ITG 82 - WVU/Duquesne Preview
ITG 82 - WVU/Duquesne Preview
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 In the Gun, episode number 82.
00:07 It's time for a Duke-Wesney preview.
00:10 The Duquesne Dukes on the docket at home.
00:12 The home opener for your Mountaineers this weekend.
00:15 We're gonna get into all of that.
00:17 As always, we've got another game preview episode
00:19 of ITG for you here.
00:21 It is In the Gun, your new favorite WVU football podcast.
00:24 I'm Wesley Uler with the best teammates in the business,
00:28 the signal caller Jed Drenning and the runaway beer truck
00:31 Owen Schmidt down the sideline.
00:33 Quick little disclaimer here.
00:35 Jed is in a hotel room and right now his internet's good
00:39 and he looks clear and he's trying to mess with me
00:41 and look pixelated, but if he gets a little wonky
00:45 for a few seconds at some point, our apologies.
00:47 You know, it's that internet in the hotels.
00:49 It's hit or miss.
00:50 But we obviously wanted to get this Duquesne preview
00:53 done for you all in this episode of ITG.
00:55 As always, brought to you in part
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01:22 That's B-L-E-A-V at BetOnline where the game starts
01:25 before we get into that Mountaineers home opener.
01:28 Gentlemen, a headline as always to get us going here.
01:31 And this was an interesting one.
01:33 Caleb Williams, of course, reigning Heisman Trophy winner,
01:36 quarterback of USC, thought of as, you know,
01:40 maybe Drake May in the conversation as well too,
01:43 but one of those very short list of guys right now
01:45 who's thought to have a really good chance
01:48 to be the number one overall draft pick
01:50 in the upcoming, what will be the 2024 NFL draft in April.
01:55 And his father making a little bit of noise here this week
02:00 when he said that it's not a lock that his son
02:02 is going to declare for the draft after this season.
02:05 Caleb Williams would still have one more year of eligibility.
02:08 Now everybody tends to assume you're gonna be
02:10 the first overall pick, maybe at worst,
02:12 second or third, something like that.
02:14 You're definitely gonna go to the pros.
02:16 But two factors here, gentlemen.
02:17 The first, his father saying that, you know,
02:22 they don't want him to go to a bad situation, basically.
02:27 That, you know, the way that the system is constructed,
02:30 you go to the worst possible team,
02:31 to the worst organization in the league
02:33 because of a desire for parity, right?
02:35 And so that's the gift and the curse, basically,
02:37 is what his father was saying.
02:39 And, you know, saying that he's poised to make
02:42 over $3 million in NIL money this year.
02:45 So there's not the financial rush for him
02:47 to jump to the NFL.
02:49 He's already making decent money with the NIL.
02:52 And that, you know, we've seen this before,
02:54 that John Elway, you know, forcing his way
02:57 out of a situation he didn't want to be in
03:00 and ended up on the Denver Broncos.
03:01 Eli Manning saying he would refuse to play
03:03 for the San Diego Chargers at the time.
03:05 Now the LA Chargers, obviously.
03:08 And I just, you know, guys, we've talked a lot
03:10 about the ripple effects of NIL.
03:12 And this might actually be one that's,
03:15 you could certainly say is good for college football.
03:18 If you've got guys who don't feel like they have to rush
03:21 to the NFL to chase that money, if, hey, the situation,
03:24 the timing is not right for me,
03:26 and I can continue to make some money
03:27 and support my family staying here in school,
03:30 hey, that's probably not gonna make all the NFL scouts
03:33 and talent evaluators and the billionaire suits happy.
03:36 But I think it certainly is one of those NIL wrinkles
03:41 that will have a big effect here on college football.
03:44 - I don't understand the declaration part of it.
03:48 In other words, if you're an underclassman,
03:50 you're supposed to declare or announce for the NFL draft
03:53 within seven days following the national championship.
03:57 So is he saying he won't make a declaration?
04:00 Is that what he's saying?
04:01 Because is somebody gonna draft him if he hasn't declared?
04:04 Or, that's the part I can't figure out.
04:06 I mean, I get what he's saying.
04:08 He'd like to have the best of both worlds.
04:11 And, you know, making $3 million a year in NIL,
04:14 I'm like, in a past life when players couldn't do that,
04:16 what's the rush to get out?
04:18 But at the same time,
04:21 following the structure of the timelines
04:23 that are set up leading up to the NFL off season,
04:25 up to the draft,
04:26 seven days after the college national championship,
04:28 you're supposed to declare as an underclassman.
04:31 Is he going to declare or is he not going to declare?
04:33 I mean, it's not like all the teams,
04:36 let's say you're some team like the Cardinals
04:38 that maybe he doesn't wanna play for.
04:39 He doesn't like the organizational structure of Arizona.
04:42 It's not like the Cardinals are gonna come out
04:43 and tell him the week of the national championship game,
04:46 "Hey, buddy, better not declare
04:48 'cause yep, we're taking you."
04:49 - Yeah, we're taking you first overall.
04:52 - That's the disconnect for me.
04:53 I don't understand that part of it.
04:55 - Yeah, no, that makes, I mean, that makes sense.
04:57 Go ahead, Big O.
04:58 - No, that's strange.
05:00 And quite honestly, hey man,
05:02 it's the NFL, dog.
05:06 All right, just, you know,
05:09 if you don't wanna go, don't go,
05:11 but you don't really have,
05:15 you don't have a choice.
05:17 I mean, whoever's gonna pick you is gonna pick you.
05:20 That's probably gonna really deter some teams
05:23 from picking you, honestly.
05:24 Maybe that's why he's coming out with it like that.
05:28 Who knows?
05:29 I don't know.
05:29 - Maybe that's his choice.
05:30 You're exactly right, Elwin, because you alluded to,
05:34 I mean, I was 13 in 1983 when John Elwood did this,
05:38 but I was old enough to remember.
05:40 It seemed very much without precedent.
05:43 And wait a minute, how can you do this?
05:45 The Colts are drafting, you go to the Colts.
05:46 That's how this works.
05:47 Well, he was John Elwood.
05:49 And now history tells us he was John Elwood.
05:52 So you have to have a certain cache to do that.
05:55 And now I would argue Caleb Williams
05:57 might in fact have that.
05:58 He's that type of player, or at least appears
06:01 to have that potential type of talent and potential.
06:04 But Eli, same type of thing.
06:07 That was more like, are she getting involved?
06:10 And they wanted a big market situation
06:12 from to cash in on marketing opportunities
06:15 and San Diego wasn't viewed that way.
06:17 Yeah, similar but different situations.
06:19 But this one, you're right, Elwin,
06:21 maybe what he's doing is lining this up
06:24 to deter certain teams from drafting him.
06:27 I mean, again, he wanted to be in the draft,
06:30 or isn't he?
06:31 That's the question.
06:31 You either forego the draft or you don't.
06:34 In other words, a week after the national championship,
06:37 he's either returning to college.
06:39 You see what I mean?
06:40 Or he's not going to the NFL, one way or the other.
06:42 That's the part that is unique here.
06:44 But maybe what this does, it precipitates change
06:47 on the college front, where they relapse some of those roles
06:52 in terms of you have to, in a very tough fashion,
06:56 declare one way or the other definitively.
06:59 And maybe some of that will be loosened up
07:00 moving forward in the years to come.
07:02 But there has to be some level of structure to it.
07:05 Because you can't just have the Wild West
07:07 where everybody declares for the draft,
07:10 and then half the players or prospects
07:13 don't like where they're drafted.
07:14 And now the NFL's sitting there, and they drafted seven guys,
07:17 and only three of them are coming to camp.
07:19 You can't have that either, and the NFL won't sit there.
07:20 Well, no.
07:21 Yeah, I don't think that would be possible.
07:23 Where does this go?
07:24 Is he in the draft pool, or isn't he?
07:28 Right.
07:28 They're not going to let him do the NBA thing, right?
