New Coach At Alabama!!!!!

Gotta love the photoshop. This isn't mine though, it belongs to Hard Times. Of course, me linking to it almost certainly guarantees that Coach Rod will be heading south next week. You mess with the karma, you get the , well, karma I guess.

A Podcast Worth Your Time

With all the talk about the next coach at Alabama, this is probably one of the better conversations you will hear on the subject. Orson from Every Day Should Be Saturday and Todd from Roll Bama Roll bring many fine points. I hate to hear how much sense it makes for Coach Rod to be the next coach at Alabama, but the truth hurts sometimes, and it's the price we pay for success. So head over to AL.com to hear this fine podcast and cast your vote for Kim Jong Il!

Ed. Note-As I'm writing this, rumors are floating around the Spurrier has been offered 3.3 Million a year for seven years, and a 5 Million signing bonus. Also, that cloning doctor from South Korea just arrived in Alabama to start work on Bear Bryant's remains in case the deal doesn't go through.

Q&A with The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers

We're all about the Q&A's at the Mountainlair and the Fanhouse, and we're extremely excited to add to the list of Big East Bloggers with The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers.

With the game this Saturday night against Rutgers we thought we'd get a Scarlet Knight view on where his team is and how far they've come.


What were you expectations for this team at the beginning of the year? Are you surprised in any way at how well the team has done?




Looking at this year before the season began put me in a position I was never in before. For one, Rutgers had been to a bowl, but more odd than that, they were slated to go back. If you looked at the schedule, there were probably 5 solid wins with at least 3 games we might be underdogs, namely on the road at UNC, at home vs. Louisville, and of course the season finale in Morgantown. We thought we could pencil in wins vs. Ohio, Howard, UConn, Cincy, and Syracuse. That left Illinois at home, Navy, Pitt and South Florida on the road. Realistically, we picked them to go 3-1 in those games for 8-4, maybe 9-3 if something else broke their way. So, to be in a position to be 11-1 is a little bit of a surprise, but seeing UNC being so bad, we added that win to our expectations early, and when they escaped from South Florida with a win, the expectations grew. So yes, it is a surprise, but with any season, your predictions morph with the wins, injuries, etc. that come with the season.

And of course, upeneding Louisville was a major high, while the kick in the groin at Cincy was a heart-breaker with so much on the line. As a Rutgers fan, you learn to savor the good times because you don't know how long they will last, or when they will return. I don't think that is cynical, it is just the way of life for a Rutgers fan, and I am enjoying this ride immensely.



Last year was a very good year for Rutgers. The first bowl in quite a while, and a little national recognition. What's been the biggest change between this team and last years team?



Obviously, the biggest change has come in the backfield, but we will discuss that below. The other major change was at the quarterback position where Ryan Hart brought senior leadership to a position they had been trying to give to Mike Teel. This year, Teel has been a statistical yawn, except for one important stat...wins. While he doesn't have the greatest completion percentage, or touchdown to int ratio, he has also been plagued by an injury to his senior WR, and a rash of drops by his young and inexperienced receiving core. Also, this is the second year Head Coach Greg Schiano has been calling the plays as the defensive coordinator. He utilizes his quicker defenders to attack, rather than trying to bully teams around with brute strength.



Considering how well Brian Leonard ran the ball last year, were you at all surprised that Ray Rice took over as the main running back this year?



Anyone who wasn't surprised by this is either lying or is related to the Rice family. Leonard's Heisman campaign seemed to indicate he was going to be the main focus of the offense, again, but when teams are gearing up to stop Leonard, what a luxury to have a weapon like Ray Rice. And if you read between the lines, my guess is that Leonard would rather be getting carries, TD's, and a 10 win season, but all things being equal, he would take the wins minus the stats. Also, Leonard is well respected by draftniks, and I don't think his NFL stock has been diminished by this years effort. If anything, he team-first attitude will probably bode well for teams looking for a good blocking fullback who can also handle the ball. Plus, don't forget, that although Rice gets a bulk of the carries, when the clock was winding down against Louisville, on a crucial third and 6, Leonard got the ball on a swing pass and rumbled 26 yards to set-up the winning field goal.



Clark Harris is arguably one of the best tight ends in the country. Has this been a disappointing season for him with only 25 catches and two touchdowns?



Well, I think it is more disappointing for Clark Harris than for fans. Winning lets a lot of things go unnoticed, and while he is a decent weapon, he hasn't been dropping passes that have cost us games. He pitches in with blocks for the running game, which has been the focus of the Rutgers offense. With a quicker game and the offense churning up the clock, his opportunities have dwindled. In some ways, he is more of a forgotten man than Leonard.



The defense has been far more stingy against the run this year, allowing 2.8 ypc as opposed to 3.3 last year. Can you point to any major changes to bring this about?



