2009 Houston cut-ups from when Holgorsen was offensive coordinator:
I actually expect West Virginia’s offense to resemble this a bit more than Dana’s offense at Oklahoma State. A lot of what they did at OSU was based off their great tailback and great outside wide receiver: last year, Dana ran a bit more than he had at Houston (and more straight ahead runs) and he used that to set up more one-on-one matchups on the outside with Justin Blackmon. As the clip below shows, with Blackmon and Weeden Holgorsen used more of an NFL route tree — go, post, comeback, etc. It all remains to be seen but the roster at WVU seems more like a variety of quick receivers, but not necessarily one go-to outside gamebreaker. But Dana’s good at adjusting to his talent.
– The NCAA has new academic restrictions, which Stewart Mandel likes. I’m not as enthused but I suppose any movement is good.
– Sad. Arkansas runningback Knile Davis is out for the season with a broken ankle, before it even began. (For what it’s worth, this is exactly what I managed to do before my senior year of high school — broke my ankle four days before our first game. Mr. Davis’s is in a bit of an exalted position, but it’s not fun at all.) Arkansas has a deep backfield and a deep receiving corps, but if you forced Petrino to choose I think he’d rather lose a receiver than his featured back. And the person it probably affects the most is new quarterback Tyler Wilson. There is no better transition for a new quarterback than to step in with all of the firepower from the year before, and having a gamebreaker in the backfield is a huge help to a new quarterback. But Petrino will adjust, as he always does.
– Mike Tanier has his new walkthrough up, and here’s very excited about actual football.
– Ahman Green will retire a Packer.
– Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson went on some sports jock talk radio and it, uh, went downhill. Doc Sat thinks Wilson should have some thicker skin, but I can’t really agree. I think Wilson came off better, as he was on hold for several minutes listening to their inane rants and then basically said they didn’t have a clue and to get it over with. At which point the radio guys disconnected him and then ranted for several minutes about how bad Indiana was. Coach Wilson was coming at it with a bit of head in the clouds mentality, but how was he supposed to react? “Gee whiz guys, I sure hope my players aren’t listening to this but we are really terrible.” (I always liked the Christopher Hitchens radio/talk-show strategy, which is to say something provocative and then when interrupted to say, “Excuse me, sir, I am your guest.”) That said, Coach Wilson did hopefully learn one lesson from this: If you pick a fight with the media, they will always get the last word.
– Charlie Strong is building something. Louisville is probably still a year away, but it’s clear that Strong is building something serious there. They lost some good defensive backs and quarterback is still a difficult position for them, but if Teddy Bridgewater can develop for next season I really like this team.
– Bill breaks down Boise State:
Boise State was outstanding in the way that they knocked opponents on their heels immediately; even in their two closest games (the Virginia Tech win and the Nevada loss), they went up 17-0 in the first half each time. They struggled a bit late in games — Tech scored 16 points in the second half to tie, Nevada scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to do the same — but they proved just how much the first half matters. Do well enough in the first half, and it might not matter what you do late.