07:32 Where you can declare for the draft,
07:33 but as long as you don't hire an agent,
07:35 you can go back to school.
07:36 I don't see the NFL ever--
07:37 That's not me.
07:38 --that's never--
07:39 --without changing some rules on that front.
07:41 The second you declare, your college eligibility is gone.
07:44 It's nice to say, hey, I don't have to go to the NFL draft.
07:47 I have $3 million waiting on me at USC for another year.
07:50 But you've got seven days to say that
07:51 after the national championship.
07:52 It's not like you can declare, and then three weeks
07:57 before the NFL draft in April, the end of April,
07:59 beginning of May, say, I don't like
08:00 what the way this is sounding, the way this is looking.
08:02 I'm coming back.
08:02 You can't do that unless the NCAA changes a bunch of rules.
08:06 So that's the part we have to figure out.
08:10 Yeah, I think you're right.
08:11 And you know what, guys?
08:13 Maybe this is the cynic in me, but I also,
08:16 as we're talking this all out, maybe it's just a power move
08:19 by Caleb Williams and his father to try and get more NIL money
08:22 from USC and their boosters and their trust.
08:27 It can simply be that as well, too.
08:29 We know how negotiations work.
08:30 Sometimes people bluff.
08:31 Sometimes people say things that they don't mean just
08:34 to see how some people are going to react.
08:36 Maybe it's just as simple as, hey, we go out here and shake
08:39 some of these feathers.
08:40 Maybe we can get you an extra million or two bucks
08:43 from some USC boosters.
08:44 Maybe you can take it ransom style.
08:45 If you ever want to see me worth 13 as a Trojan again,
08:48 you have seven days to comply with my demand.
08:51 That's right.
08:51 That's right.
08:52 And I want half a million in 50s.
08:55 I want half a million in 20s.
08:57 I want half a million in 10s.
09:01 But certainly another branch of this tree
09:07 that is this brand new NIL quirk in college football
09:11 and how it continues to change and evolve
09:13 and all these things, something that we will obviously
09:16 keep an eye on here.
09:17 We're going to take a break.
09:18 We come back on the other side.
09:19 I know, Wes.
09:20 Before we take the break, real quick,
09:23 I want to get this trivia knocked out
09:24 before we get into the preview because this is a WVU
09:27 scheduling trivia question.
09:28 Let me ask you guys.
09:31 And Skyler, it might be cool if you could,
09:33 even on the YouTube side, pop up the schedule on the screen
09:36 so people can consider before they answer.
09:38 Here's the question.
09:40 Which games on West Virginia's schedule this year
09:44 have or will pit two Orange Bowl champions against each other?
09:49 And what I mean by that is this.
09:50 West Virginia is a former Orange Bowl champion.
09:52 We won the Orange Bowl.
09:54 OK?
09:55 Penn State won the Orange Bowl.
09:57 So last week was a matchup between two
09:59 former Orange Bowl champions.
10:02 We have two more of those games remaining on the schedule.
10:06 So there's three total.
10:07 Out of 12 games, three of West Virginia's games
10:10 on the schedule are matchups between two
10:13 former Orange Bowl champions.
10:15 One was Penn State last week.
10:16 Two more to come.
10:18 Who are the two more to come this year
10:20 on West Virginia's schedule?
10:21 In other words, who do we face that, like us,
10:24 has won an Orange Bowl?
10:27 There's only two left.
10:28 Big O, you guess first.
10:31 Oh, God.
10:32 Are you looking it up?
10:33 I'm not.
10:34 I swear, I'm not looking.
10:35 I'll put my hands here.
10:35 I'm not looking.
10:36 I just pulled up our--
10:37 I just pulled up our--
10:38 I swear, I pulled up our schedule real quick
10:40 just to make sure I had all the teams in front of me.
10:42 I swear.
10:43 Orange Bowl.
10:44 Maybe the Sooners.
10:50 Bing, bing, that's one.
10:51 Good job.
10:52 That was going to be one of my guesses.
10:54 Bing, bing, there's one.
10:55 So out of three games, we've already
10:57 played one against Penn State, who won the Orange Bowl.
11:00 We will play Oklahoma later in the season.
11:02 I got this.
11:03 You got another guess, Big O, or you want me to go?
11:06 You got it.
11:06 Let's see if you got it.
11:08 BYU.
11:11 That's incorrect, sir.
11:12 Cincinnati.
11:17 Is that your final answer?
11:20 Easy, Regis Philbin, I mean.
11:24 Big O, I don't know.
11:25 I'm trying to think.
11:26 I feel like Cincinnati--
11:27 Orange Bowl, I mean, that's a pretty big--
11:32 No, I was going to say it's not Pitt.
11:33 It's not Pitt.
11:35 Not Pitt.
11:36 No, come on.
11:37 Wait, is it Duquesne?
11:38 Is it Duquesne?
11:39 It is Duquesne.
11:41 The 1937 Orange Bills champion, Duquesne Dukes,
11:45 with a 13-12 victory over Mississippi State.
11:49 Yes, it's Duquesne.
11:51 Yes, very well played.
11:52 When you think about the blue bloods of college football,
11:55 right behind Oklahoma is Duquesne.
11:56 So that makes sense.
12:00 Oh, and here you and I are trying
12:01 to really think about this.
12:03 And we should have known with the Duquesne preview
12:05 that that's a classic Jed move there.
12:08 Perfect segue.
12:09 Wes, now take your break.
12:11 Now we've got to get the break because we're all embarrassed
12:13 here.
12:13 We've got to let Jed dunk on us when we go to commercial.
12:16 But when we come back, you sneaky snake,
12:21 you will talk about those Duquesne Dukes
12:23 on the other side.
12:24 You are in the gun.
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13:00 be sure to follow us on Twitter @InTheGunPodcast.
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14:10 Let's go, Mountaineer fans.
14:13 You're tuned in to In the Gun with Wes, the runaway beer
14:16 truck, and the signal caller.
14:19 Back in the gun here.
14:20 It is time now to take a deep dive at the upcoming matchup.
14:24 The home opener against the Duquesne Dukes.
14:27 Yes, Pittsburgh's foremost athletic program
14:30 coming down to-- collegiate athletic program coming down
14:33 to Morgantown before some other--
14:34 I don't know, Panthers or something,
14:36 some brawl out in the backyard, I've
14:39 been told, is the following week.
14:40 I don't know, but this is the granddaddy with the Dukes
14:43 coming to town.
14:44 6 PM Saturday night is the kickoff.
14:46 And Jed, here's where I want to go to you to start this.
14:51 This is a football game.
14:52 This is 60 minutes.
14:53 This is where crazy things have happened
14:55 and teams can lose games like this.
14:58 But we also know--
14:59 I mean, there's a reason why it's--
15:01 at least I looked earlier today, I
15:03 couldn't find a spread on this game, no over-unders,
15:06 none of that stuff, because it's one of those
15:08 that they kind of take off the board,
15:09 because they view it as so lobs--
15:12 the ESPN predictor says that WVU wins this game 99.8%
15:16 of the time, or something like that.
15:19 So when you're doing a game preview that is on paper
15:23 as lopsided as this one, where do you begin?
15:27 Look at it like this.
15:28 Like, let's drop the pretense, and we
15:34 should win this football game going away.
15:36 We should win this football game going away,
15:38 but there's a lot of things we have to demonstrate and show
15:40 and can find in ourselves along the way.
15:42 I always remind people, the team in 2011
15:46 that won the Orange Bowl, the Geno, Stedman, Tavon team,
15:51 was losing 12 to 10 to Norfolk State at halftime.
15:55 They were.
15:56 I always remind people of that.
15:58 So take care of your business.
16:00 Don't put yourself in that kind of situation.
16:02 Not to claw your way out in the second half, as that team did.
16:05 So when you look at-- at Neal's history, for instance,
16:08 against FCS opponents, because this is an FCS opponent,
16:11 former 1AA, we have faced four with Neal as the head coach.