This is a testament to Schiano becoming the defensive coordinator, and this unit having another year to gel with one another. They may not be household names across the country, but plenty of running backs have met Ramel Meekins, Eric Foster, Quintero Frierson, or Brendon Renkart. Plus, the defensive backs are also a year smarter in knowing when to come up and stuff the run.


Who have been the big surprises this year for Rutgers?





Other than Ray Rice, the latest surprise has been freshman wide receiver Kenny Britt. With the injury to senior wide receiver and team co-captain Shawn Tucker, the offensive has struggled to find quality possession receivers. Britt has stepped up lately showing the ability to not only hang on to the ball, but also has flashed some speed to turn a short pass into a long gain.



Finally, are you making the trip down to Morgantown this weekend, and do you have a prediction for the game?




Unfortunately, I am not making the trip to Morgantown, although I would love to. My prediction? Probably not going to be too popular with your faithful readers, but I think Rutgers finally breaks their 0-fer in the hills of West Virginia and pulls out a 28-23 victory, with a Ray Rice long run in the fourth quarter the difference making play of the game.



Mt. Lair- We fully support homerism at the Mountainlair, and respect not only giving the final score, but to also who and when. Make sure to check out The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers for all the news on RU.

It's an awards show! What do you mean there aren't any naked dancing girls? UPDATED (*)

No boys, I said I wanted some naked dancing girls, not naked dancing girly boys. At any rate, this year will be capped off by the first annual BlogPoll College Football Bloggers Awards. All the details are being worked out as we speak. And, you can have a little say in what awards are voted on, and stuff like that. You need not be a BlogPoll voter to make nominations and submit ideas.The basic premise of the awards are over at Rocky Top Talk.

As far as the naming of the awards I can't help but think that it should be something like "Teh BlogPoll Meatnormous Mehtastic Awards." That might be a little too much, so how bout if someone could work in the word superfantasmigorical. The only thing you need to remember is to include BlogPoll in there somewhere.

As far as awards go, one of my favorite things is the week of some of the traditional rivals. The exchanges between rival blogs is just great! And that should be called the "He Hate Me" award, and should be given to the two blogs that best disrespected each other. It can't just be one great blog and one ho hum one. The two must be dependent on each other.

I wish there was more to choose from, but I would like to see an award for the best podcast. But so few of us BlogPollers do podcasts that it might have to wait until more chime in.

And the "Isn't He Pretty" award should go to the best blog layout and design.

The "I'll Never Get Laid" award should be given to the blogger that overloads you with facts and analysis.

The "I didn't know what I was getting myself into" award for the best new blog on the BlogPoll.

The "Fiber" award could go to the blogger that has the best regular weekly post.

* Funniest Blog- Let's just all do ourselves a favor and name it the MZone/EDSBS Award and get it over with, as these guys will surely win it several times in a row before we retire what ever name we come up with now. For now, let's just call it the dirty monitor award.

* Homer Simpson award goes to the biggest homer blog. Sure we all root for our team, but some take it a little too seriously.

* Michael Richards Award! This needs to happen somehow, someway. Then again, maybe not. I don't condone racism, rather it would be good for a hey stupid award, or a just shut up type thing.

These are just a few ideas. Don't work inside the box. There are plenty of catigories and names to come up with. I'll update this post as I come up with more. I think we have until 12/5 to submit, so get started!

Has Anyone Read Anything About Rodriguez Lately?

All the talk lately is that Rich Rodriguez is going to Alabama after this year. Me personally, I have to wonder why he would go with Pat White and Steve Slaton coming back for another year at least. And that would be if I thought he would leave at all, which I don't. He deserves to be paid much more than what he is making right now. But I think he would settle if the Admin. would make some serious commitments to paying the assistants more, and commit to better facilities. I really believe he wants to make WVU into a national power.

And still the rumors linger. Some of the comments have gotten down right nasty for me over at the fanhouse, and I haven't even tried to start anything. Well, maybe a little.

At any rate, here's some other blog takes on Rodriguez going to Alabama. But before I do that, I can't help but put in a little youtube goodness.






Orson has his take over at EDSBS. It's all rumors and old men smoking Marlboro cigarettes.

Doug over at Hey Jenny Slater says Patrino is your man, not Rodriguez.

"stop chasing after Rich Rodriguez, who's coaching at his alma mater for Christ's sake"

And we should probably get it from the Elephants mouth as well while we are looking around.

From Roll Bama Roll diaries:

Let's assume "The Todd" is correct (which I believe he is) in thinking that a coach has already been chosen. Who is a logical choice considering our context clues (crazy what you remember from 2nd grade, huh?)

