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Game No. 2: WVU 35, ECU 20 |
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Game
Slants
Saturday, September 12, 2009
By Denny O'Brien |
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Defenseless in Morgantown
By
Denny O'Brien
©2009 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
MORGANTOWN, WV — Sooner or
later, East Carolina will win a game in Milan Puskar Stadium. It just has
to.
With the Pirates and
Mountaineers scheduled to continue playing on a semi-regular basis, the law
of competitive averages almost insists that the Pirates will eventually
solve the Morgantown mystique.
With Pat White and Steve
Slaton now playing for pay, this seemed as good a year as any for ECU to
take one in Morgantown. And considering
what occurred in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium last season,
it at least seemed as if the talent gap between the two was beginning to
shrink.
But in West Virginia’s 35-20
win over East Carolina — its 13th straight in Morgantown — the Mountaineers
seemed to be in a completely different class than the Pirates. That was
especially the case anytime senior quarterback Jarrett Brown touched the
ball.
Against the Pirates, Brown
joined a distinguished group of West Virginia stars who’ve enjoyed breakout
performances against ECU. Truthfully, his 407 yards of total offense
Saturday was more impressive than previous rushing efforts of Amos Zereoue,
Avon Cobourne, and Kay-Jay Harris.
It was the type of dominating
performance to which the final score did little justice.
“At the end of the day, I
thought Brown was the difference in this game,” Pirates Coach Skip Holtz
said. “I thought he was pretty special today.
“I told him that after the
game. I made a point to go up and grab him. I told him I’ve seen a lot of
quarterbacks play, but I was as impressed with the way that he handled
himself today.”
Even more impressive was how
well he thoroughly handled an ECU defense that shut down his predecessor
last year. It was a defense that returned almost all of its starters and
proved especially stingy against the pass.
It just made sense that it
would do the same against a career backup.
About the only thing that
could stop Brown and the mighty Mountaineer machine was unforced turnovers
and a parade of major penalties. Thrice the Mountaineers fumbled without any
contact, and 11 times they were penalized for 104 yards.
That was hardly too much for
the new mayor of Morgantown to overcome.
For much of Saturday Brown
looked like a magical mix of NFL legends Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon.
He was elusive on the run, poised in the pocket, and displayed tremendous
touch on vertical passes.
“That’s what he does,” Holtz
said. “He’s a big, athletic quarterback. I think he’s got the full package
because he can run. He’s strong enough.
"There was one play where I
think we had him for about a one-yard loss. All of a sudden he comes plowing
out of the pile looking like Larry Csonka or something.”
Make that a quicker, more
athletic version of the bruising Csonka, one with a rifle right arm that can
deliver a strike with pinpoint accuracy.
Regardless of what East
Carolina attempted defensively, it could conjure no spell to solve the
Mountaineers’ quarterback wizard. The Pirates displayed three-man fronts,
occasional blitzes, and nickel packages — but Brown always found a way to
exploit the ECU defense.
While Brown was the prevailing
storyline Saturday, ECU’s lack of offensive production was a significant
subplot. The Pirates finished with a paltry 237 yards — only 85 in the
second half — and again couldn’t produce any offensive points after
intermission.
Quarterback Patrick Pinkney
was ineffective, while the running game was stuck somewhere between
inconsistent and non-existent. It was enough to raise legitimate questions
about how productive this offense could be.
The answer against West
Virginia was not very. Ditto for the defense.
The Pirates hadn’t won in
Morgantown heading into Saturday. That combination definitely won’t produce
victories here in the future.
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09/13/2009 03:52:13 AM |