16:17 Towson, 65 to 7 in 2022.
16:20 Long Island, 66 to nothing in 2021.
16:23 Eastern Kentucky, 56 to 10.
16:25 The COVID year, that crazy empty stadium season opener.
16:29 And then the JMU game.
16:30 Different animal.
16:31 They were a really good FCS team about to move up.
16:34 We were in a transition.
16:35 We weren't a very good football team at all in so many ways.
16:39 But the 20 to 13 dogfight in that one.
16:41 Even you go back to Troy.
16:43 As a head coach, Neal faced four FCS teams at Troy,
16:47 which is a G5 school, right?
16:49 He beat Florida A&M, 59 to 7.
16:51 Alabama State, 34 to 7.
16:54 Austin Peay, 57 to 17.
16:55 And Charleston Southern, 44 to 16.
16:57 This should not be a competitive game, OK?
17:01 You don't want to make it a competitive game.
17:03 One of the goals is don't make it
17:04 a competitive game for the half.
17:07 So you want to get a lot of reps.
17:08 You want to solve a lot of issues.
17:10 You want to work out kinks.
17:11 You want to get as many bodies on the field as you can.
17:14 And we'll talk about the things that Duquesne
17:16 can do to get creative and not let you put the game away
17:20 as easily as you want to.
17:21 We'll get into that.
17:23 But when you look at it big picture, let's start,
17:25 do this first, do that, and then work our way down.
17:27 You don't want this to be a game.
17:29 If it is a game, well under the second half,
17:31 you've got very obvious problems.
17:32 And here to four, it hasn't been against one of these teams.
17:35 But they're not just going to show up and do their part.
17:38 I mean, they're still scholarship football players.
17:40 They still put pads and helmets on, right, Owen?
17:42 I mean, they're still going to want to hit and tackle.
17:44 This is the biggest game that they'll play this year.
17:47 So it's going to matter to them.
17:49 So they're not just going to roll over and do their part.
17:51 So you have to show up and make sure you do your part.
17:54 I mean, Owen, you played in some of these games, right?
17:56 So give us your perspective and what
17:58 that was like from a preparation standpoint.
18:00 You got to stay crisp.
18:02 You got to stay focused.
18:03 That's not always easy.
18:04 But right now, we should be coming out pissed off,
18:06 hungry for our first win, whether it's
18:08 against Duquesne or what Duquesne was formally
18:12 called in 1878, the Pittsburgh Catholic
18:14 College of the Holy Ghost.
18:16 So no matter who you're playing, you've
18:17 got to take care of your business, right, Owen?
18:19 Yeah, I remember playing Eastern Washington.
18:23 And you've got to remember, this is kind of like--
18:26 this is their championship game, so to speak.
18:29 This is their Super Bowl of big teams they're able to play.
18:33 And they have everything to gain,
18:36 and we have everything to lose.
18:38 So to your point, you got to come out crisp.
18:43 We have mistakes that we made last week
18:45 that we have to correct.
18:47 There's things that we need to try to show.
18:50 We need to be able to throw the ball downfield and stretch
18:53 the field.
18:54 We need to shore up those procedural penalties mistakes.
18:58 Obviously, we know we could probably just run
19:06 ice the whole game down the middle,
19:08 and it is going to be what it is.
19:09 That's our strength of our team.
19:11 But I'd like us to see at least try some different things
19:15 with what we can do.
19:16 I was even kind of throwing it around with some friends
19:19 I was talking with earlier.
19:20 It'd be cool if we are doing well in the game split time,
19:25 have Garrett have his first half,
19:27 and then maybe Nico the second half just
19:30 to get him some PT for development anyways,
19:34 but just to kind of see what he can do as well.
19:38 But you got to come out sharp, and you can't snooze on it
19:41 because you'll get beat.
19:43 You'll get beat.
19:44 And these teams, I'm telling you,
19:45 this is their chance to come and play big time football
19:48 in front of a big time crowd.
19:50 So you can't look by them.
19:53 Weston, Bob--
19:54 And you know what?
19:55 Go ahead.
19:56 I was just going to say, to add to Owen's point too,
19:58 like of this opportunity for these guys,
20:01 two years ago they played at TCU.
20:03 Last year they played Florida State and Hawaii as well.
20:08 I mean, Hawaii not on the same level as Florida State and TCU,
20:11 but still a D1 program.
20:13 I mean, those guys that are on this roster
20:15 will have some experience running out
20:17 into big stadiums against Power 5 opponents in a game
20:20 where they're supposed to lose by 30, 40 points.
20:23 So they won't be overwhelmed by that moment, at least.
20:27 Now, they didn't fare well in any of those games.
20:30 I mean, they kept it relatively competitive with Hawaii,
20:32 but TCU and Florida State blew them out.
20:35 But that's an interesting wrinkle too, Jed,
20:37 because like you mentioned Towson,
20:38 you mentioned Long Island.
20:39 Those teams weren't playing Florida State and TCU
20:42 as well coming into Morgantown.
20:44 So they'll be ready for the moment.
20:46 And there's other kids populating the roster,
20:49 and they're always-- or with these FCS teams,
20:51 they have an SEC transfer at running back.
20:53 So you don't think he's running out in front of some big crowds
20:56 in his career so far.
20:57 But it troubles me when people look at a game like this
21:02 and say you can get nothing out of it.
21:04 Look, any time you step on the field
21:07 in a competitive environment with pads on,
21:09 if you know the game of football,
21:11 you can watch the two teams playing
21:13 and get something out of it.
21:14 You can extract something any time
21:17 there is a competitive game.
21:19 I don't care how overmatched one team might be or appear to be.
21:22 Like we talked about this early last season.
21:25 I mean, Kansas came out and took care of business
21:27 against Tennessee Tech 56 to 10.
21:29 Nobody was paying much attention to that.
21:31 We were, because Kansas looked like they
21:33 were doing what you should do against that type of team,
21:36 whereas Tennessee had never done that before.
21:37 Yeah, you weren't used to seeing it.
21:39 So you can tell something every series, to some extent
21:42 every rep, irrespective of who the competition is.
21:45 There's something you can tell across the board with 11
21:48 on 11 football when you know what to look for.
21:51 Now, is it going to make you this battle tested team that's
21:55 ready to wage war in the fourth quarter against some
21:58 of these better teams on our schedule?
22:00 No, that's not what this is about.
22:01 But everything is a test.
22:03 Can you be crisp?
22:04 Can you be focused in a week that the world's telling you
22:08 you don't need to be?
22:09 And it says a lot about you if you can show up
22:12 and be incredibly focused, incredibly crisp against
22:15 an opponent that, for all intents and purposes,
22:18 seems like you can get away with not being any of those things.
22:21 Can you be?
22:22 Because if you are, that's the mark of a good football team.
22:25 We talked about last week at Penn State,
22:28 this was a relatively clean effort,
22:30 clean in the sense that there were
22:32 no turnovers on the offensive side.
22:34 We only had five total penalties.
22:35 Can you have another clean effort?
22:38 Can you have another clean effort
22:39 against a overmatched opponent?
22:42 That's not just going to show up and roll over.
22:44 They want to stay in this game as long as they
22:47 can to make life difficult. Our goal
22:50 is to not let them do that.
22:51 And ultimately, you want the day ending
22:53 with the kind of script Owen just talked about.
22:55 You want Nico playing a lot, Garrett playing.
22:58 You want these freshmen that are going
23:00 to have to help us at some point logging more valuable reps
23:03 in a competitive environment.
23:06 Again, it drives me crazy when somebody says,
23:09 oh, you can't tell anything about some team
23:11 beating another team 82 to 6.
23:13 Well, then you don't know football well enough.
23:15 You don't know what to look for.
23:16 There are some things you can tell from every game.
23:19 Now, there are far more things you can tell from other games.
23:22 And that's kind of the approach that I look at this.
