Spring Football: Louisville

Louisville held their annual spring game on Friday night. Because just like during the regular season, they are way too cool to play on Saturday. Actually, I think it had something to do with horse racing. The Red-White Game Presented by UPS (terrific marketing technique) was a 38-17 triumph for the offense over the defense.

The Cards are in Season 2 of the Steve Kragthorpe regime, and looking to replace Brian Brohm among others. Brohm is the only QB Louisville has known in the Big East era, but senior Hunter Cantwell has game experience, filling in for Brohm at times the last few seasons due to injuries. Matt Simms, son of CBS announcer, former New York Giants QB and general douchebag Phil Simms is also vying for the quarterback spot as a redshirt freshman, but Cantwell seems to be the clear favorite for the time being.

Louisville’s offense did not commit a turnover, which is big news for the Cards. In six losses last season, UL committed 20 turnovers, compared to just 4 turnovers in their six wins.

If the spring game is any indication, and who knows if it may or may not be, the Cards may be committing more to the run next season, as the Cards ran more than they passed by a 4-to-3 ratio. Some of that is probably lower string players just running familiar running plays, but I think with the loss of Brohm they will tend to pass less. Not that Cantwell isn’t capable, but without Brohm it just makes sense to pass less, and Kragthorpe probably wants to normalize the offense somewhat to that degree. Also a factor are the losses of Mario Urrutia and Harry Douglass at wide receiver. The Cards just don’t seem to have a lot of quality receivers as has been their strong point in the recent past.In the backfield, senior Brock Bolen and redshirt freshman and former WVU commitment Vic Anderson will be called upon for most of the carries this season, which will provide Louisville with a change of pace between the larger, more physical Bolen and smaller, quicker Anderson.

Earl Heyman and Adrian Grady stood out on the defense for the Cards with two sacks apiece. Card Chronicle posted a fairly in-depth rundown. Louisville announced attendance as 17,200.

Spring Football: South Florida

I think we all know that South Florida has a pretty stout defense. WVU fans should know that by now. So there’s no surprise that the defense not only dominated but also shined in USF’s spring game, definitely a pitcher’s duel with white team downing green team, 6-3. Remember Jarrett Buie and George Selvie? Both those terrific defensive ends are back to anchor that defense. WVU has all season to find the weakness in that defense, I surely hope they can find something.

The Bulls also return 10 starters on offense, including quarterback Matt Grothe. Grothe was a perfect 5-for-5 with a touchdown pass before bowing out early in the scrimmage. Meanwhile, running back Mike Ford carried a big load for the offense with 14 carries and 56 yards.

Kicker Delbert Alvarado, who single-handedly kept the USF-Auburn game close last fall, continued to be lackluster for the Bulls with a missed FG of 48 yards, although he also connected on a 48 yarder later on.

God help us when we start reverting to message boards for analysis, but apparently the lack of offense concerns Bulls fans. Which is almost always the case after a low-scoring spring game with defensive dominance, but let’s face it the USF offense has never been a juggernaut and when they have the ability to win games 21-13 then it’s kind of a moot point.

A record crowd of 4,607 was on hand for the game.

Spring Football: East Carolina

The Pirates closed spring drills Saturday with the annual Purple-Gold scrimmage at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. ECU will be looking to defeat WVU for the first time in this decade, as the Mountaineers have dominated the Pirates for the most part in seven straight.

Senior Patrick Pinkney will be guiding the offense for the Pirates this season. It seems like Pinkney has been the ECU quarterback for all seven of the WVU victories. Remember James Pinkney (no relation) was at the helm for the Pirates before Patrick, probably leading to this falacy. Pinkney was a part-time starter last year along with Rob Kass. Both will go into fall drills, but Pinkney seems to be the front-runner after some brilliant performances last season. According to the Fayetteville Observer, ECU coach Skip Holtz is looking for consistency on a weekly basis.

The scrimmage was cut short by a tornado warning in Greenville. Which is pretty much why we don’t play football in the spring, I suppose. I was surprised to read that ECU has no indoor facilities. You think Skip Holtz is panning for that? Also, instead of the conventional “Purple” and “Gold” teams as most schools do, East Carolina used “ECU” and “Pirates” squads, the Pirates squad led by Pinkney taking the 10-3 victory.

Additional takes from WRAL (who at least mentioned the defense in their write-up) and the Raleigh News-Observer.

According to Pirate Illustrated, the winners of the Purple-Gold game were to be served a fine dinner of lobster and steak, while the losers were treated to hot dogs and beans. You really can’t go wrong either way there if you ask me though.

Saturday Rundown: Spring Football, Joe Alexander, WNBA Draft

Since it’s been such a long time since I last posted, you are going to get an epic edition of the Saturday Rundown for your reading enjoyment today.

We are now a week away from the Gold-Blue Game at Milan Puskar Stadium. So spring drills have been going at a furious pace over the past week or so. I really don’t have a lot of insight into what is going on in practices, so let’s go back once again to the corps of state sportswriters for assistance in breaking down the major themes of spring.

