MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: Results so far mixed for WVU

September 30, 2019

With losses of many quality starters from the previous year and a new coaching regime, the expectations of most WVU football fans entering the 2019 football season were modest. With one third of the regular season completed the results have been mixed, which was anticipated. On the down side a thrashing at the hands of Missouri told us that when lining up against good quality football teams there remains a talent deficit that will take time to rectify. But there have been some positives in the remaining three games, all of which the Mountaineers won. In each of those victories the ...

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: Stepping back from the cliff

September 16, 2019

After a disastrous outing at Missouri two Saturdays ago, WVU football fans were already at the edge of the cliff believing we were looking into the abyss of a long suffering season. It is indeed human nature for fans to overreact to a single performance of our teams, and most of us were no exception. But behind the scenes in Morgantown, something different was happening. A group of players and coaches didn’t hang their heads but instead were determined to get better. And the result was an unexpected, but resounding 44-27 upset of North Carolina State on Saturday. Although the ...

ALBRIGHT: Stay strong Roane County

September 15, 2019

Nothing again will be the same about another Week 3 of any high school football season in the state of West Virginia. Nothing again will be normal for the Roane County Raiders’ gridiron program, no matter the opponent or the venue. Raider No. 80 won’t take the field with his teammates, or carelessly laugh with friends along the sideline as a graduate cheering on his alma mater to another victory. “He was just a great guy,” teammate and friend Layne Epling said fighting back tears after asked about his friend by wvmetronews reporter Chris Lawrence Saturday at a memoriam ...

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: One very long day for WVU

September 9, 2019

Those of you who have read this column for a long time will recall that for many years a companion Monday Morning Quarterback column was written by Oz Campbell. Oz would occasionally make a profound comment that would say it all, and one of those occurred to me as the game against Missouri was winding down Saturday. It went something like this: When your outstanding player was your punter, you know it has been a very long day. And indeed it was. When Neal Brown came to Morgantown he knew from looking at the depth chart that things were going to be difficult, but I doubt until the ...

Sitting at 0-2

September 8, 2019

I don’t know Matt Lacy from Adam. The beauty of the gig at times is meeting new people. Although I’d spoken with the Morgantown High School head football coach on the phone leading up to the Big Reds’ 27-21 “upset” of the Mohigans in the West Virginia MetroNews Chick-fil-A Class AAA game of the week Friday before last, I got an education in “hard knocks” from coach Lacy as well as third-year PHS boss Mike Byus, whose squad is 1-1 after not being able to stop Cabell Midland and head man Luke Salmons’ point-blank running blitzkrieg. Lacy and Byus were talking prior to ...

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: WVU has more work to do than previously thought

September 2, 2019

Most WVU Mountaineer football fans knew the 2019 football season was to be a work in progress, but for most of the first half in Saturday’s season opener matters looked even worse than we envisioned. Despite forcing two turnovers West Virginia could do nothing to take advantage. James Madison sliced and diced the Mountaineer defense on an early scoring drive and was dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. WVU could not run the football and the passing game was ineffective. But somehow the Mountaineers managed to get to halftime with only a 7-3 deficit, helped by a ...