23:24 And again, we'll get into the matchups
23:27 offensively, defensively, the things
23:28 we need to look for even from a special team standpoint.
23:31 But the larger test is this.
23:33 Don't be in this circumstance against this opponent.
23:36 I'll never forget what Dana told that 2011 team in the locker room.
23:39 I'll never forget this.
23:40 This was when I recognized Dana doesn't
23:42 talk like most other coaches.
23:45 I came up around Rich, this level of intensity
23:48 that was second to none.
23:50 I was in there for Stu.
23:51 I mean, I was around Rick Trickett.
23:53 These are the head coaches that I was around.
23:56 And these are the messages to teams
24:00 that I heard in the locker room before we went on the field.
24:03 And this was Dana's second game, third game in Morgantown.
24:06 So we were still kind of getting to know each other.
24:08 And he told the team before we went on the field,
24:11 it wasn't this rah-rah, Newt Rockne,
24:12 win-win for the Gipper thing.
24:14 No, he's like, these guys aren't that good.
24:17 You're way better than them.
24:18 We got more scholarships.
24:19 We're faster.
24:20 We're bigger.
24:20 We're stronger.
24:21 We're way better than them.
24:23 He said, no, if you go out there and screw around and lay an A
24:26 and act like you don't have to show up and play,
24:28 you're going to find yourself in a dogfight.
24:30 If you go out and take care of business, we'll blow them out,
24:33 and we'll sub the whole second half and have fun.
24:35 He said, but if not, you're going
24:37 to be in a dogfight against a team
24:38 you shouldn't be in a dogfight, because you're
24:39 way better than them.
24:41 And what happens, we play-- we lay an A in the first half.
24:44 It's 12, 10 at halftime.
24:45 He literally broke up in a Gatorade,
24:48 looked at those guys, and said, I told you.
24:50 Here's your dogfight.
24:52 Here's your dogfight.
24:53 You made your bed.
24:54 Now get out.
24:54 You're better than them, but you sure
24:56 didn't look like in the first half.
24:57 You're going to look like in the second half.
24:58 On the second half, trailing 12 to 10,
25:00 we outscored them 45 to nothing to win 55 to 12.
25:03 But his point was well taken.
25:05 You're better than them.
25:06 But it doesn't matter if you're better than them.
25:08 You show up and don't execute like Owen's talking about.
25:11 Yep, absolutely.
25:12 Funny aside for you, five years in Morgantown for me,
25:16 that was the one game I missed as a student was that game,
25:20 because I got invited to sit in a suite at the big house
25:24 for the Michigan-Notre Dame game, college game day,
25:27 all that stuff.
25:28 And I was like, yeah, all right, I got to go.
25:29 And then I'm sitting there tailgating in Ann Arbor,
25:31 looking at my phone like, son of a-- what are we doing?
25:34 What the hell is going on here?
25:35 It's my fault, because this is the one game I'm missing in my
25:39 five years as a student.
25:41 But yeah, fortunately, they took care of business.
25:43 And I didn't have to sweat that one out very much.
25:45 All right, Jed, matchups then, right?
25:47 Well, quickly, a thank you to our friends at Toothman Ford.
25:50 We all know cars cost less in Grafton.
25:52 They're doing great stuff for our student athletes in NIL.
25:55 I don't know.
25:56 I heard they might even have Caleb Williams calling them up
25:58 for some favors here soon.
25:59 So make sure you're getting your butts on down to Grafton
26:03 and support those who support our Mountaineers.
26:05 Taj Butts is his name there, Jed.
26:09 I mean, that's just a great football name.
26:11 The running back for Duquesne, who was at Missouri,
26:16 Jed mentioned SEC kid.
26:17 Taj Butts is his name.
26:20 Jed, 104 yards on just nine carries in Duquesne's week one
26:24 win.
26:25 So all right, how do you bottle this guy up and not
26:27 let him get going and not let them
26:29 get any momentum established?
26:31 Yeah, he's a kid.
26:33 Explosive has a burst, very compact, 5'10", 210 pounds.
26:38 Pretty shifty kid, Owen, runs with some lower body strength.
26:41 You're going to have to bring him down.
26:43 I mean, they got another kid in Jamario Clements.
26:46 And Clements is a kid that--
26:48 another 5'10", two bills kid.
26:50 So they have some physicality to them
26:52 and some punch in their run game.
26:55 So you're going to have to control your gaps.
26:57 You're going to have to find a way to get some penetration.
27:00 The guy pulling the trigger, when you look on the perimeter,
27:04 Darius Perrantes.
27:05 Now what's interesting about this guy,
27:07 he's a Rhode Island transfer, but he's
27:09 been there a handful of years.
27:11 In 2021, he made his-- he's been a backup for the better part
27:15 of the last couple of years, but their starter
27:16 was dinged up on and off.
27:17 So he got to play quite a bit, but he's the man
27:19 coming into the season, Perrantes.
27:22 And two years ago, he made his first start
27:25 with Duquesne against Ohio U, the Bobcats.
27:28 And all they did in that game was go on the road to Athens.
27:31 And it was the first time in the history of the program
27:33 they knocked off an FBAS school.
27:36 They beat them 28-26 in his first start.
27:40 So just imagine, oh, and that's kind of their sugar
27:43 bowl win over Georgia.
27:45 This guy started-- his first career start was in that game.
27:48 They won that game in that environment.
27:50 So he's been pulling the trigger and making plays for them
27:53 off and on for a long time.
27:55 So he's a guy that understands the big picture, what they're
27:58 trying to do offensively.
27:59 Now, when you look at him, he's a thick kid
28:01 that you really got to secure in the pocket.
28:03 I mean, one of these plays that he made against Edinburgh
28:05 last week, it looked like backyard football.
28:07 It really did.
28:08 They had a corner blitz from the boundary,
28:10 and the corner had him dead right.
28:11 And he kind of just ducked and shook him off.
28:13 And then he just extends the play and breaks out.
28:15 He throws a 40-yard touchdown.
28:17 And I just had to wash the body language of that corner,
28:19 like, are you kidding me?
28:20 How did I let that happen?
28:22 So you have to bring him down.
28:24 You have to secure the tackle.
28:26 He has some size to him as well.
28:27 He's a thick 220, a compact 6-foot kind of guy.
28:31 But he's played a lot of football.
28:33 He's seen a lot of things.
28:34 And they're offensive coordinator.
28:35 You kind of get the sense.
28:37 This guy is-- first of all, he's been there
28:39 on that staff for 12 years.
28:41 And he's been in this role coaching the quarterbacks
28:44 and serving as coordinator since 2016, Anthony Goria,
28:49 former player, very successful quarterback at that level.
28:52 So I think he has a good relationship
28:56 from a play caller to quarterback
28:58 when you look at him and Perrantes.
29:00 So you've got to secure the tackle.
29:01 Don't let this kid escape and extend plays.
29:03 If you do that, if you let him extend plays
29:05 and he shakes loose from a pressure package,
29:08 now all you're doing is, what's the concern of our unit
29:11 defensively, the back end?
29:12 We're still trying to find ourselves on the back end.
29:15 We gave up all these big plays last week.
29:17 That was a shortcoming of ours a year ago.
29:19 We're trying to find ourselves in the secondary.
29:21 Well, the last thing you want to do
29:23 is let this guy extend a play for another three or four
29:26 seconds and add that much more stress
29:28 on our secondary, which has already struggled.
29:30 So don't let that happen.
29:32 On the perimeter, another transfer.
29:34 That's a recurring theme, not just in college football
29:36 in general, but more specifically
29:38 with teams at this level.
29:39 You see a lot of it.
29:40 There's a wide out named DJ Powell, number four.
29:43 He's a Bethune-Cookman transfer.
29:45 He's 6'3", pushing two bills, probably in the low 190s,
29:49 but plays a pretty physical brand of football
29:51 when there's a 50-50 ball in the air.
29:53 I mean, he's made multiple plays.
