was sad (I don’t buy that we were being intentionally “vanilla” in a game that we were one possession from losing for three quarters).

Finally… How many times did they complete passes to the outside to #10 for 10+ yards? Sad…

High C+, low B-…..it wasn’t pretty by any means, but positives happened.

The Bad: Offensive line allowed too much penetration, kickoff coverage sucked (punt coverage did not : we punted 2x, one touchback, one downed on the half yard mark.), Defensive brain farts allowed a couple of stupid long gains, Noel indecisive at times.

The Good: JB looked poised under pressure, Jock Sanders seems to have found some moisturizer to soften the hands, short yardage seems to have improved as well, Julian Miller wouldn’t stop, neither did JT Thomas.

Lyons could have played but the coaches held him out with a minor hammy tweak (I personally would rather have him the rest of the season instead of a making it worse today).

In kickoff coverage, I saw over-pursuit, not lack of effort. Problems do exist, no doubt.

I do believe in vanilla against a foe like this, always have, always will.

I also believe we didn’t go for it on 4th down because the coaches needed to see how the kickers did under pressure in a game situation.

Overall, I honestly felt better coming out of this game than after the Villanova game last year. But not by a bunch.

Special Teams: God awful. I know it’s been mentioned already but it was terrible. There were 7 returns for 161 yards, 23 yards average. Mike Brown had 3 returns for 107 yards with the longest going for 45 yards. Mike Brown smoked our ass, how had is it to double up on this guy. Not only did he have those returns, he also caught 11 passes for 157 yards. If I was HCBS, I would tell the kicker to kick it out of bounds every time, that way at least they are at the 40 instead of at midfield. Pitiful.

Receiving: I was surprised how that turned out. I bought into the pre-season hype for Wes Lyons and Alric Arnett but never again. Those guys suck balls. They are incredibly inconsistent and Lyons in a pussy. He must be made out of popsicle sticks with cinder blocks for hands. Sanders, Urban, and Starks looked good, they’re going to shine this year. While the numbers for Urban and Starks weren’t that much better than Arnet and Lyons, they’re a lot more consistent.

Passing: Brown did a great job. Most of the passes were on point, and thrown with confidence. When he had to run he did a good job of protecting the ball. Throwing 19/26 for 243 isn’t shabby, although a passing touchdown would have been nice.

Defense: Sub par. The Mike Brown thing again. How difficult is it to double up coverage on the only guy making plays? You could argue that falls under coaching. I saw a lot of chances for interceptions. J.T. Thomas looked good out there, him and Williams were hitting with authority. Also, someone mentioned earlier about special teams affecting other parts of the game. It has to affect the defense because anytime they come on the field, they opposing team is already at midfield. Special teams is ruining the defense’s stats.

Side Notes/Questions: The scoreboard is only a year old, why was that black strip on there? And what the hell happened to the clock on the scoreboard? Sitting in Section 210 I couldn’t see how much time was on the clock. The small scoreboard on the left side of the luxury boxes is always off when it comes to showing scores from other games. Since the AT&T network takes a crap anytime more than 15 people are on at one time, there are a lot of people who have no other way to know the scores of the other games.

Did anyone else hear about/experience the new tailgating rules? I heard no more beer pong in any of the university lots or any other “drinking games,” cornhole is allowed as long as it isn’t played as a drinking game. Also, “excessive” alcohol is prohibited. Not sure who makes the call on what is excessive and what isn’t.

Also, the worst WVU fans are in Section 210/211 (student section beside luxury boxes). They’re all a bunch of retards that don’t know anything about anything. They arrive late and leave early. All they do is bitch and complain, talk shit on WVU, and bullshit about hair jell and rape.

Here is the deal straight up….yesterday was unimpressive at all phases of the game and there was no improvement on special teams ( kick coverage) which is squarely on Stewart since HE is the special teams coach. NOW having said that, they get the only pass of the season because it was the first game and they didnt pull out all the stops. Next week different story..if they dont put out an offensive explosion, cover kicks and allow ECU to score and score often, then despite a win I will come down hard on this team because of all the preseason hype…yesterday they didnt live up to any of it.

The Big East gets no respect and we didnt help matters. AND FINALLY…I HATE watching games on ESPN Gameplan…the coverage is terrible as are the announcers…you just cant feel the electricity in the stadium by an ESPN Gameplan game..it was a real yawner!

Offense: B

We showed ECU enough to make them watch a lot of film but left a ton off the table. Did anyone notice all the new formations we lined up in this game? We also went in motion much more than last season.

Even though we did not open up our playbook we should’ve scored more points. Kicking that many field goals against Liberty is pretty sad. Our O-line was pretty solid at times but still missed some assignments.

How can you not understand leaving plays off the table? When you’re playing Texas Hold’em do you flip over your cards before everyone gets their cards? No. In the business/legal world do you call up your opposition and tell them everything you are going to do? No Don’t be an idiot.

Defense: C-

I counted 4 times that our DB’s lined up within 5 yards of their WR’s. They had 5 -15 yard out routes open all day.

I was very disappointed but I have faith in our defensive coaches.

Special Teams: B

If I were just grading kick coverage, it would be a 10% because we kicked it out of bounds once. I punched myself multiple times at our kick coverage. I saw multiple players run down field and just stop when getting to a blocker. It was like they were playing red light, green light in elementary school. Run fast and stop.

Everything else was pretty damn good.

Coaching: C-

We had little to no intensity. We were not aggressive on offense. We did not get enough push on D.

Officiating: D

When did flag football rules get incorporated into tackle football? Tackle someone but not too hard. The refs were terrible and prevented the game from having any type of flow. Terrible

A W is a W. Survive and advance.

I think some of you would rather us fail and get your way, than see us succeed and prosper.

We all see that there are areas that need vast improvement but anyone that would talk about firing a coach after a win needs to stop “drinking his face off.”