SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
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- Because they are the best team we will face all year. They’ve lost one game- to the #1 team in the country. They gained 533 yards against LSU’s famed defense with 28 first downs. What will they do to us?
- We are 4-2 but it’s confederate money. We’ve won 2 overtime games, a one touchdown win over a 1-5 FCS team and beat Tulane on a last second field goal- a week after Army beat them 45-6 and a week before UTEP beat them 44-7. The bubble bursts Friday night.
- Our greatest weakness is our defensive secondary. Their greatest strength is their passing game. They are 4th in the country in passing yards: we are 112th in pass defense. That’s likely the ball game right there. You aren’t going to win too many games when your biggest weakness is their greatest strength. That’s like facing Mike Tyson with a glass jaw.
- Conventional wisdom is that we’ve got to grind it out with long running drives to keep them off the field. There are two things wrong with that. One is that West Virginia won’t need much time to score: this is one of those games where “time of possession” is going to the least meaningful stat in the box score. Secondly, we haven’t controlled the ball with the run all year. Yeah, Antwon Bailey has a run of 100 yard games but he’s been our entire running attack. Good running teams have several different runners piling up the yardage.
- West Virginia gets well-earned kudos for it’s offense, (ranked #11), but their defense, under coordinator Jeff Casteel has ranked #8, 11, 31 and 3 in the country the last three years, (the defense we were so proud of last year was #7). They were supposed to be rebuilding this year but they are ranked #16. We are 96th on offense and 71st on defense. We can’t win a shoot-out with these guys and this isn’t going to be a low-scoring game, at least not on their side.
- Tavon Austin has returned both a kick-off and a punt for a touchdown. Either would cut our throats, (literally as they would silence the crowd). When is the last time we returned a punt for a touchdown? When is the last time we returned a punt at all?
- We are 4-2 but it’s confederate money. We’ve won 2 overtime games, a one touchdown win over a 1-5 FCS team and beat Tulane on a last second field goal- a week after Army beat them 45-6 and a week before UTEP beat them 44-7. The bubble bursts Friday night.
- Our greatest weakness is our defensive secondary. Their greatest strength is their passing game. They are 4th in the country in passing yards: we are 112th in pass defense. That’s likely the ball game right there. You aren’t going to win too many games when your biggest weakness is their greatest strength. That’s like facing Mike Tyson with a glass jaw.
- Conventional wisdom is that we’ve got to grind it out with long running drives to keep them off the field. There are two things wrong with that. One is that West Virginia won’t need much time to score: this is one of those games where “time of possession” is going to the least meaningful stat in the box score. Secondly, we haven’t controlled the ball with the run all year. Yeah, Antwon Bailey has a run of 100 yard games but he’s been our entire running attack. Good running teams have several different runners piling up the yardage.
- West Virginia gets well-earned kudos for it’s offense, (ranked #11), but their defense, under coordinator Jeff Casteel has ranked #8, 11, 31 and 3 in the country the last three years, (the defense we were so proud of last year was #7). They were supposed to be rebuilding this year but they are ranked #16. We are 96th on offense and 71st on defense. We can’t win a shoot-out with these guys and this isn’t going to be a low-scoring game, at least not on their side.
- Tavon Austin has returned both a kick-off and a punt for a touchdown. Either would cut our throats, (literally as they would silence the crowd). When is the last time we returned a punt for a touchdown? When is the last time we returned a punt at all?
