Well, what we lacked in offensive production, we more than made up with turning the ball over. 
*** WVU Football ***
- Thread starter Bumpus
- Start date
My Mason Jar is quickly becoming depleated. I'm gonna need more booze.
Where was the effort tonight? Jesus Christ they looked lost out there.
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2008
- Messages
- 2,633
- Reaction score
- 109
I was there Bumpus. It was pretty freaking horrible. I got this insider info from a WVU paysite
Learned some interesting things while on the road for the Champs Sports Bowl from some folks who would know such things...and I'm going to share them over the next few days with you. Before anybody freaks out, I'm doing the gradual roll-out to let everybody have appropriate time to digest each set of things and discuss them as they see fit.
So, with that said, here's the first installment, largely focused on the coaching stuff. There will be other topics covered in coming days.
--All of the offensive assistant coaches went around to their guys in the locker room before the game, telling them in rather emotional fashion that they loved them. Some cried. There was one exception: Lonnie Galloway. He is widely expected to be retained by Dana Holgorsen at this point. He might be the only one. Sources have told both Kevin and I (separate sources in both of our cases) that Beatty might or might not be back; it's a 50/50 sort of deal at this point. Galloway went up to Beatty in warmups, hugged him and told him "Everything will be alright." McMichael is all but gone.
--Jeff Mullen was professional but left little doubt as to how he felt through the entire process. He wore the bare minimum of WVU gear (a hat) and didn't wear any other logo gear at practices. He was also quickly in and out of the locker room after the game was over. He didn't speak to anyone in there, got himself together, walked out and was the very first person on the bus. There was a private dinner the coaches had one night in Orlando; they left the team hotel complex and went out with no other staffers or others with them. Mullen did not attend.
--Not only did Stew not tell Johnson he wouldn't be retained, he outright lied to Johnson. Johnson made a point to ask Stew at one point about his job status, and Stew told him he had nothing to worry about -- Stew didn't even hedge and try to act like he didn't know for sure. The players on the offensive line were VERY upset the day they found out Johnson was out. The vast majority are tremendously loyal to him. We also have confirmed Johnson did, indeed, turn down two coaching offers, including a D-II head coaching job, as was reported in the Post-Gazette.
Again, there will be more to come tomorrow, but for now, discuss...
and today...
I was off the boards basically all day after I wrote the Tidbits yesterday, so that's why I didn't respond to some of the points in there (particularly those directed at me). I plan to try to do so through this weekend, but it's crazy, between writing stuff for Kevin and Greg and proofreading and trying to spend time with family back home, driving back to Morgantown last night and heading to a New Year's gathering today that's also out of town, there's little time left to interact on the message boards. I'll try to do so on Sunday, and I'll do my best to address all points then.
But for now, I'll throw out the rest of what I know (which hopefully will satiate a lot of people who claimed I was unfair in holding anything back for a day). This batch is largely related to issues at and surrounding the Champs Sports Bowl, but some of the points extend to the season as a whole:
--After Shawne Alston got his two carries in the first half on Tuesday, he came off the field and was very upset about his cleats, saying they were totally wrong and asking for them to be changed. Kevin has confirmed to me that he was not alone, as there were several cleat changes done at halftime. Of course, Alston never even got another carry after the fact. This, of course, speaks to the decision to not hold a walkthrough at the stadium (hard to know what cleats are right if you've never been on the surface), a move that surprised several people connected to the team. There is conflicting information out there, but I've also been told by some that there wasn't even a walkthrough at the hotel (as was planned after the decision to not go to the stadium) at all.
--There was, because of the lack of practices, far more free time than at any bowl game than any other in recent memory. But even despite all that, there was also a huge lack of organization. Even though there were only two practices in Orlando, there were players late for the buses both days. They were reamed for their mistake, but people I talked to blamed it at least in part on the fact that there was never a formal printed final itinerary given out -- something some team officials had never seen happen before.
--The lack of organization also extended to the team hotel, though at little fault of the team itself. Fans were knocking on players' doors and asking for autographs. A few drunken fans actually somehow convinced a security guard at the hotel to escort them to a team meeting, where they were going to ask for autographs before Jeff Casteel saw them and kicked them out. Fans also just walked in and roamed about in the training room, where players were being taped and such, and no one stopped them until trainers noticed random people in the room.
--The postgame locker room wasn't an overly somber or even angry place. Stew's portion of things was very, very fast: he told the freshmen, sophomores and juniors to remember what it felt like to send the seniors out with a loss and to do what it took to avoid that feeling again; he then apologized to the seniors. After that, he told the players to "hug [their] brothers" and players went around and hugged each other while he walked out. That was it. One person told me: "It was almost like we won a game we were expected to win, like UNLV, and not like we lost a bowl game." Little emotion at all, and some guys were laughing and carrying on.
--Barry Brunetti, even in the fourth quarter with the team trying to rally, was counting the minutes down til the end of the game (and his Mountaineer career) out loud. He said, several times out loud, "Nine minutes til I can go home!" Even despite that, I've been told there was never a problem between Brunetti and any players or coaches though; he had good relationships with just about everybody, but some were annoyed with the way he made such a big deal about getting out of there.
--There was a general lack of emotion on the sidelines, particularly from the offense. At one point, Pat White (who was watching from the sidelines in a gold WVU hoodie) even came over to Geno and told him to get in his guys' faces and get them fired up. Geno put in a half-hearted attempt at it, but people I talked to said he was a totally different guy from the one that rallied the team at Marshall. No one knew how to explain it.
