WVU Scrimmages for First Time

Today WVU scrimmaged for the first time this spring.  The team spirits were not discouraged despite the rain as both the offense and defense were fired up to be going full contact.  Besides regular play the team went field goal team live, but no other special teams.  Both the offense and defense improve with every practice, but of course there is plenty need for improvement.  

Offense: Geno Smith was able to handle to the pace of the no huddle offense well, for it being just spring practice.  Adding to the multiple trips formations, in Holgorsen's offense, a shotgun formation with 3 backs was featured multiple times today.  The formation usually consisted of a RB and 2 FB's or 1 FB and a TE to go with the RB.  Besides Ryan Clarke being at the FB position, redshirt junior, Matt Lindamood saw time at FB with the one's today.  Despite being a TE, Tyler Urban is being use a lot and is producing.  Urban is able to get open by running routes right down the seam or on the hashes of the field.  Everytime Urban ran down the seam he was open and did not drop a pass today.  If this continues Urban will cause multiple miss matches come this fall.  In the ongoing RB competition, no one really separated themselves,but freshman RB, Vernard Robers threw is name into the competition as he had a 27 yard run, the longest of the day.  Roberts, Shawn Austin, Daquan Harqrett and Trey Johnson all saw pt with the first string today.  Trey Johnson had the majority of the carries and showed a lot of shiftyness in between the tackles.  The WR's continue to enjoy this new spread offense.  Tavon Austin had the most catches out of the receiver core and as we saw last year, Austin is dangerous once he gets the ball in space.  One surprising stat is the amount of runs Holgorsen called today, the ratio was 40 passes to 34 runs.  Somewhat different to his air it out offense at Oklahoma St and Houston University.  The offense had two fumbles and one pick on the day

Defense: The defense had a little bit more lumps than the offense.  Most notable was CB Keith Tandy.  Since the start of spring practice, all of the coaches had been signing the praises of Tandy.  That didn't show today as Tandy was beat bad by Ivan McCartney multiple times today.  Tandy had 6 int's last year, but has shown inconsistency the past two years, which is not good since Tandy is slated to be the #1 corner this year.  Overall as a unit, the defense was flying to the ball on running plays led by senior LB Najee Goode and sophomore LB Doug Rigg.  At least 7 defenders were gang tackling the ball carrier all the time.  The D continues to have problems stopping the crossing routes form the offense, which is a cause for concern since Marshall, LSU, Cincy and Shittsburgh run spread offenses.  Another thing that I've always begged Jeff Casteel to do is blitz more.  Once again today, there were a lot of cover 4 and cover 3 sets, but not a lot of blitzing.  Usually in a 3 man front defense you blitz more with LB's and nickelbacks to get that pressure on the QB.  But they were the #3 defense in the country, last year, so I guess Casteel knows what he is doing.  Bruce Irvin continues to be unblockable as he had 2 sacks on the day.  Irvin seems to be only playing on the weak side as he and Jorge Wright would be lining up according to the strong and weak sides.  The starting defense included Bruce Irvin, Julian Miller, and Jorge Wright on the line.  Casey Vance, Najee Goode, and Doug Rigg for the LB core.  Travis Bell, Terence Garvin and Darwin Cook were the safeties.  And Keith Tandy and Brantwon Bowser at corners.  The early read on the D is that it will be nowhere near as good as last year's team, but should be at least a top 50 squad if they can learn to stop the short passing routes.

The team will scrimmage one more time before the Blue-Gold game on April 29.

WVU Spring Practice Update 2

Practice had the intensity of a regular season practice today, as team team did 7 v 7 and full team.  Coach Bill Stewart was pleased with the way things have gone, and didn't even mind the fact that there was a fight today.

Offensively, the group has progressed a lot form last week as there were no bubble screens thrown today.  It looks like that Holgorsen does want to get his receivers in space, as more 5-7 yard routes were seen today.  A new element that was added this week was that the crossing routes were used to open up the deep routes.  Every 3 or 4 plays a deep route would open up and Geno Smith would hit the deep route for a touchdown.  Geno Smith seemed comfortable for the most part, there were about 2 or 3 plays were Geno was caught staring down one WR, or would panic after his first read was not open.  There is a wide open competition for the first string RB spot and it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out this spring and during 2 a days.  The competition is not due to a lack of talent, but due too to much talent.  Shawn Austin came in to camp as the #1 back, but both Daquan Harqrett and Trey Johnson have made plays to show that they deserve a lot of playing time also.  In the upcoming scrimmage, this Saturday, the coaches will use a RB by committee system to see if anyone can step up even more. 