29:55 I see there's a great level of trust
29:57 Perrantes has with this kid.
29:58 He will put it up and give him a jump ball.
30:01 And just as often or more often than not,
30:03 that kid wins those jump balls.
30:04 But that's something to definitely keep an eye on.
30:07 So when you look at the tests that
30:09 are going to present themselves for West Virginia,
30:11 I think one of the things you have to look at is, again,
30:14 Lee Koba played lights out football last week,
30:16 no matter how you stack.
30:17 And I mean, we always talk about when
30:19 it comes to the metrics and these websites,
30:22 we all have this love-hate relationship
30:24 with Pro Football Focus, for instance.
30:26 I mean, sometimes-- I have like a 40-snap rule
30:29 with Pro Football Focus.
30:31 Because when you look at the wide array of guys
30:34 that they have grading that tape,
30:36 sometimes the evaluation that you're looking at
30:38 does not match what you're studying on the game tape.
30:40 It doesn't at all.
30:42 Guess who the highest-graded tackling team all of last year
30:46 in the Big 12 was by Pro Football Focus?
30:48 Guess who it was.
30:50 WVO.
30:51 West Virginia.
30:52 The PFF had us as the best tackling team in the Big 12.
30:56 So if all you're going to do is read stats on PFF's website
30:59 without corroborating that with some film study, which I do,
31:04 that's where my 40-snap rule comes in.
31:06 In other words, if PFF gives me a stat,
31:08 and they're good for a lot of good stuff--
31:09 they are.
31:10 I'll give them credit.
31:11 I want to evaluate and get the sense of, all right,
31:14 the guy that was grading this to attach that number to it
31:17 knew what he was doing.
31:19 And that's kind of what I was looking at
31:20 with Lee Koba last week.
31:22 But they have a stat at Pro Football Focus,
31:25 and it's called STOP.
31:27 Not just a tackle, but a stop.
31:29 And they define that as a tackle that constitutes
31:31 a failure for the offense.
31:33 So we all know that Lee Koba had 13 total tackles last week.
31:36 And it was a nice blend that appeals to me.
31:39 Seven solo tackles, six assisted.
31:42 And the six is kind of--
31:43 I always say that the dog chasing the bone.
31:45 He wants a piece of that meat.
31:46 He's flying after the pile.
31:47 He wants a piece of it.
31:48 So he had 13 total tackles.
31:50 But maybe even more impressively,
31:51 when you look at that stop, that failure by the offense,
31:54 he had a Big 12 best eight stops,
31:58 more than any other Big 12 defender in week one action.
32:01 And some of those Big 12 defenders
32:03 were not playing Penn State.
32:04 We know that.
32:05 So great football by Lee Koba.
32:08 Let's see if he can take the next step
32:10 and just absolutely dominate a lesser opponent this week,
32:14 because he needs to.
32:15 And we need him to.
32:17 If we want to put these guys away and get the reps
32:19 that we're talking about getting with so many bodies
32:22 and hockey substitutions, guys like Lee Koba
32:24 have to take care of business early.
32:26 And then we had nine hurries and seven quarterback
32:29 hits against an incredibly talented Penn State
32:32 offensive line and an incredibly talented quarterback
32:35 in Drew Aller.
32:36 I mean, some of the things Drew Aller was doing when
32:38 we almost sacked him, those quick delivery throws,
32:42 those quick answer throws, he looked like a guy
32:44 when I was studying that film that
32:45 has played in this offense a whole heck of a lot more
32:48 longer than [AUDIO OUT] one star in spot play last year.
32:55 He was very top of where his quick answer throws were.
32:58 But those are the types of things
33:00 that defensively I think we need to take a look at.
33:03 And just as importantly than that,
33:04 when you look at snap counts, that's
33:07 one of the things that kind of tells the tale of how
33:09 a game is unfolding.
33:10 Let's talk D-line, and I want you to jump in here first.
33:13 Sean Martin led the charge with 54 snaps against Penn State.
33:17 I'm going to go through quickly, and here's
33:19 how things went out.
33:20 Eddie Vee had 48.
33:21 Big Mike Lockhart had 44.
33:23 Fatorma Moba, the Penn State transfer, pitched in with 15.
33:26 Dee Hawkins, a dozen.
33:28 Tomy, a young guy from Kentucky, he made some plays for us.
33:32 It's just eight snaps.
33:33 Now Hammond Russell, didn't it feel
33:35 like Hammond Russell was somewhat of an impact player
33:37 in that game?
33:38 He had five snaps.
33:39 Do you think it's going to be limited to five moving forward?
33:41 I don't think so.
33:42 And then Jalen Thornton with four.
33:44 So first, before we go further to the back end,
33:46 the second and third levels, what
33:48 do you think about that snap count mix
33:50 and what we need to do to take care of our business
33:52 against Duquesne defensively?
33:54 Well, obviously, the first group got heavy reps.
34:00 We got a lot of reps for the first team.
34:04 Versus Duquesne, probably the game plan
34:07 is, hey, depending on what we're doing with the score,
34:11 get those guys in and out.
34:12 Play those twos.
34:13 Get them some reps.
34:14 Kind of get them to see if it's a little bit more action.
34:18 Some of those guys who kind of outshined in the lesser reps,
34:21 probably get a little more playing time this week.
34:25 And to their hat, well-deserved, right?
34:28 I mean, you got to take those opportunities
34:31 and make the best of them.
34:34 And sometimes, they're few and far between.
34:37 You only get a couple reps here and there.
34:40 So hopefully, up front, obviously, we
34:45 got to get some pressure on this guy.
34:47 He's a big quarterback, 220, right?
34:51 Get some pressure on this guy.
34:53 Make a move.
34:54 See how we can work within the offensive line.
34:58 Make sure that we're playing sound up front, playing tough,
35:01 getting the penetration that we need to to stop the pass game
35:05 and stuffing the run when they do run the ball.
35:08 So hopefully, some of those second team guys
35:10 get some reps in there.
35:11 We can kind of see what they can do as far as moving on
35:14 for the rest of the season.
35:15 And hopefully, they can help out the best they can.
35:17 And we see good things.
35:20 And Wes, also, one of the things to consider,
35:22 we're going to want to do this.
35:24 You want to take care of business.
35:25 You want to knock them out early.
35:26 You want to rep a lot of kids.
35:28 But you also want to do it being somewhat vanilla.
35:31 In other words, you're not going to see a lot of exotic twists.
35:33 We don't want to show them to Pitt
35:34 if we haven't shown them--
35:35 You ain't run any trick plays this week against Duquesne.
35:38 Yeah, unless you don't have any intention of running
35:41 the movie forward, right?
35:42 But so when we talk about--
35:45 This is base defense stuff, Jed.
35:47 What's that?
35:49 Base defense, yeah, that's right.
35:50 And we talked about it in camp.
35:52 D-line rotation of potentially eight, nine bodies, right?
35:56 That's what we were looking at.
35:57 So I just named eight guys that got snaps.
36:00 Now, I think the goal would be when
36:02 you look at the bottom half of those snaps, Jalen Thornton,
36:06 four, Hammond Russell, five, Tomei, eight, D. Hawkins, 12,
36:10 even Fitorno with 15.
36:12 They'll need to start climbing to even that out a little bit.
36:15 And then you have a Sonny Redwood coming back soon.
36:18 So don't look now, but that's now
36:20 nine guys that will be sharing that burden
36:22 and sharing those reps.
36:24 So that's something to monitor.
36:26 And I do think that we need to distribute that pretty
36:28 evenly in a game like this.
36:29 Now, when you go to the second and third level,
36:31 let's look at the backers and the DBs.
36:33 Trey Lathan, 61 snaps, led all defenders.
36:38 And I think we're all incredibly pleased with what
36:42 we saw out of Trey Lathan.
36:43 At Mike Backer, by the way.
36:44 So when we cross-train those guys, it puts you in position.
36:47 He can play Will, he can play Mike, he can move them around.
