This was line from my favorite movie The Big Lebowski. For those poor souls who have such busy lives that they can't take the hour and a half to watch the movie, the context of the line is basically summing up a plan to overtake some bandits who have something "The Dude" wants.
I bring this quote up because it reminds me of the offensive line at WVU and how the line used to be and how it is now. Last years much maligned unit was in a transition phase, that was getting used to their third coach in three years and a whole new system. Their lofty pre-season ranking was never lived up to and many consider them to be the biggest disappointment from last year. This was the first time since 2004 that the line was not among the nations elite and the first time that WVU did not zone block almost exclusively. Last year, under new offensive line coach Dave Johnson, WVU tried their hand at a more traditional, Nehlen like approach. Now the simplest thing to do would be to ask why a team that had so much success would go from a scheme that was working to one that wasn't. I agree, since the guys that were on the line last year had only known zone blocking, but for the future.....I think a change was needed. You see the zone blocking spread option was made for guys like Pat, Owen, and Steve. Two speedsters and a battering ram to run through the hole with either the ball or on a mission to absolutely kill the guy in front of him. Either way, you probably don't want to be that guy that met him first. That was great but we only had one piece of that puzzle last year and the offense looked much more like it did in 03 and 04 than o5-07 because of it. The roadgrading blocking with the occassional zone scheme is much more conducive to being a balanced team. Just look at what started to happen in 07....athletic defense like Pitt and South Florida simply ignored the threat of the forward pass and played "sick em" D. These are the growing pains WVU will have to suffer in order to transition. The thing that gets me are the same people who used to sit up in the stands and complain about us never throwing down field are now bitching about how WVU has changed something that worked so well. You can't have both
Something else that gets on my nerves is when people bring up that WVU is the winningest program to never have a national championship. This is nothing to boast about IMO, and its kind of like bragging about winning the shortest pecker contest.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
With Benefits
So Coach Stew is currently up on a podium lamenting over his lads and how much they strained today and how good so and so is. Of course I can't listen to it because I live on the prairie now. Before you say, I know that I can listen to it, but I sure as shit don't want to. James McMurtry once stated in one of his live albums that you can turn an good ole boy into an intellectual, but you can't turn an intellectual into a good ole boy. Don't get me wrong, I like Andy Griffith and fried chicken, but not as my football coach. With that being said, I hope he does great here and kicks some ass this season. With the goons we play it really shouldn't be that hard. Now could someone pass the green beans?
Even our ultra conservative, super moral, glass more than half empty but mouth always half opened head coach had to buck his system when it came to Jock Sanders and his troubles. He was able to return to practice today "with benefits". Lets just face it folks, this whole no tolerance system that is in place at about every school in the BCS is totally stupid and flat out coach speak puffery to the highest degree. I know Tim Tebow does nothing but pray, pass, and wipe flys away from the eyes of unfortunate babies in countries that hover around the equator. However, lets pretend for a moment and invision TT out at the bar on a late night teammate intervention when a beer suddenly and miraculously escapes the grasps of a sure handed flanker and finds its way into the mouth of Tim. Lets continue to imagine him getting arrested by an officer that was either an FSU fan or suffering from a severe momentary lapse of reason. After a good month long of press conferences where he would lament about his disbelief and disappointment in the actions of his starting QB, what do you think the NEW ball coach would do? (And for those that don't get it that is a play on Steve Spurrier who is more Matlock than Andy Griffith, but still as corny and All-American as a star-spangled banner playing apple pie on a window sill at farm house in Iowa.) I can tell you what he would do, he would allow him to practice, talk about how much he makes TT run, and then suspend him for the first game of the year against slap dick state or whoever it is they play. Now if Tim wasn't on the two deep roster....well that would be different and yes Howard Schnellenberger at Florida Atlantic has a home for you.
The newspapers are always interviewing players this time of year and it never fails that if there is a young inexperienced unit on the team they will ask them something like this
"How do you (the players) feel about the experts (soon to be unemployed journalists like me) saying you are the weak link on the team and the success of the year depends on your improvement."
Every freaking time the player comes back with something about the unit gelling, inexperienced but talented, and of course, stepping it up. I hate to be critical when I can't offer anything that would be much better to say, but maybe a "wait and see" or a simple "they're wrong" would suffice? Over promise is generally coupled with under-performance and they ride down the mediocrity parkway to losing seasons all the time. (Sorry Charley Weiss keep taking those top 10 recruiting classes to 6-6 seasons.) Josh Jenkins did this about a month ago when he said all the cliches about the Oline and how they will surprise people. I'll believe it when I see it, but I really think they are going to have a tough time making holes big enough for Little Daddy. One good thing this year is that with JB back there we can at least hope that he will lay a few linebackers out when Little Daddy decides to reverse his field. We might even make it back to the line of scrimmage. Then again we are only one block away from having Coley White at QB....lets just hope he is a gamer like his big bro.
I'm out.
Even our ultra conservative, super moral, glass more than half empty but mouth always half opened head coach had to buck his system when it came to Jock Sanders and his troubles. He was able to return to practice today "with benefits". Lets just face it folks, this whole no tolerance system that is in place at about every school in the BCS is totally stupid and flat out coach speak puffery to the highest degree. I know Tim Tebow does nothing but pray, pass, and wipe flys away from the eyes of unfortunate babies in countries that hover around the equator. However, lets pretend for a moment and invision TT out at the bar on a late night teammate intervention when a beer suddenly and miraculously escapes the grasps of a sure handed flanker and finds its way into the mouth of Tim. Lets continue to imagine him getting arrested by an officer that was either an FSU fan or suffering from a severe momentary lapse of reason. After a good month long of press conferences where he would lament about his disbelief and disappointment in the actions of his starting QB, what do you think the NEW ball coach would do? (And for those that don't get it that is a play on Steve Spurrier who is more Matlock than Andy Griffith, but still as corny and All-American as a star-spangled banner playing apple pie on a window sill at farm house in Iowa.) I can tell you what he would do, he would allow him to practice, talk about how much he makes TT run, and then suspend him for the first game of the year against slap dick state or whoever it is they play. Now if Tim wasn't on the two deep roster....well that would be different and yes Howard Schnellenberger at Florida Atlantic has a home for you.
The newspapers are always interviewing players this time of year and it never fails that if there is a young inexperienced unit on the team they will ask them something like this
"How do you (the players) feel about the experts (soon to be unemployed journalists like me) saying you are the weak link on the team and the success of the year depends on your improvement."
Every freaking time the player comes back with something about the unit gelling, inexperienced but talented, and of course, stepping it up. I hate to be critical when I can't offer anything that would be much better to say, but maybe a "wait and see" or a simple "they're wrong" would suffice? Over promise is generally coupled with under-performance and they ride down the mediocrity parkway to losing seasons all the time. (Sorry Charley Weiss keep taking those top 10 recruiting classes to 6-6 seasons.) Josh Jenkins did this about a month ago when he said all the cliches about the Oline and how they will surprise people. I'll believe it when I see it, but I really think they are going to have a tough time making holes big enough for Little Daddy. One good thing this year is that with JB back there we can at least hope that he will lay a few linebackers out when Little Daddy decides to reverse his field. We might even make it back to the line of scrimmage. Then again we are only one block away from having Coley White at QB....lets just hope he is a gamer like his big bro.
I'm out.
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