The 2013 edition of the West Virginia Mountaineer Football team still has a lot of issues to address. However....Having said that there were some bright spots that we were able to witness in the annual Gold-Blue Spring Game this past April 20th. Even though there will be a lot more talent on hand in late July when fall camp opens and all of the last draft class has enrolled there were positive signs, especially on defense which ended up 'Winning" the spring Game 41-33.

With eight returning starters from a very disapointing 2012 defense it had to be a relief for new defensive coordinator Keith Patterson to see much better defensive play and movement. There were much fewer blown assignments and the players seemed to understand where they needed to be on the field to be in close proximity to the offensive playmakers which is something that rarely happened last season. The defense, as of April of 2013, seemed much improved and really benefited from the Spring practices. There will be so many new and talented defense players that will not be here until fall camp that it prompted coach Dana Holgorsen to remind the fans of this during the spring came wrap up stating “The team that we field in September is going to look a lot different. We have so many new guys coming in, and we have so many young guys that are going to continue to develop.”

Some of the aggressive defenders were Linebackers Sean Walters and Shaq Petteway who each registered a team-high five tackles each, including one for loss. Nick Kwiatkoski, K.J. Dillon, Darwin Cook, Eric Kinsey and Dozie Ezemma who were also hustling all game and made four tackles each. In all the defense seemed to be much more confident in their understanding of the defense and with several "veteran" defensive junior college transfers coming in this fall I really look for the defense to make a significant improvement this season which of course is key if the Mountaineers are going to have a winning season asit will be too difficult to expect the younger offensive skill position players to carry the load like the veteran stars such as Stedman, Tavon and Geno did last season.

Offensive Offense?

The Mountaineer offense did not look all that impressive in the spring game largely because nether redshirt freshman Ford Childress or junior Paul Millard seemed to be all that comfortable running the offense, especially throwing downfield attempting to stretch the defense. in fairness the defense was doing all they could, by design to pressure these inexperienced young men to see how they responded. Paul Millard had the better statistics but neither looked great or anywhere near where they will need to be when the season starts. Enter Florida State transfer Clint Tricket the son of former West Virginia and current Florida State offensive line coach Rick Tricket. Clint has spent a couple seasons at Florida State and has started several games and was in line to start this season at quarterback but fell behind a 5 star duel-threat quarterback during spring practice and Clint did not believe he was going to get the chance to start so he decided to transfer someplace and ended up at WVU. From what I saw at the spring game I would say Mr. Tricket is most likely already ahead of both Paul Millard and Ford Childress and could end up the starting quarterback against William & Mary on August 31st at Mountaineer Field. It's my understanding that Tricket's class has already graduated from Florida State thus he does not have to sit out a year like a normal transfer. I also read that Tricket would have 2 seasons of eligibility remaining.

There were several important offensive performances in the spring game such as wide receiver Jordan Thompsons 3 touchdown performance, of course as coach Holgorsen pointed out in the post game wrap up, Thompson had a great spring game last season and a very ordinary regular season. The Offense also look a good deal better attempting to run the football. With first-stringer Andrew Buie (hamstring) unable to play, Dustin Garrison averaged 7.3 yards per carry. The junior gained 51 yards on seven carries, highlighted by a 19-yard run. The coaches kind of went away from the running game in the 2nd half in order to shift pressure to the quarterbacks to see how they performed under pressure. However.....JC transfer Dreamius Smith looked pretty solid in limited carries, finishing with 38 yards on seven carries. He also looked smooth hauling in an 8-yard catch. Wendell Smallwood, the true freshman, ran seven times for 25 yards.

The Mountaineers are breaking in a new place kicker and Redshirt freshman Josh Lambert missed twice from long range in the first half — missing wide right on a 41-yard try and short from 48 yards out. But he rebounded to convert from 39 and 47 yards in the second half. All in all he should be fine by september.

I have been unable to do much with the site for nearly 5 months as I have had a lot of health and personal issues but I am doing much better now and plan to be a lot more active on the site right up until fall practice begins in I believe the last week of July. I have the 2013 Schedule post on the main page with links to all the opposing teams websites. All game times and TV arrangements as well as designation of Homecoming, Parents Day and Mountaineer Week will be added as they are announced when we get a bit closer to the season.

Even though this is a football site I have to mention the 1st Place Mountaineer Baseball team led by new coach Randy Mazey. The Mountaineers have come out of nowhere to win 21 of their first 29 and could win the Big 12 title after being picked to finish last. With the subpar finish of the 2012 football team and the complete collapse of the Men's Basketball team this is the Story of the year in the Big 12. way to go Guys

Until Next Time.......Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Mountaineers!!!!!!!!!!!!!