36:50 Beanie Bishop, 60 snaps.
36:52 Now, again, if I'm excited about anything
36:55 I saw out of any of our corners, or even anybody
36:59 on the back, in for that matter, it
37:00 would have been Beanie the other night.
37:01 He left a couple of turnovers on the table.
37:03 He's got to make the most of those, for sure,
37:06 because we've got to start stealing possessions.
37:08 But that being said, I think he held his own against a very
37:12 high-quality offense.
37:14 Let's see if he can take the next step.
37:17 Can he dominate this week?
37:19 And then set the table for what he's
37:20 ready to do moving forward against Pitt and on the line.
37:23 Lee Coble with 58 snaps.
37:24 We talked about Lee.
37:25 My guy, Anthony Wilson, 53 snaps.
37:28 I think it was a tremendous opportunity
37:30 when Marcus Floyd didn't make the trip.
37:32 He was a scratch because of the injury.
37:34 Marcus Floyd stepped-- or excuse me,
37:35 Anthony Wilson stepped right in and did, for the most part,
37:38 what we expected him to do.
37:40 With 53 defensive snaps, there's a physical edge
37:42 to him, a nastiness.
37:44 His disposition is what we need on that back end.
37:47 Andrew Wilson-Landt, he was forced into duty for a reason
37:50 I'll get into here in a second.
37:51 I don't think they intended for him to get 46 snaps,
37:55 but that's how it unfolded.
37:57 He didn't end up with 46.
37:58 Keyshawn Cobb, another safety, another transfer
38:00 that we're very high on, 43 snaps.
38:02 Jump right into the mix.
38:04 Aubrey Burks, 40 snaps.
38:06 Jared Bartlett, 49.
38:07 Lance Dixon, again, he's playing that spear,
38:10 but you're also moving him around a bit, 34 snaps.
38:13 Tyron Bradley, here's a guy we haven't talked much about.
38:16 Different body type.
38:18 When you put him in that spot and you can say, all right,
38:21 attack, attack, or drop into space and cover the pass,
38:23 6'3", 250 pounds, that's a nice asset.
38:27 And he had 30, excuse me, 25 snaps.
38:29 So that was a nice start for him.
38:31 And then finally, Montre Miller, who
38:33 was standing next to Main Street clothes
38:35 the entire second half, he got knocked out
38:37 of the game in the second quarter.
38:38 So he ended up only logging 12 snaps, which is part
38:41 of the reason AWL had 46.
38:43 So I expect once we get healthy, that to kind of equalize
38:47 a little bit.
38:48 But these are the types of things
38:49 we got to look at, guys.
38:50 When you're distributing those snap counts,
38:52 that's where experience comes.
38:54 Those are actual reps and actual action
38:56 and actual competitive environments.
38:58 I don't care who you're playing against.
39:00 That's a great experience for you.
39:02 So what can we do defensively to take care of business
39:05 early enough, execute the plan, ideally from base sets,
39:09 and then get a lot of faces coming in and coming out?
39:11 Yeah.
39:12 Yeah, no, absolutely.
39:13 That's the blueprint.
39:15 I think some of those names that you mentioned there, Jed,
39:17 from some of the guys who didn't have their strongest
39:21 performance at Beaver Stadium out there in Happy Valley,
39:24 I think I'd like to see a big bounce back from those guys
39:26 as well, too.
39:27 Wilson Lamp, Aubrey Burks, guys who
39:30 would have wanted some of those plays back.
39:32 Even Abeni Bishop, who I thought
39:33 played a pretty solid game, but like you mentioned,
39:35 had an opportunity, a couple turnovers.
39:37 Maybe some guys along that offensive line as well, too.
39:41 Garrett Green.
39:42 And again, there's different varying.
39:44 I'm not saying any of those guys were a disaster or terrible
39:46 or anything like that, but would probably
39:48 agree that they didn't have their best game or the game
39:50 that they wanted to, like you mentioned, go out there.
39:53 First couple series, execute.
39:55 If you're on defense, three and outs.
39:57 Three and outs, OK, maybe they pick up a first down here,
39:59 but no more than six or seven plays,
40:02 and you're off the field.
40:03 Offense, string drives together, maybe an explosive touchdown,
40:06 right?
40:06 Let's see a 60 or 70-yard touchdown, something like that.
40:09 Then let's see a nice 5, 6, 7, 8 play drive,
40:13 something in that regard.
40:15 Just something to get those guys feeling good in stadium
40:18 once again as well, too.
40:20 After a tough, very tough test up there in Penn State.
40:26 Thank you to our friends at Fortis
40:28 for presenting this episode of ITG as well, too.
40:31 For Roof Performance and Financial Security Garrett
40:33 Feed, make sure you visit fortis.us.com.
40:36 All right, Jed, bring her on home for us.
40:38 Final thoughts, final matchups to keep an eye on here.
40:41 Yeah, when you look at Duquesne's defense,
40:43 you just hit on something, Wes.
40:45 The 60 or 70-yard touchdowns, that's
40:46 how you put these teams away, the big plays.
40:48 Like when I think of CJ last year with the 80-plus yard
40:52 run against Towson.
40:53 Towson, yep.
40:53 One of the things that's--
40:55 this is incumbent upon the receivers to do.
40:58 If you want to put them away early, you block downfield.
41:03 Big plays are downstream from big blocks on the perimeter.
41:07 Right, Owen?
41:07 So the wideouts need to handle their business
41:11 on the perimeter.
41:12 I mean, look at the blocking on that 80-some-yard touchdown
41:14 CJ had last year against Towson.
41:16 Bryce Ford Wheaton took out two guys on that play.
41:19 But defensively, that's what has to happen
41:23 for these types of big plays to help put them away.
41:26 But Duquesne defensively-- and this
41:28 is where it gets a little more interesting.
41:29 They have a D coordinator, Mike Craig.
41:31 He took over-- he was an assistant.
41:32 Took over last year for a long-time assistant
41:34 that they bought for up there.
41:36 Was their coordinator for over a decade, a dozen years or so.
41:39 And the biggest thing was a year ago,
41:40 they found themselves as a defensive transition.
41:43 They went from a long-time and even front scheme,
41:46 more of a 4-2-5 scheme, to an odd front.
41:49 And from a personnel standpoint, that's never easy.
41:51 Of course, it's a little easier in the age of the portal.
41:53 So you can recruit your personnel
41:55 to fit the types of schemes.
41:57 Because even fronts and odd fronts
41:58 are two different animals.
42:00 Up front, even on the second level,
42:01 is what you're trying to do.
42:02 But when you look at some of the things
42:04 that they have succeeded in doing,
42:06 you can already see a leap that they took this offseason.
42:08 They struggled in that transition
42:10 to some extent last year.
42:11 I mean, first of all, I think as a team at large,
42:14 they struggled last year.
42:15 They were 4-7 last season, which is uncharacteristic for them.
42:18 That was a year that was marred by-- they
42:20 had a lot of injuries, and they had a lot of close losses.
42:23 And they were putting in a new defense
42:24 and selling an entirely new scheme.
42:26 Well, they started last week against Edinburgh.
42:28 Now, Edinburgh is overmatched against them
42:30 like they're overmatched against us.
42:32 But they took care of their business.
42:34 How did they do it?
42:35 One of the ways they did it, they forced five turnovers.
42:39 They forced four turnovers, guys, in the first quarter
42:42 against Edinburgh.
42:43 You want to put these guys away?
42:45 Imagine with the gun sounds, 15 minutes of the game,
42:48 we forced four turnovers.
42:49 Where do you get the scores out of it?
42:50 And that's kind of what they did.
42:52 Exactly.
42:53 So they've got some guys that--
42:56 they've got a pass rusher that we've got to look out for
42:58 and handle him.
42:59 He's 6'2", 255.
43:01 He's strong off the edge.
43:02 Kevin Kersinger, that's a kid that he
43:05 used to be a running back.
