What We Learned From The Villanova Game

My initial reaction to the game is up here. It seemed to me that the WV defense was very vanilla, but it also was not getting the job done. Villanova was able to move the ball between the twenties with great success. They had six drives that were 8 plays or longer. Four of those were 10 plays or more, eating up five minutes or longer each. In all, the Wildcats had the ball for almost 15 minutes longer that WV. They also outgained the Mountaineers 399-354.

To their credit, Villanova came out in formations that they had not shown before, and that quarterback, Antwan Young, is the real deal. His stats weren't incredible (17-33, 218, 0 td's, 2 int's), but he did a lot of things well. His offensive line (returning all five starters) gave him a lot of time and did a decent job in the running game.

On the flip side, I never got the feeling that West Virginia was trying to run the ball. I have to admit that the number of WR screens in the first part of the game made we want to make a dash to the liquor store. Villanova was stacking the line and expecting West Virginia to run the ball a lot and bubble screen on passing plays despite the new formations and pre-snap motion. When the Mountaineers started stretching the pass routes down field, White came alive. Even his 25-33 passing day doesn't tell the story of how well he threw the ball. I can think of two or three passes off the top off my head that bounced of receivers hands. It was the kind of game by White that should have a lot of defensive coordinators peeing in their pants. Because the funny thing is, as little commitment as West Virginia had toward the running game, they still came out with 6.8 yards per rush on the day.

Despite losing Darius Reynaud to the NFL, I think the receiving corps was improved. Arlic Arnett is going to be a star, and Jock Sanders filled the role left by Reynaud very well in the slot. We've been waiting for this for some time, but I think we can now say that we welcome defenses stacking the line, because there is a passing game that will hurt you. And if you blitz and miss, that White guy will be running crazy on you all day long.

Pirate week comes a little early this year, and those guys have all the confidence in the world after whooping the Hokies. It'll be a big test for West Virginia. A LOT BIGGER than what we thought before yesterday. Arrrr!

What Is This Villanova That You Speak Of

Yeah, that picture is from the Early Crackpipe Predictions that I never got around to. But hey, at least I got the picture done before I pitched the whole process.

At least someone has them ranked 21st in 1-AA. As you may notice, they return 17 starters from a team that went 7-4 last year. Apparently, that wasn't good enough to get them into that thing they call a playoff in 1-AA. But since this is who we are going to play come Saturday, might as well take a look under the hood and see what's what.

There isn't much out there to chew on, but their starting quarterback is Antwon Young. A very mobile quarterback that completed 64% of his passes before suffering a serious knee injury and being lost for half of the season. Nothing eye popping about his rushing stats. He carried the ball 72 times for 151 yards and two touchdowns. The entire offensive line returns, but they will be starting either Angelo Babbaro or Aaron Ball, both sophomores and both with little experience. Ball saw more action, but both are 5'9" and 190ish lbs.

The defense returns nine starters including their top four tacklers. The most noteworthy is defensive lineman, Tim Kukucka with a dozen tackles for a loss and 8.5 sacks.

As far as common opponents, we both played Maryland last year and where they lost 31-14, we beat the turtles 31-14. So that's how that works. Really, there's not that much more out there to know about the Wildcats. That link above is the latest news on the Villanova website.

The big concern should really be that West Virginia wins handily and comes out of the game without any injuries. The first part should be easy, and the second part is up to the football Gods.