• Pat McAfee is not the idiot kicker. Just ask Mickey Furfari or the DA’s Tony Dobies.
• Chuck Finder and Mitch Vingle lament the secondary. I certainly expected this to be the major concern coming into spring drills, looks like it’s living up to that. Some fans gave our corners a lot of flack the last few seasons, but they were an experienced bunch last year and now we’re left with very little game experience in that area of the field.
• Wednesday’s practice did not go so well, but Friday’s was much, much better. Bill Stewart had some tough love for the team on Thursday morning, seemingly for the first time during his tenure.
• Puff Pieces: Brandon Hogan featuring more prominently in the slot, Nate Sowers battling for playing time at safety.
• The most bizarre story of the week by far is Mike Casazza’s profile of JUCO end Larry Ford’s struggle to gain weight. I gained 20 pounds my first year in Towers, so can you Larry. Although it seems like he is already eating an obscene amount of food. Don’t they make supplements and such that add on weight pretty quickly? I’m sure that’s a problem a lot of us would like to have though. Somebody get that kid some pepperoni rolls and Mister Bee’s potato chips.

Joe Alexander has announced he might enter the NBA draft. He actually did not sign with an agent, so he can withdraw his name up until June 16, ten days before the draft. It’s really a non-event to me, with the option to withdraw and return to school it would be foolish not to throw your hat into the ring. I think the best decision will be for Alexander to return to school. It’s not like WVU is a pro factory (yet), just ask Gordon Malone.

The suspense and drama that is the WNBA draft was held Wednesday, just one day after the women’s title game. I guess it has to be held as soon as possible with the season beginning around Memorial Day. WVU’s Olayinka Sanni was drafted in the second round, #18 overall by the Detroit Shock. Meg Bulger, after being inadvertently drafted by the Sacremento Monarchs in last year’s draft despite having a final year of college eligibility, was not drafted in the three-round draft this season. I’ll admit to have never watched a WNBA game, and probably won’t any time soon. And for the record, WVU has had two more players drafted to the WNBA than the NBA in this decade.

Spring Football Rundown: Round 2

Almost another week down for spring drills. One thing I haven’t noticed from the Bill Stewart regime is a speckle of negativity. Rodriguez often lamented about a lack of effort, lack of execution, lack of form. Every spring some player or the team as a whole was being called into question. There was always a quote about how the players are letting expectations get to their heads, or how it’s lucky we don’t have to play anybody this week because we stunk it up in practice.

Every time I have seen, heard or read Bill Stewart he sounds optimistic and almost giddy at times. He is almost too much in the other direction. At times he sounds like a little kid that has been handed the keys to a candy store.

Stewart mentioned earlier in the week that we can expect to see Pat White and Jarrett Brown on the field together at the same time. Stew seems to be taking a common sense approach. Why not have them on the field together. White has earned the right to play every snap he can when healthy, while Brown is just too good a football player and too good an athlete to spend 90% of the downs on the sidelines. Stew doesn’t seem to be worried about how his offense works or whether or not people thinks he is an offensive genius, I think he will do whatever it takes to win games. I think we’ll still see a lot of the spread, with new variations, but I think if the time comes to line up in the I and shove it down somebody’s throat (Oklahoma), there will be no hesitation.

• Mickey Furfari on running back depth behind Noel Devine.
• Furfari on the linebackers. Stew pulls out the triple “very, very, very” to describe how well spring drills are going for Mortty Ivy and J.T. Thomas.
• Mike Casazza pumps up redshirt frosh defensive tackle Julian Miller.
• Casazza once again calms our worries about changes in the offense.
• Casazza profiles Jeff Casteel as if he is new to the coaching staff.
• Mitch Vingle pumps up wide receiver Alric Arnett.

Spring Football: Auburn

We’ll be looking to review spring football for each of WVU’s opponents this season (probably not Villanova), and we’re going to start with Auburn, who actually wrapped up spring football before spring sprung, with their A-Day game this past Saturday. Ah, to live in a warm climate.

The three biggest storylines for the Tigers this year seem to be:

• New coordinators on both sides of the ball. Paul Rhoads brings a ball-hawking style from Pitt. Remember when Pitt held WVU to one touchdown last season? That was Paul Rhoads. Meanwhile, Tony Franklin is installing a version of the no-huddle spread. Franklin worked under Hal Mumme at Kentucky and mentored Tim Couch and the “Round Mound of Touchdown” Jared Lorenzen and was most recently at Troy as offensive coordinator. Troy had a terrific dual-threat QB by the name of Omar Haugabook.
• There seems to be a quarterback battle with sophomore Kodi Burns, a true dual-threat competing with JUCO transfer Chris Todd. Both were impressive on A-Day.
• Will the defense be stout enough? This seems to happen in every spring game though, the defense plays in base formations, and the fans and media go crazy and lament over their defense for the entire offseason. Auburn has always had terrific defenses and with Rhoads I am sure that will continue. At least most of the Auburn fans seem to admit the Tigers were playing pretty vanilla on both sides of the ball.

Some more analysis from the Auburn blogosphere from Pigskin Pathos

Other WVU opponents spring game plans:

• East Carolina, April 12
• Colorado, April 19
• Marshall, April 26
• Rutgers, April 19
• Syracuse, April 19
• Connecticut, April 19
• Cincinnati, April 26
• Louisville, April 18
• Pitt, April 19
• South Florida, April 12