43:06 That speaks to his athleticism.
43:09 He had a physicality to him in the run game.
43:11 But a couple of years ago, he moved to linebacker.
43:13 Now he finds himself as an edge player.
43:16 They have a corner in Aidan Garns.
43:18 He had a pick six, third or fourth play of the game
43:20 last week.
43:20 He read it, made a very skilled pick that was thrown behind him,
43:24 took it to the house to get in the early lead.
43:27 He's a physical kid that plays the ball well.
43:30 He plays above his 165 pounds.
43:32 He's not a real big kid from Philly,
43:34 but he plays above that size.
43:36 Another kid named Ty Howard, he's 6'0", 195 pounds.
43:42 He's going to be a factor, potentially,
43:44 as a second level threat in the pass rush.
43:46 So these are all guys--
43:48 Shane Stump, transfer from Youngstown State.
43:51 He's played a lot of college football.
43:53 These are guys that have played a lot of football.
43:55 They've been through the battles with them.
43:56 And Tony Oepps, they're free safety.
43:59 You're going to have to account for him.
44:01 They have a preseason all-conference D
44:03 tackle in AJ Ackerman.
44:05 That's their 310-pound guy.
44:07 So can Zach Frazier and the guards
44:09 handle their business on the interior?
44:11 But that's one of the things that I look at.
44:13 First of all, we went from last week, Owen,
44:16 an even front defense with Manny Diaz,
44:18 to this week, an odd front defense against Duquesne,
44:22 which is going to serve us well, because you're going to see
44:25 a lot of odd front schemes defensively
44:27 once we get into Big 12 play.
44:29 And again, next week, back into more of the even type stuff.
44:33 But this is a group that sometimes they'll
44:36 play games on third down.
44:37 It's that kind of tinkering where
44:39 they'll stand 11 guys with a handful of them
44:41 hovering around the line of scrimmage defensively,
44:44 along the defensive line, with nobody
44:45 with their hand in the dirt.
44:46 11 guys standing up.
44:47 They'll play some of those games.
44:48 You don't know what gap they're trying to get a beat on.
44:51 They like to bring pressure.
44:52 They like to, obviously, typical stuff,
44:54 they'll stunt and blitz behind it.
44:56 But a lot of five and six man pressures,
44:58 they'll throw some zero at you.
45:00 Again, I think that was a matchup thing against Edinburgh,
45:02 and more than will be against us.
45:04 And another thing, they'll test us up front in the sense
45:07 that they like to stem a lot.
45:08 What I mean by that, Wes, is--
45:10 Owen, you know what I'm talking about.
45:12 They move pre-snap along the defensive line.
45:14 So you might see a guy as an outside shade.
45:16 Next thing, they kick their front.
45:18 He's an inside shade.
45:19 Now, first of all, that tests your communication
45:21 on the offensive line.
45:22 But second of all, you've got to make sure
45:24 that you're not false starting.
45:26 I mean, that kind of movement.
45:28 When we think back to what ended up happening
45:30 with that bad snap at the end of the Oklahoma game, Norman
45:33 in 2020, that was the byproduct of Oklahoma
45:37 stemming so much before.
45:39 Now, they were giving a cadence with it.
45:40 Go.
45:41 And that made Zach snap the ball, hold it over to Hannibal.
45:43 But it tests you as an offensive line
45:46 when a team shows that much pre-snap movement.
45:48 So not only is it an out front configuration
45:51 that we haven't seen-- we'll see it later,
45:52 so it's good snaps for us--
45:54 but in addition to that, it's a lot of pre-snap movement.
45:56 So we're going to be tested with that, too.
45:59 Well, there we go.
46:00 I tell you what, it's good.
46:02 Listen, you want to put them away early,
46:04 but you also want to have some boxes that you
46:07 can check in the process, right?
46:09 Mentally, physically, like you mentioned,
46:11 from a preparation standpoint, in terms
46:13 of being prepared for these guys and knowing
46:15 what they're going to present and how you counter it
46:17 and limiting procedure--
46:20 We almost blocked a punt last week.
46:21 We came a whisker away from blocking
46:24 the first punt of the second half last week.
46:27 Can we finish that job against these guys?
46:29 Can you make a big play on special teams?
46:31 Can you return a kick?
46:32 Can you block a kick?
46:34 So in transition units, you have an opportunity--
46:37 because again, oftentimes, they talk
46:39 about depth being the issue, the big difference
46:42 between Power 5 football and FCS football
46:45 because of the scholarship numbers.
46:46 Well, that impacts your transition units,
46:49 which are populated by reserves as much as anywhere, right?
46:52 There's a lot of backups coupled with some starters
46:54 sprinkled in there.
46:56 But if you can make a play against their special teams
46:58 units, again, we're trying to stick to a script
47:01 to get us ahead early, to get us comfortable early,
47:05 and then have our way with who we sub in and sub out.
47:08 Special teams-- not to interrupt, but special teams
47:10 can play a role with that as well.
47:12 Who's going to be the guy that makes
47:13 the big play in the return game?
47:14 We haven't seen that since when Dick was a guppy.
47:16 Maybe this is the day.
47:17 Well, Jed, we haven't seen that since two years ago
47:19 when Winston Wright took the opening kickoff back
47:21 to the house against Long Island.
47:23 And it was like, all right, well, that's
47:26 how you start a game when you're playing a lesser opponent.
47:28 10 seconds into the game, you're up 7-0.
47:30 And that's how you get them thinking, oh, crap,
47:32 this is going to be a long day.
47:34 Here we go.
47:35 Yeah, something like that would absolutely go a long way
47:38 to putting these guys away.
47:40 All right, gentlemen, we've had pretty good fortune here
47:43 with our connections.
47:44 A couple little lags for Jed, but nothing crazy.
47:48 So let's get out of here before something bad happens.
47:52 Any final thoughts, any final word here?
47:54 Speak now or hold your peace till next week.
47:57 I wonder if you have--
47:58 if you haven't seen Phil, hit Phil Steel for the week.
48:01 That's right.
48:02 Yeah, make sure you're checking out our previous episode,
48:04 ITG 81.
48:05 Great stuff on our second annual Phil Thursday.
48:11 We've got some big things planned for you guys
48:13 in terms of merchandise.
48:14 We are now over 1,000 subscribers on YouTube.
48:17 So thanks to everybody that has joined us there.
48:20 And Skyler putting together the great production
48:22 and everything that's taking us to the next level.
48:25 So we got a bunch going on for you guys behind the scenes
48:28 as well, too, that we're kind of working on
48:29 and moving and shaking to bring you a better product and more
48:32 things as well, too.
48:33 ITGfootball.com, In The Gun podcast,
48:36 and all your different social media channels.
48:38 And as always-- well, hold on.
48:40 Jed, did you have a final thought first before I--
48:42 I was going to ask Owen.
48:43 Close us out.
48:45 You mentioned the Eastern Washington game.
48:47 We beat them 52 to 3, give or take.
48:50 I need to look it up and make sure.
48:52 What do you remember most about that game?
48:55 You only play so many games, right?
48:57 Now, that wasn't the Sugar Bowl against Georgia.
48:59 That wasn't the comeback against Louisville.
49:00 It wasn't the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma.
49:02 But it was one of a very short list of college football
49:05 games you got to play.
49:06 So what do you--
49:08 even as a guy who didn't play a whole lot in the game
49:11 because you guys got out early, give the listeners
49:15 and the viewers some perspective of how excited you still
49:19 were to step on the field in front of the crowd
49:22 to take live reps against an opponent that everybody said,
49:25 eh, they're not that excited.
49:26 They're not-- what do you remember about it?
49:28 Just hit us with that.
49:29 I remember they had this linebacker that played for him
49:35 who was-- he was like 5'2".
49:37 But he absolutely brought the wood.
49:40 And I wish I remembered his name,
49:42 but he was a hell of a player.
49:44 And my story is a little bit different than everybody else's
49:47 because I started at D3.
