Turning the corner

I recently said that WVU was running the prevent offense and that they couldn’t score in a Women’s Prison with a handful of barbies. The quote is actually supposed to be with a handful of pardons, but I thought I heard barbies and just left it that way. At any rate, today it appears that I was incorrect about the WVU part too.

For the first time since the Fiesta Bowl, it felt like the good old days. WVU pounded Auburn (like every SEC team they have played), and they did it very convincingly. The most impressive thing is that WVU all but spotted Auburn 17 points, and it didn’t even matter. I think that everyone in that stadium from the Chik-a-filet guy, to me, to Captain Green Bean, to Little Daddy and Pat White knew that there was no reason to panic and that good things were about to come to the old gold and blue. Of course after the game, the question that was on everyone’s mind was, “Where has this been all year?” Answers to this question include but are not limited to:

“Auburn sucks….”

“Chris Beatty is calling plays”

“Rich Rod and Calvin were calling plays in from the couch”

“Auburn really sucks…”

“Noel figured out how to run in the zone”

“Mike Dent can finally block”

“Mullen figured out how to call plays”

“Pat played extra hard because it was against a school from Bama”

“Tubberville is a moron.”

I will not address all of these, but some of them are just too good to pass up. Firstly, Auburn has the most talented defense we will face all year. I was watching the replay of the game with my attorney and on our first scoring drive Noel had a 4 yard run off of the right side that would have gone for 40 against any other team. In the words of our beloved Stew, the boys at Auburn strained and really got after it(at least in the first half), and to categorize that performance against them as anything but improvement would be a serious case of bad judgement. Sure their offense is weak, but I have to call them like I see them and what I saw was our team dominate a good Auburn defense for 60 minutes. Since that issue has been cleared up, I’m sure that all of you are now on the edge of your seat asking what we did differently on Thursday? Well, baby birds, you came to the right place because I’m going to feed ya. Out of all the things that it could be, I’m convinced that the success we saw on offense can mainly be attributed to one thing. For the first time all year the inside zone play worked more than it didn’t work. Auburn had to respect our inside running game and it opened out those beautiful outside runs that we love so much. On the first scoring drive Pat faked the middle hand-off to Jock and optioned to his left where he later pitched to Little Daddy. The backers froze on the fake and allowed Pat to get outside where he then pitched it. Now the reasons for being able to run the inside zone play are many, and whether its better second level blocking by our lines interior or more patient running by Noel or just better playcalling by Mullen I do not know. I do know however, that WVU is 4000-0* over the last couple of years when we run the inside zone play with success, and to me that is all that matters. Furthermore, if we can continue to run the inside zone play with great success (said in my best Kazahk accent) I strongly feel that every team left on our will have a very difficult time stopping us.

*Stats made up by me in order to legitimize this blog.