The Defense surprisingly looks like a veteran core, despite losing 7 starters from last year's team.  Bruce Irvin is still unblockable, and Keith Tandy and Terrance Garvin have both stepped up in the secondary.  All of the coaches have sang the praises of Tandy for his improvement in the offseason and his leadership on the field.  This his huge that the defense already has a leader with losing Robert Sands to the NFL draft.

The team will practice again on Friday and then will have a full scrimmage on Saturday and that's when we can tell how much this team has really improved.

WVU Spring Practice Update

WVU has been at it for about a week now and this morning was the team's first practice in full pads and for the most part the team looked in spring form; as Bill Stewart was not pleased with the team's mental focus as errors were made on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. 

Offensively, it was obvious that Holgerson has not gotten to deep into the playbook yet as multiple bubble screens were thrown today and surprisingly enough, there were not to many deep balls thrown today.  Many people thought that Holgerson would bring more of a vertical passing game to Morgantown, but that was not seen to much today.  Besides the bubble screens, there were a lot of short passes completed with in the 5-7 yard range.  Holgerson maybe using these 5-7 yard routes to get the receivers in space after the catch.  Tavon Austin was playing in the slot as I thought and Shawn Austin was at the RB spot, but is getting some competition from sophomore RB Daquan Harqrett as he broke through the defense for a touchdown this morning.  Another point that was very noticeable was the tempo of practice was faster than in years past due to the fast past offense Holgerson runs.

Defensively, it was obvious to see that senior Bruce Irvin had gained at least 15 pounds of muscle during the winter.  The O-line of course had trouble blocking Irvin, but most impressive to me was that NT Julian Miller has made the change from DE to NT easily.  Miller was able to control both A gaps with ease.  The secondary looked all right as the first string DB's only gave up one deep pass, but had a hard time defending the crossing routes.

Overall it's one week into spring ball, so it is way to early to be making judgments, but it's going to be interesting to see how this RB competition plays out, and who continues to step  up on the defense.      

Spring Preview: Questions on Defense and How will the New Offense Work

When classes resume in Morgantown, on Monday, the football team will begin there work on the 2011 season with the start of spring practice.  The start of spring practice marks the start of a new offensive era with new offensive coordinator, and head coach in waiting, Dana Holgorsen from Oklahoma State.  Holgorsen brings in an air it out spread offense, which could work well for QB Geno Smith.  On the other side of the ball, Jeff Casteel is faced with the daunting task of replacing 7 starters on a defensive that was ranked 3rd in the country.  With a new offense to learn and multiple stars to replace on defense the Mountaineers better be focused this spring if they want to be sucessfull in 2011.  Here's what to look out for during spring ball.

Offense:
 The most obvious focus on offense will be how the unit takes in the new spread offense that will actually allow Geno Smith to throw the ball down field instead of bubble screens every other play.  Brad Starks will be leading a young receiving core that will include Ivan McCartney, Quinton Spain and Stedman Bailey.  These WR's should enjoy the multiple 4 wide and 5 wide sets that Holgorsen has but they have to learn the system first which can be challenging for a young receiving core.

Replacing Noel Devine and Jock Sanders will be tough, but maybe not so.  Shawne Alston and Tavon Austin seem like they can fill the holes left by Noel and Jock and seemed like that was what Bill Stewart was training Shawne and Tavon to do.  Later in the season, last year, Tavon saw alot of playing time at slot while Shawne was at the RB spot while Devine was hurt. Shawne Alston had 248 rushing yards in 256 minutes of game time last year, while Tavon was second on the team with receptions and first in receiving TDs.

Defense:
Gone are Robert Sands, Brandon Hogan, JT Thomas, Chris Neild, Scooter Berry, Anthony Lenoard, Pat Lazer and Sidney Glover.  Robert Sands obviously will be missed the most as he could take away half the field at any point and was feared by QB's when coming in on the blitz. Also in the secondary, tough to replace will be team INT leader Brandon Hogan who made major strides between his junior and senior years.  As of now the only sure replacements will be Terrance Garvin at the Rover Safety, Julilan Miller will be at DT, fan favorite Bruce Irvin should be a full time DE and Pat Miller will be a starting CB. Miller got burned really bad twice in the Maryland game last year so hopefully he improves on that.  Troy Gloster could be a possible replacement at LB as he has gained 24 pounds this off season, but will see competition from others.

In the spring game look for how the offense is adjusting to the new system.  Is Geno making the right reads? Do the WR's understand there routes and are they running the crossing routes right.  Is the offensive line getting the blocking schemes down?  On defense its simple.  Who steps up and makes there name known to the coaches to earn a starting spot?