49:50 And I played with a lot of really great football players
49:53 that were all shapes and sizes.
49:55 That maybe if it had been a little bit taller,
49:58 or a little bit bigger, or a little bit faster,
50:00 or have a little more agility, or could throw it farther,
50:04 would be playing just the opportunity that I had gotten.
50:10 But there's nothing like a game day
50:13 because you're sick and tired of hitting your buddies all week.
50:18 In the old days where you hit in practice,
50:21 and it was time to showcase what you had.
50:25 And there's nothing better than singing "Country Roads"
50:28 at the end of a ball game.
50:31 Yeah, buddy.
50:33 It was 52 to 3.
50:35 Good call there by you, Jed.
50:37 The historian Jedgar Allen Poe at it once again.
50:41 Owen Schmidt had 17 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
50:47 And 36 yards through the air.
50:49 So a handful of touches there for Big O.
50:52 Caught a couple passes.
50:53 19-yard reception there.
50:56 7-yard touchdown run for Big O in that one as well, too.
51:00 So, hey, score a touchdown and I'm out of your field, baby.
51:02 Were those catches at fullback or at tight end?
51:05 Do you remember?
51:07 Oh, they might have been put me --
51:09 That was Eastern Washington.
51:11 You were running Ram then, right?
51:12 Or were you running Ram?
51:13 I don't think Ram came until 2007, did it?
51:15 Yeah, I mean, they did really --
51:17 I really evolved to tight end senior year.
51:20 That's when they really had me start
51:23 kind of doing the sniffer stuff.
51:25 Put me at tight end, put me in a little bit of, like, slot kind of.
51:30 Let them personnel with you on the field.
51:32 Yeah.
51:34 Honestly, I can't remember if it was at tight end.
51:37 It probably possibly could have been.
51:40 I know I did run --
51:42 They had me doing this wheel play for a while from the tight end,
51:46 from Ram formation.
51:48 But I can't honestly remember.
51:51 I have to go watch back the film, watch the tape, Jed.
51:54 I mean, unlike you, I can't remember all the plays.
51:58 It's honestly fantastic and beautiful, your mind,
52:02 because I wish I could be like that.
52:05 Old Sean McVay over here, I tell you.
52:09 Man, you always have those --
52:12 Marty Morningwig probably was one of the guys who was like,
52:17 "Hey, you know, he'd be talking to Coach Reed
52:20 or he'd be talking to some player."
52:21 Yeah, you remember, you know, eight years ago
52:24 when we were playing in Dallas and --
52:26 Oh, it was third quarter and it was --
52:29 He just mentions Coach Reed.
52:30 We're talking Super Bowl champion Andy Reed, but continue.
52:33 That's --
52:34 Yeah, no, I mean, it's just like those guys just remember every play.
52:41 They remember the formations.
52:43 Yeah, this is what I called it.
52:44 Then I was like, "Ah, change it up, call it the Z-drag,"
52:47 and whatever, whatever.
52:49 You know what I mean?
52:50 In my mind, it's just like,
52:52 "Man, I just want to know what the next play is
52:54 so I don't mess it up and I don't --
52:56 Don't mess up the next one.
52:58 Okay, here's -- The secrets are coming out now.
53:01 Who was your go-to guy?
53:03 Who did you have to cheat and ask?
53:05 Was it --
53:07 I was a student of the game.
53:08 I really studied the playbook, and I was a guy --
53:11 I was a flash card.
53:12 I would pull out flash, because, listen, we played --
53:17 With Coach Rod, man, we had 12 formations,
53:19 maybe 12 plays, legit.
53:22 Indeed, yeah.
53:23 And then you go to a legit West Coast offense
53:28 with Mike Holmgren at the helm,
53:30 and I'm telling you, dude, my head, like, blew apart
53:35 because, you know, you're looking for tags,
53:39 but you really had to know the formations
53:41 and who was all on the field,
53:42 because a tag might not be the same thing on the same play.
53:46 So I really had to study hard,
53:49 and flash cards was a big deal for me.
53:51 I legit was like --
53:54 I mean, every second of the day, man.
53:56 I had a whiteboard in my apartment,
53:59 and I studied hella film.
54:01 I was always watching film, but I was a student of the game.
54:04 But if I did need help --
54:07 Oh, yes.
54:08 If I did need help, usually it was scripted,
54:11 and I asked the coach before I went in.
54:14 Smart.
54:15 Wait, you say -- You say --
54:18 You say I remember everything. I don't remember everything.
54:20 Okay, but I promise you, I remember the picks.
54:25 I remember the picks.
54:26 Well, I mean, you're going to remember --
54:28 Somebody this morning asked me, this morning,
54:32 "Jeff, what's the most interception
54:33 you ever had in a game?"
54:34 Before the sentence was out of their mouth,
54:37 five against Jeff Castile, Shepard Grams in 1992.
54:39 We got to be 23-20.
54:41 And I fumbled.
54:43 I had six turnovers in one game against Castile.
54:45 But I'm a bastard. I'm still trying to get him back.
54:48 You know what's crazy?
54:50 Talking about that, football is a beautiful game
54:53 because it allows you to have short-term memory loss.
54:57 Yeah, it forces you to --
54:58 It is your benefit to forget the last play and move on.
55:02 It forces you to, yeah.
55:03 And you have to.
55:05 Yeah, yeah. Well said.
55:07 Absolutely do.
55:08 Remember the bad ones.
55:09 Absolutely do.
55:10 I was going to say, hopefully it'll be Duquesne
55:13 stewing on the bad ones this Saturday night
55:16 at Milan Pushkar Stadium.
55:18 We got to take care of this.
55:20 This Pittsburgh team that won an Orange Bowl,
55:23 we got to take care of.
55:25 Because right after that, we play a Pittsburgh team
55:26 that's never won an Orange Bowl.
55:28 That's right. That's exactly right.
55:31 And that Pittsburgh team that's never won an Orange Bowl
55:32 plays Cincinnati on Saturday night.
55:35 So let's hope the Bearcats bring out the gloves
55:37 and give Pitt all they can handle
55:39 and maybe beat them up a little bit for us.
55:41 Hey, I wouldn't hate it if that one went into overtime,
55:43 couple of -- maybe seven overtimes
55:45 between Cincinnati and Pitt.
55:47 I'll allow it. I'm not against it on Saturday night
55:50 there at Akershaw Stadium.
55:52 But it will be the Mountaineers and the Dukes, 6 p.m.,
55:55 once again, Saturday night.
55:56 Family day at Mountaineer Field,
55:59 hopefully one where all the families will be stress-free.
56:01 Listen, I'm taking my daughter, all right,
56:03 who's almost 2 years old. Just the two of us are going.
56:06 So, Mountaineers, my daughter really does not need to see me
56:09 dropping F-bombs and pulling my hair out
56:11 and stressing over a game against a 1AA opponent, all right?
56:15 So let's take care of business. Let's get this --
56:17 and maybe even I could get little Olivia out of there
56:19 a little early to get home from bedtime.
56:23 But, yes, let's get some feel-good
56:26 before, obviously, that big one, September 16th,
56:29 against those non-Orange Bowl-winning
56:31 Athletic University department from Pittsburgh.
56:35 That'll do it for us on this edition of "ITG."
56:37 Been a good week, a full week,
56:38 20 for your palate there to get you ready for the Dukes.
56:42 Once again, make sure you're checking out
56:43 "Phil Thursday" with Phil Steele.
56:45 And, as always, the last thing we ask of you is to be in here
56:48 and tell in here about your new favorite WVU football podcast.
56:53 For the Signal College Edgerinning
56:54 and the runaway beer truck Owen Schmidt
56:56 and our producer Skyler as well, too, I'm Wesley Uhler.
56:59 Thanks for listening, everybody. Enjoy the game.
57:01 And we'll talk to you next week.
57:02 You've been in the gun.
57:04 [GUNSHOTS]
57:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]