1. They're not saying who it is now because he has a game coming up.
   
2. Kines may be staying on considering he's going to be out recruiting.
   
3. Ideally, you want someone who isn't going to bolt for the NFL or retire anytime soon.
   
4. If this person is currently employed, and knows he's going to be moving on soon, he may have lacked a certain amount of concentration recently and lost a game he shouldn't have.

All of which could, I repeat, could, point to Rich Rodriguez.

1. Plays Rutgers this week
   
2. Rodriguez isn't overly familiar with the recruiting area. Kines is. Not a bad guy to keep around especially considering that he's an older man and R-Rod knows he won't have to be hitched to him long term.
   
3. He's a young coach whose offense isn't exactly what the NFL is looking for.
   
4. WV looked woefully unprepared against USF this past week.

Can you take it to the bank? Nope. Could I just be letting my imagination get the best of me due to the exhaustion caused by the persistent Spurrier,Saban rumors? Yup. Is it as plausible as anything else I've heard or read? Seems like. Will I claim omnipotent knowledge should Rodriguez be hired? Of course. Will I hope everyone forgets this post if he isn't? Oh yes.

And Journalism is for Rockstars has his own takes on the search which doesn't involve much about Rodriguez.

That should pretty well cover it for now. No news, just rumors.

It's a sad day for the Big East

Cincinnati coach Mark Dantonio is headed to Michigan State to take over the football program. Just when the program was headed in the right direction, they have the rug swept out from under their feet. How can you have enough money to build that gynormous athletic facilities building, and not have enough left over for the man that was going to take you places? Shame on you Cincinnati.

BlogPoll Ballot, rough draft

This weeks ballot may seem a little uninspired. Kind of like me right now. The longer this season goes on, the greater the chance is that WVU will be playing in a bowl sponsored by a company I have never heard of, or one involving a nondescript fruit of some sort. At any rate, leave your comments if you think I should change something. You have until Wednesday at 10am to change my mind.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	--
3	Southern Cal	1
4	Florida	1
5	Louisville	1
6	LSU	4
7	Oklahoma	8
8	Auburn	5
9	Wisconsin	--
10	Arkansas	7
11	Boise State	3
12	Virginia Tech	--
13	Wake Forest	4
14	Rutgers	2
15	Notre Dame	7
16	West Virginia	9
17	Tennessee	2
18	Texas	7
19	Brigham Young	1
20	Georgia	5
21	Nebraska	2
22	California	1
23	Texas A&M	3
24	Boston College	6
25	Georgia Tech	3

Dropped Out: Maryland (#24).

This Week in The Mountainlair

First off, doors bitches! We've got a steady list of things to do when we don't feel like blogging about the loss to South Florida. Next up, bathroom?

Later on this week we'll be doing a Q&A with The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. Just cause we're playing them this week and stuff. Check them out when you get a chance.

In case you missed it, the Mountaineers Men's Basketball team dropped to Arkansas last night 71-64. I hate to see us lose ever, but that was a pretty good effort against another undefeated team. I got my first look at Wellington Smith. I don't know why he hasn't had more playing time so far. But he and Da'Sean Butler are going to be two of the better freshman that we have had in a long time.

The rebounding was just dreadful, 35-17 in favor of Arkansas. But, if you've followed the Mountaineers for any length of time lately, you know this is one of the downfalls to playing the types of offense and defense. When you don't have a lot of guys around the basket on offense or defense, you are going to get out rebounded. Meh, what are you going to do? West Virginia won the battle of turnovers by about the same margin, 5-18. Which is good news.

The basketball team will be off until December 6th for a game with North Carolina St. of all people. How uncomfortable would this game have been if Beilein would have taken the Wolfpack job? I think this is one of those neutral court games we are playing in Charleston. Yeah, that's neutral like the Raleigh Civic Center! Which I guess we will be playing at next year.

So that's this week in a nutshell so far. Don't send us any projects, we promise, we're good to go.

F&*#-I Don't Want to Talk About It

I'm eating all my Crow over at the Fanhouse, so go there to read me humbling myself over the loss to South Florida. Otherwise, stay here and enjoy the refinishing of a 110 year old door. With all the good weather we are having, it seemed like a much better thing to do than say hanging myself from the tallest tree.

Mountaineers Looking to Put Together Four Quarters of Solid Defense

While the Mountaineer offense has been about as consistently great as anyone could have hoped for, the defense has not been. I think I was a little over optimistic about the ability of the defense to stay even with, or improve over last years unit going into this year. There really was a ton of new faces out there. I think the talent is there for them to be more of a dominating defense, it just hasn't happened. We all bitch and moan as fans because we want to see the defense play tight pass coverage, and dominating run defense. But that isn't always the point.