--I can't offer much in the way of detail, but suffice to say there are some within the program who thought Noel Devine had checked out mentally in the middle of the season and was exaggerating his pain. He wasn't making any great efforts to get himself better, as one source told me Devine went to get treatment from the trainers "maybe twice" the entire time the team was in Orlando. Multiple sources have told me they're not exactly upset to see Devine go. One called him "a prima donna."
Learned some interesting things while on the road for the Champs Sports Bowl from some folks who would know such things...and I'm going to share them over the next few days with you. Before anybody freaks out, I'm doing the gradual roll-out to let everybody have appropriate time to digest each set of things and discuss them as they see fit.
So, with that said, here's the first installment, largely focused on the coaching stuff. There will be other topics covered in coming days.
--All of the offensive assistant coaches went around to their guys in the locker room before the game, telling them in rather emotional fashion that they loved them. Some cried. There was one exception: Lonnie Galloway. He is widely expected to be retained by Dana Holgorsen at this point. He might be the only one. Sources have told both Kevin and I (separate sources in both of our cases) that Beatty might or might not be back; it's a 50/50 sort of deal at this point. Galloway went up to Beatty in warmups, hugged him and told him "Everything will be alright." McMichael is all but gone.
--Jeff Mullen was professional but left little doubt as to how he felt through the entire process. He wore the bare minimum of WVU gear (a hat) and didn't wear any other logo gear at practices. He was also quickly in and out of the locker room after the game was over. He didn't speak to anyone in there, got himself together, walked out and was the very first person on the bus. There was a private dinner the coaches had one night in Orlando; they left the team hotel complex and went out with no other staffers or others with them. Mullen did not attend.
--Not only did Stew not tell Johnson he wouldn't be retained, he outright lied to Johnson. Johnson made a point to ask Stew at one point about his job status, and Stew told him he had nothing to worry about -- Stew didn't even hedge and try to act like he didn't know for sure. The players on the offensive line were VERY upset the day they found out Johnson was out. The vast majority are tremendously loyal to him. We also have confirmed Johnson did, indeed, turn down two coaching offers, including a D-II head coaching job, as was reported in the Post-Gazette.
Again, there will be more to come tomorrow, but for now, discuss...
and today...
I was off the boards basically all day after I wrote the Tidbits yesterday, so that's why I didn't respond to some of the points in there (particularly those directed at me). I plan to try to do so through this weekend, but it's crazy, between writing stuff for Kevin and Greg and proofreading and trying to spend time with family back home, driving back to Morgantown last night and heading to a New Year's gathering today that's also out of town, there's little time left to interact on the message boards. I'll try to do so on Sunday, and I'll do my best to address all points then.
But for now, I'll throw out the rest of what I know (which hopefully will satiate a lot of people who claimed I was unfair in holding anything back for a day). This batch is largely related to issues at and surrounding the Champs Sports Bowl, but some of the points extend to the season as a whole:
--After Shawne Alston got his two carries in the first half on Tuesday, he came off the field and was very upset about his cleats, saying they were totally wrong and asking for them to be changed. Kevin has confirmed to me that he was not alone, as there were several cleat changes done at halftime. Of course, Alston never even got another carry after the fact. This, of course, speaks to the decision to not hold a walkthrough at the stadium (hard to know what cleats are right if you've never been on the surface), a move that surprised several people connected to the team. There is conflicting information out there, but I've also been told by some that there wasn't even a walkthrough at the hotel (as was planned after the decision to not go to the stadium) at all.
--There was, because of the lack of practices, far more free time than at any bowl game than any other in recent memory. But even despite all that, there was also a huge lack of organization. Even though there were only two practices in Orlando, there were players late for the buses both days. They were reamed for their mistake, but people I talked to blamed it at least in part on the fact that there was never a formal printed final itinerary given out -- something some team officials had never seen happen before.
--The lack of organization also extended to the team hotel, though at little fault of the team itself. Fans were knocking on players' doors and asking for autographs. A few drunken fans actually somehow convinced a security guard at the hotel to escort them to a team meeting, where they were going to ask for autographs before Jeff Casteel saw them and kicked them out. Fans also just walked in and roamed about in the training room, where players were being taped and such, and no one stopped them until trainers noticed random people in the room.
--The postgame locker room wasn't an overly somber or even angry place. Stew's portion of things was very, very fast: he told the freshmen, sophomores and juniors to remember what it felt like to send the seniors out with a loss and to do what it took to avoid that feeling again; he then apologized to the seniors. After that, he told the players to "hug [their] brothers" and players went around and hugged each other while he walked out. That was it. One person told me: "It was almost like we won a game we were expected to win, like UNLV, and not like we lost a bowl game." Little emotion at all, and some guys were laughing and carrying on.
--Barry Brunetti, even in the fourth quarter with the team trying to rally, was counting the minutes down til the end of the game (and his Mountaineer career) out loud. He said, several times out loud, "Nine minutes til I can go home!" Even despite that, I've been told there was never a problem between Brunetti and any players or coaches though; he had good relationships with just about everybody, but some were annoyed with the way he made such a big deal about getting out of there.
--There was a general lack of emotion on the sidelines, particularly from the offense. At one point, Pat White (who was watching from the sidelines in a gold WVU hoodie) even came over to Geno and told him to get in his guys' faces and get them fired up. Geno put in a half-hearted attempt at it, but people I talked to said he was a totally different guy from the one that rallied the team at Marshall. No one knew how to explain it.
--I can't offer much in the way of detail, but suffice to say there are some within the program who thought Noel Devine had checked out mentally in the middle of the season and was exaggerating his pain. He wasn't making any great efforts to get himself better, as one source told me Devine went to get treatment from the trainers "maybe twice" the entire time the team was in Orlando. Multiple sources have told me they're not exactly upset to see Devine go. One called him "a prima donna."