Big East Media Day: West Virginia Style

Much of the talk about West Virginia centers around Pat White and the talk of him passing more this year. I think that's all good and well, but I think we could get by with the same number of passes. Just as long as we throw more intermediate and deep passes. According to experts, West Virginia has one of the best offensive lines in the country. I have no reason to argue with that either. Given that, we need to run the ball down people's throats. It's what got us where we are. What will help make our running game more potent is the threat of passes over the middle and down the sidelines. We didn't help ourselves with the bubble screens last year. It made the offense very predictable.

Another tidbit from White, makes WVU baseball coach Greg Van Zant look foolish and a racist.

Asked if he had spoken directly with Van Zant about playing for him, White said: “(No), he wasn’t (excited). He wasn’t interested.”

Then he paused and added:

“In my knoweldge of West Virginia baseball, there’s not been many players of my race on his team. He’s not too high on it.

There have been some incredible stars at West Virginia, and there have been some incredible character guys. But there hasn't been a combination of the two like we have in Pat White. He's never given anyone reason to doubt him. And like WBGV, I don't doubt him either. The only time I ever paid attention to the baseball team was in the early 90's when a little league friend of mine was on the team. So I'm speaking without knowing anything about Van Zant, but I have to believe that comment is based in truth. If so, I hope the door hits Van Zant on the ass rather harshly on his way out. We don't need that at West Virginia University. We don't need it at the bar down the street for that matter. With the administration being the clusterfuck that it is lately, they would do good to at least investigate what the circumstances are behind our baseball team's Whiteness, or lack there of.


OK, now the rest of the Big East

Here's how the preseason poll shook out:

2008 BIG EAST FOOTBALL
PRESEASON MEDIA POLL

Rank Team Pts.
1. West Virginia (22) 189
2. USF (1) 149
3. Pittsburgh (1) 128
4. Rutgers 110
5. Cincinnati 98
6. Connecticut 97
7. Louisville 69
8. Syracuse 24

First Place Votes in Parentheses

It's not surprising to see West Virginia be picked to win the Big East again. What is surprising to me is that more writers didn't give South Florida a few more first place votes. They have a solid core of receivers and running backs, and the gritty if not pretty Matt Grothe running the offense. They may have lost the best cornerback tandem in the country, but with George Selvie rushing the quarterback, you only have to be a good corerback for a couple seconds against most teams. As much as I hate to think about it, they have beaten us the last two years. And holy Jebus, they have 20 starters returning from a year ago. Can that be right? That has to be a misprint, the magazine I'm looking at has UConn picked second in the Big East.


I think third is probably a good fit for Pitt. Outside of that disaster in Morgantown last year, they were not overly impressive. But the recruiting of Wannstedt over the past few years should finally start to show itself. They'll be operating under a new defensive coordinator, but according to Pitt fans, that's a good thing.

I see myself going into half-assed mode on looking at the rest of the Big East, and I'd rather spare you that. We'll be doing a thorough dissecting of the the Big East here in a couple weeks at FanHouse anyway. Provided this doesn't send us all on a violent rampage against our bosses.