I have to ask myself why you would take a lot of chances on defense if you have an offense that is pretty much going to put up 40 points every time they take the field. Rodriguez doesn't like the term "bend but don't break", so how bout smart? Yes they've been burnt a few times, and disrobed once against Louisville. However, the second half of the Pitt game is the way I expected to see them play. Maybe the way I wanted them to play would be a better way of putting it. They were in the quarterbacks face and forced the issue. If Tyler Palko wasn't as good as he is, I would have expected to see about three interceptions in the second half. I think against most college quarterbacks you would see a lot of interceptions under that kind of pressure. You just haven't seen it that much this year. But there's two more games against bowl eligable teams, so there will certainly have their chances.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny with low wind and high 50's. Basically your dream day for a college football game. I just wish I didn't have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get there.
Check over at the Fanhouse for all the other WVU goodies.

Hey! These Guys Aren't So Freaking Bad!

I think it's becoming a little more obvious that this Beilein guy can coach some damn basketball. As the Mountaineers are well on their way to being 5-0, it's pretty clear that they haven't dropped off nearly as much as I had expected. The 44-11 halftime score against Western Michigan highlights just how good they are. Western Michigan had 20 turnovers and 11 points at the half.

Now I'm not going to sit here and blow smoke up your ass and tell you that this team is going back to the sweet 16 or anything like that. I like to think I'm a little more objective. West Virginia still hasn't played anyone of any major consequence. But the overall speed and size of the team is actually a little better than last year. And there isn't really a huge drop off in the things that made the teams from the last two years successful. They're creating turnovers and they aren't turning the ball over. They aren't shooting lights out from three point range, but they aren't doing too bad. The one thing that last years team really missed was someone that could take the ball to the basket and create their own shots. This year I think they have three such players in Joe Alexander, Darius Nichols, and Da'Shean Butler.

As far as big men go, I think Rob Summers has stepped his game up a bit. He's not going to be stepping beyond the arc too many times, but he is going to play defense and grab rebounds. And his backup, Jamie Smalligan is a 7 footer that will step out and take a few three's every game. He's not the same as Pittsnogle, but he can make a fair amount. And he's a couple steps faster, it seems, than Pittsnogle.

And, oh yeah, I didn't leave Frank Young out. He's had 14, 21, and 11 his last three games. Being the only starter from last years team, he's taken to the role of being a leader.

Young was 8 of 16 including 5 of 10 from 3-point distance and Alexander was 8 of 13 to help West Virginia shoot 50 percent for the game (28 of 56).

Young, a senior forward, was able to have a career-high night in front of several friends and family making the trip over from his hometown of Tallahassee, Fla.

It's hard to say how good these guys are going to be until they get into the Big East schedule. But, I think it's pretty fair to say that they are ahead of schedule. When Pat Beilein, Joe Herbert, Kevin Pittsnogle, and DJ Collins were freshman, they weren't nearly this far along. What probably held them back was not having enough leadership on that team. This one has Young, Nichols, and Summers to lead the way, plus a couple guys that were seeing the floor from time to time like Alex Ruoff and Joe Alexander. Just like last years team, though, I think they are going to be fun to watch.

It's the Holidays Man

With the holidays and contractual obligations over at the Fanhouse, I'll just leave you Bulls fans out there a little something to chew on until Friday. Yeah, you're in there somewhere. Remember Pat White?

Bulls Want a Shootout

It looks like coach Leavitt has given in to the probability that West Virginia is going to score a lot of points this weekend, and is calling on his offense to step up.

For the second consecutive week, head coach Jim Leavitt emphasized that the offense must answer West Virginia and put points on the board. The defense ran out of gas in the second half against Louisville and can’t afford to be on the field as long as it was Saturday night.

“We are probably facing the best quarterback and running back in the country this week,” Leavitt said. “We have our hands full and we know that if we play the way we did last week that we don’t have a shot.”

Probably a good plan as the Mountaineers are averaging 41 points per home contest this year. However, the Bulls do have a fast defense that was able to keep the Mountianeers in check outside of a couple big plays last year. It remains to be seen how the team will respond after last weeks tough loss to Louisville.

In other news, former USF assistant and former Philadelphia Eagles strong safety Andre Waters has passed away. We don't make fun of that. Our prayers go out to the Bulls and Waters family.

Getting Ready for the Running of the Bulls

As West Virginia prepares to take on the Bulls of South Florida, Steve Slaton made a trip over to Spain to get in some light work with some real Bulls. Ha Ha, thanks photoshop!

As always, be sure to check out the WVU Fanhouse for most of my analysis of this weeks game. As you can see from the picture, stories are hard to come by at the moment.

No word yet if the noon kickoff with the Bulls will be on tv. Perhaps ESPN+ locally? We'll see.

Update: Sorry USF fans, I didn't know it was such a big deal. At any rate, the game will be televised by ESPN2.