WVU Football Ends on a Dud

Another football season in the books and another disappointing bowl loss that will fester all the way up to spring workouts.

It's been a day since the Champs Sports Bowl ended and the head-shaking hasn't stopped yet. For all the good and bad the Mountaineers have endured this year, it was widely assumed that the team had found its way out of its midseason slumber and was going to salvage a lost BCS game opportunity, but yet there was still more frustration to come.

West Virginia has been in the news a lot thanks to the hiring of new offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting Dana Holgorsen.

Athletic Director Oliver Luck said on the sideline of last nights game to ESPN how he thought the offense had underwhelmed this season and he felt the talent was capable of a lot more, and boy did he hit the nail on the head after last night's pitiful performance by the outgoing OC Jeff Mullen.

The one thing that's baffled everyone this season is how this team seemed to stop itself on offense, there always this feeling with the West Virginia offense that it was running in place a lot of the time because we know the speed that it processes and we know not many teams can keep up with an offense that had the potential to be so prolific, so what happened?

Overcoaching happened, it was so simple during the Rich Rod era to see the way this team scored points and assume that with the way that team was constituted that a more complex offense was needed in case defenses wised up.

It's not a bad startegy, but the execution of that idea is what's bogged down this offense.

The passing game became the focus instead of the classic running attack that the golden years were built around and while that's fine, at times the running game was seemingly all but forgotten and when you have a talent like Noel Devine in your backfield, that's a problem.

Geno Smith has been a revelation this year for the Mountaineers and there's no doubt that he will continue to improve, but under this system his good play seemed to come despite the questionable play calling at times and that's not what you want out of your offense.

Last night was less about Geno's rough game and potential future surgery and more about the fact that this team has gone as far as it's going to go in its current iteration.

As much as I think Bill Stewart has done a solid job this year, it's clear that solid is not what the WVU program should be. It should be elite and hats much go off to Oliver Luck for seeing and doing what's necessary to put West Virginia back where it belongs on the national scene.

There's nothing wrong with three consecutive nine win seasons, but coming from the cloud nine heights of 2005-2007, more can be attained with the players than what has been acheived and it'll be a point of interest to see if the hiring of Holgorsen is enough to get back to the top. 

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Tuesday Night Football was Not Worth the Wait

I guess you can definitely say that the high from the Giants comeback has finally worn off. Last night the Eagles put forth their worst performance since Michael Vick was selected the starting quarterback and the explosive Eagles offense was missing in action as the Minnesota Vikings owned the Linc last night thanks in part to the play of an aggressive Minnesota defense and a coming of age display from rookie QB Joe Webb.

Webb made really clutch plays on the Vikings' final TD drive in the forth quarter which included a couple critical third down conversions.

Going into last night's contest all the talk was about how green Webb was and how the Eagles could get their defense on the right page by teeing off on the youngster from UAB who was originally drafted as a wide receiver.

When it all was said and done however, it was the Eagles defense that gave up the big plays in big spots that secured the Vikings victory.

As poor as the Eagles defense looked last night, we cannot forget about how terrible the Eagles offense looked. The rhythm, energy, balance, whatever you want to say an offense must have to be effective, it wasn't there for the Eagles last night.

It's surprising how tired and uninspired the Eagles look considering how poorly they started last week's game against the Giants. And now everyone's talking about how a prolific offense turns into what it's been the last seven and a half quarters.

Part of the problem for the Eagles as coach Andy Reid said after the game was the preparation of the team, it's evident that they just weren't ready and unfortunately Reid has a few games like this every year and last night was one of them. The question now has to be whether Andy Reid can now do the job to fix this team's problems before the playoffs.

Michael Vick played his worst game of the season last night, but a lot of that also has to go to play-calling, bad protection and some questionable route running. There's no question that Vick was part of the problem but as Reid said there's a lot of blame to go around.

Vick threw the ball 43 times last night which is one attempt shy of a season high that he had against the Bears earlier this season. In that game, Vick threw his first interception of the season and since that game he has thrown a pick in four straight games and in those four games Vick's completion percentage has been on a steady decline as his number of times sacked has been on the rise.

Vick was sacked a season high six times last night as the Viking rush made an impact as he made a couple game changing mistakes with a couple of fumbles and one of which was returned for a touchdown at the end of the first half and tied the game at seven.

The best option last night was the one that was maybe used the least, LeSean McCoy only had 17 touches last night and it was the forth time this season the he's had less than 16 touches in a game.

It was clear last night that every time McCoy touched the ball that he had a spring in his step that was largely absent last night from his teammates and the Eagles missed an opportunity to give him the football more to make up for what DeSean Jackson couldn't bring (2 catches, 32 yards).

The one positive we can take out of all of this is that the Eagles can decide to rest some players this Sunday since there is nothing on the line now and Vick can get a much needed breather.

And now you can offically say that the raging debate for who's the NFL MVP is effectively over. As remarkable a season Vick has had, his recent stretch of okay play should eliminate him from consideration. As for the talk about who's the best team in the NFC it looks like that conversation is pretty open ended right now.

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