First Big East Win

WVU won their first Big East game against UConn yesterday and was it ever a good game. The fan were really into the game and played havoc with the youth of the UConn team. They got behind early and the fans made in hard for them to get back into the game. Since this was UConn's first away game the fan helped a lot.

The play of Young, Nichols and Alexander showed how balanced the team is and how they play into Beilien's system. Butler also played well off of the bench.

This was Beilien's first win against UConn and kept his teams unbeaten at home in December. It sounds like he couches till the very end of the game and his players respect him for that. The Next game is against Villanova on the 3rd also at home so hopefully the fans will have as good effect as they had against UConn.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

At this time of year you always dream of those times when you were a child and enjoyed the Christmas season. Being out of school and hoping for snow to go sledding and throw snow ball at the other kids. The presents left by "Santa" or those you found and knew about ahead of time. My Mother thought she was good by having my Dad hide them in the back of a closet that had 2 bars and was therefore deeper. Little did she know I was a great climber back them and could climb up on the shelf and see all.

One year my Sister and her family who were stationed in Germany with the Air Force came home and of course that was the year I had the flu and we got 7 inches of snow. That was my first taste of wine because she gave me some to help me sleep and break the fever, needless to say I slept and the fever broke (I was 7 at the time).

Letter to local TV station

A local TV station has a weekly segment where letters that are written to the station are read on the air. This past Friday a writer had the concept of "issue 10". The concept of the issue involves restricting access to restaurants to people over the age of 10. Since smoking has already been banned this writer feels that the next inconvenience that should be banned are the kids that cry, throw things and on the whole make a spectacle of themselves, while the parents do nothing. I thought the concept was funny and interesting at the same time. I have gone to several restaurants and had my meal ruined by any of the above mentioned nuisances.

Let me know what you think.

Heisman Voting

I just read this post at "The Blue-Grey Sky" and the bias toward Brady Quinn and how he finished 3rd in the voting. How do you think the WVU fans felt when Steve Slaton ended up 4th and his stats were better than Darren McFadden.

Steve finished 2nd in total yards with 1733 and Darren was 5th with 1558.
Steve finished 9th in yards per carry with 7.1 and Darren was 25th with 5.9.
Steve finished 8th with total touchdowns with 16 while Darren was tied for 11th with 14.

The only statistic that Darren finished higher in was longest run with 80 yards (13th) and Steve's was 65 (tied 45th).

Being from a smaller school and also from a conference that everyone said was not as good as the SEC was a deterrent for Steve in the voting. Of course the Big East had teams remaining undefeated longer than the SEC did. I'll be the first to admit that with the Big East having so few football teams does hurt us in the long run, and with most of the teams have to redo their schedule after the 3 teams left the Big East for the ACC did not help either. Hope as the strength of schedule gets better in the next few years it will prove that the Big East is as good as the other conferences.

Of course also having so many basketball teams also hurts the Big East in that this years some teams are not even playing and others are only playing each other once. This year we are not playing Louisville and only playing Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Seton Hall twice. This makes for an interesting conference schedule and an even more interesting outcome in the rankings since the schedule is so unfair.

Holiday happenings

I'm going off of the WVU posting for a quick holiday post. I was at the mall today to get a hair cut and to look at a few items for my 9 year old great-niece. I was surprised at how well the people were inside after have the rough time that I had in the parking lot. I went with my Mother and Aunt who are 86 year old twins and we have a handicapped sticker since my Aunt broke her hip a few years ago. I am always surprised at how hard it is to find an empty handicapped space. I'm going to have to look into how many there are supposed to be in a parking lot.

The mall has made it very hard to find any parking places since they have decided to put in some out stores and took up about a third of the parking lot on the one side of the mall.

I love the holiday season with the family getting together and all the great food, but some of the people in the stores can be very rude and annoying. I believe that everyone should work retail and food service once in their live to understand how rough it can be with the stupid questions, screaming kids and people not putting merchandise back in the correct place.

I might make another post about the holidays later but for now Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Coach Rodriguez staying!!!!

It's official Coach Rodriguez is staying at WVU. He turned down the Alabama job and 12 million over 6 years, to stay at his alma mater. Per ESPN "West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez turned down Alabama on Friday, telling his players that he'll be back for his sixth season with the Mountaineers." It was stated that the players cheered when they were told.

A link to the West Virginia Metro News is following:

http://www.wvmetronews.com/index_forsub.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=17594

Hopefully, the team will show Coach Rod how much they appreciate his staying and win the 2007 Gator Bowl. I'll be watching and have all the good luck charms I have handy.

Gator Bowl here we come

WVU will now go to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville. Mountaineer fans do like to follow there team to bowl games. I went to the 1982 Gator Bowl when we played Florida State, I rained through most of the game and was windy and cold. Of course we lost which may have made the weather seem even worse. I enjoyed the trip down but got tired on the way back to West Virginia and had the turnpike to do after dark, not a good thing in 1982.

Hopefully, a better outcome will happen from this ACC foe. We know how most Big East fans feel about the ACC after they stole 3 of the Big East schools for there conference. But, you will notice none of those team will be playing a 2007 date for their bowl appearances.

Hope, the starting backfield is healthy and fit for the game, since all 3 are having health issues. But with 27 days to go hopefully they will be able to rest and heal.