Daily Telegraph: Friday night's all right with WVU

[Jim Johnson]

Friday night's all right with WVU

By BRIAN WOODSON

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD  Friday night is usually reserved for high school football. College football will take the spotlight this week, at least in a pair of football-crazed states.

No. 5 West Virginia (4-0) will travel to Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium to play No. 18 South Florida (3-0) in an ESPN2-televised Big East Conference game starting at 8 p.m. on Friday.

These clubs met last No-vember in Morgantown, with the Bulls upsetting the Mountaineers 24-19, ruining West Virginia’s hope for a fourth straight Big East title.

While the revenge or “payback†factor has been mentioned as a key motivator for the Mountaineers, West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez doesn’t think there’s any need for extra motivation.

“I’m not really big on harping on the revenge factor. I don’t think that plays much of an issue in a game, as far as those type of emotions go,†Rodriguez said.

“If it helps you in trying to get focused during the week, that’s fine, but once the ball is kicked off, I think what happened is in the past and it’s what is going on right now that is important.â€Â

South Florida, which is ranked for just the second week in the program’s history, has won at Auburn and defeated North Carolina last Saturday. West Virginia is coming off an impressive 48-7 win over East Carolina, which saw the ’Eers out-gain the Pirates 599-160.

Rodriguez called it “our best overall performance in several years,†but after watching the film, determined there was plenty of work to do.

“I thought our guys were focused and played extremely hard all four quarters in all three phases,†Rodriguez said. “After watching film, we do need to execute better. There’s a lot of things we need to work on, but that being said, we’re happy where we’re at.

“We understand we’ve got a tremendous challenge going into a hostile environment against a very good football team on the road this Friday night.â€Â

The Mountaineers have been solid all season on offense, scoring 47.2 points and 525 yards per game.

Their defense, which has been much maligned, has allowed just 17.0 and 273.2 yards a contest. Rodriguez has been pleased with the improvement in a unit that narrowly missed its first shutout in 19 games against the Pirates.

“They’re getting better, I think our defense is beginning to grow, we do have more experience there this year than we did last year,†Rodriguez said. “They played well in stretches in the first couple of games, but at times there were times when we didn’t play as well as we would like.

“In the Maryland game we got more confidence, and certainly in the last game, they played with a whole lot of confidence and really did an outstanding job. There are still some things we can get better at, but we are getting better each week.â€Â

While West Virginia’s offense is led by Pat White and Steve Slaton, the Bulls are paced by signal-caller Matt Grothe and defensive end George Selvie.

Grothe threw for 279 yards and a touchdown, and ran for another score in last year’s upset at West Virginia, while Selvie recovered a fumble  one of four turnovers by the ’Eers  and returned it for a touchdown in that win.

Selvie, who has 8.5 sacks and 14.5 tackles for loss in three games, leads a defense that held Slaton to just 43 yards on 18 carries last season, while White was limited to 17 yards on 15 attempts.

Slaton said it wasn’t any secret what the Bulls did on defense in the last meeting, adding that the Bulls are “one of the fastest teams we’ll face.â€Â

“They just tackled well,†Slaton said. “Any time you tackle well, you’re going to come up and do good things.â€Â

While Rodriguez admits that Friday nights “are mostly reserved for high school football,†the ’Eers can’t wait to be back on the national stage that this night will provide.

“Friday night football. I can’t wait, it feels like high school again going back down to South Florida,†said West Virginia senior receiver Darius Reynaud, whose Mountaineers beat Connecticut 37-11 last year on a Friday. “I love playing on Friday nights.â€Â

Rodriguez said he knows South Florida is talented and the stadium, which also serves as the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will be full and hopping  much like when the ’Eers lost last season at Louisville on a Thursday night.

He just hopes his Mountaineers provide their best effort.

“To play a pretty talented highly-ranked team on the road at their place on a Friday night is quite a challenge, but our guys have been in those big games before,†Rodriguez said. “My hope is we’ll keep our focus this week, which I’m sure we’ll do, and that we play well.

“That’s the key. You can have great focus during the week, but then you’ve got to play well once the game starts and that’s what we’ve got to do.â€Â

Link to Story

[gobulls83]

These clubs met last No-vember in Morgantown, with the Bulls upsetting the Mountaineers 24-19, ruining West Virginia’s hope for a fourth straight Big East title.

OK. In 2005 obviously they won the conference, but in 2003 and 2004, do the Mountaineers really claim conference titles? Sure they tied for first, but in both cases they lost heads up to the team they tied with and missed out on the BCS. I guess they feel like they have to claim them to legitimize themselves or something. But "fourth straight Big East title" is certainly misleading.