Pitt DC Paul Rhoads to Auburn

If that doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of Mountaineer fans, I don’t know what does. First off, if you’ve been living in a cave, WVU and Auburn will face off in a huge non-conference match-up in the second week of next season. In fact, NBC Sports’ John Walters already named this as the fourth biggest non-conference pairing of 2008.

Auburn just lost defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to Texas. Muschamp is a great, young up-and-coming coach, in fact I wanted WVU to consider him for the head coaching spot (No indications that they did such.) Now they will replace Muschamp with Rhoads, that’s right, the same Rhoads whose Pitt defense ate West Virginia’s lunch in Morgantown on December 1. I’m confident that Auburn’s defense has a lot more talent than Pitt’s, which could spell a lot more trouble than we originally thought in this matchup. At least with the game early in the season, Rhoads’ effects on the Tigers defense could be minimized somewhat. I’m not just slurping up Rhoads, he’s been at Pitt a long time and WVU put up some huge games on them in the past, but this year’s Pitt game has to be chalked up to more than just jitters from WVU’s offense…Pitt was able to shut us down for most of the game.

You have to wonder what propelled Rhoads to leave Pitt at this juncture, he has been there seven or eight years, he is basically the number two guy, he was de-facto head coach when Wanny was in press box after he blew out his knee. Pitt is clearly a program on the rise (It pains me to say that, but also realize that when you hit bottom up is the only way to go.) And now Rhoads is gone, who is going to run that Pitt defense? Just seems like bad timing for Rhoads, but we all know that timing isn’t really a consideration in the coaching carousel.

Assistant coach hirings: Something to be desired?

Today David Johnson was announced as an addition to Bill Stewart’s coaching staff. Johnson is a former WVU offensive lineman, giving us now four former Mountainneer players on staff (Doc Holliday, David Lockwood, Steve Dunlap.) This should be a feel-good story, after all these are all legitimate Division I coaches who came from other high-profile programs (Johnson from Georgia, Holliday from Florida, Lockwood from Kentucky, Dunlap from…never mind).

Why does nothing feel spectacular about any of these hires to me? When Coach Stew (that’s what the cool kids call him) was hired, I was happy about the hire, with the caveat that I wanted to see the assistants he would bring on staff. I’m still waiting for that big name, and if Dunlap or Holliday is it then that’s kind of disappointing. The offensive coordinator position is still out there and maybe that will be the slam dunk I’m looking for. I’m not down on the coaching or recruiting abilities of any of these guys, but after the quick-on-the-trigger hire of Stewart, now it feels kind of like we are marching out Don Nehlen retreads, and now a guy to coach offensive linemen that never coached that position at his previous stop in Jawja.

What do I want to see out of the rest of the hires? I don’t know. Who is that satisfying name, is he really out there? When the Nehlen regime flipped over to Rodriguez, nobody knew who guys like Jeff Casteel or Calvin Magee were and they turned out very successfully. So we know that name isn’t everything. So maybe these aren’t the sexy picks, but hopefully Stewart has made the right picks for WVU. We’ll just have to wait and see how the thing plays out.

Everybody hates Marching Band Guy

Of course I’m not talking about the marching band as a collective. As a group, it doesn’t get any better than the Pride of West Virginia. If you don’t get chills down your spine and a tear in your eyes as the band performs “Simple Gifts” during the pre-game then just get out of my country. But singularly I think we all know those annoying marching band types that run around every high school or college campus. Today’s Daily Athenaeum pretty much recounts every reason we hate Marching Band Guy.

Night time in Morgantown, West Virginia

…on the campus of West Virginia University, Halloween weekend. And the goblin, riding in on a broom, is wearing a sport coat, a sweater and a red tie. His graying hair is parted neatly on the left side. And topping off a prominent nose and a persistent frown is a pair of eyeglasses, the trademark of one of the nation’s most successful football coaches, Joe Paterno. Joe is accompanied here by a frightening group of white-clad ghosts, the number-two ranked and undefeated Nittany Lions of Penn State. A frightening scene, but Don Nehlen’s Mountaineers enjoy walking in where angels fear to tread. So tonight, in ideal autumn weather, they will meet the invaders. They will do battle, as a prohibitive underdog, but they will play this game with the knowledge that anything can happen in football. On any given night, on any given field, it can happen! And they want it to happen tonight! The state of West Virginia is wired in on MSN for this effort. And it will be our pleasure to describe the action as these two old rivals get together. So light up your pumpkin, put on your scariest Halloween mask, and keep that radio close by as the hills of West Virginia resound with the sound of gold and blue football. And the West Virginia University Mountaineers..are on the air!