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West Virginia at CONNECTICUT (Friday)

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They certainly don't look like a top-5 team.

But I wonder if I'm being too hasty here. This is really the only time that I've seen them. Has anyone else seen their other games? Is this indicative of their usual performance. Based on statistics for both teams prior to tonight, and in the game so far, I'm inclined to believe that WVU is having an off night.

Off night or not, I'm still leaning toward "NOT Top-5".
 
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Oh8ch;639427; said:
Dear pollsters. Please fix this. Don't wait for WVU to lose to drop them in the polls. They are not a top 5 team.

Sincerly -

Joe Football Fan
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EDIT - DBB, I saw one other game (Maryland), and I didn't think they were a top-5 game in that one, either.

I can't imagine them beating Texas more than 1 in 5 meetings, and they are ranked ahead of Texas in the human polls.

tOSU has to share the nation's longest winning streak for about 16 hours. :biggrin:
 
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WVU is a top 5 team by default, and that is about it. Texas would kick their ass.......as would most of the top 10 in the country.

They aren't as good as they think they are, someone is going to come along and kick their ass.
 
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DaddyBigBucks;639431; said:
They certainly don't look like a top-5 team.

But I wonder if I'm being too hasty here. This is really the only time that I've seen them. Has anyone else seen their other games?
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Yes, I've seen several of their games the past two seasons. They were mauled by Virginia Tech last season (held to ~250 total yards), they beat Louisville last year after Louisville failed to convert their 2-pt conversion in 3OT, and they jumped on Georgia early in the Sugar Bowl, then were stomped for the remaining 44 minutes. This season Maryland handed them the game early with a special teams fiasco of botched snaps and fumbled kickoff returns (Maryland is horrible yet was competitive enough for me to leave the game on for all four quarters), and East Carolina shut down their running game too.

Their offense is hardly "unstopable," and their defense is a sieve. I'm hedging on whether they're really a Top-5 team or not. Maybe they are, they're definitely Top-10/15. The problem with just dismissing them out of hand as not Top-5 is that they match up so well with many teams because of their run game, and they do win. I think they wind up losing to both Pittsburgh and Louisville this season though. Palko and Brohm will posterize their secondary, so it's all moot.
 
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Although I tend to agree that WVU does not look like a top 5 team, don't we sound a lot like the rest of the country did in 2002 when talking about the Buckeyes? They could beat Purdue and Illinois... er, oops, I mean UConn and Cincy... in the last minute or overtime, stumble into the NC game, pull off an upset, and the rest of the country could still debate about whether they are the best team in the land.

Bottom line is I think if they win out, they have an excellent shot at getting to Tempe, and they have every right to say they earned it.
 
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Yertle;639449; said:
Bottom line is I think if they win out, they have an excellent shot at getting to Tempe, and they have every right to say they earned it.
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I'm not sure how you can compare OSU's 2002 run with WVU's run this season. OSU played a good WSU team that season, and had some tough Big Ten games. WVU only has a couple of games all season long that will be competitive.
 
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daddyphatsacs;639453; said:
I'm not sure how you can compare OSU's 2002 run with WVU's run this season. OSU played a good WSU team that season, and had some tough Big Ten games. WVU only has a couple of games all season long that will be competitive.
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I think you missed my point. All I'm suggesting is that if I was a WVU fan, all I'm interested in is the wins. I'd be more than happy to let the rest of the country think we're over-rated and their team could beat my team by 20 points, as long as the two teams had a chance to meet on January 8th. That part of their season sounds eerily familiar.

As far as comparing the two seasons, Illinois sucked ass in 2002, but we struggled mightily against them (much more than WVU struggled against UConn tonight). I vividly remember watching ESPN that night and thinking "a win is a win, you mother f-ers" while everyone and their brother were saying how lucky the Buckeyes were and how Miami would win by 14 points. I don't think Purdue made a bowl that year (6-6 maybe), and Cincy is... well... Cincy. So, I don't think the comparison is really that far-fetched. Sure, OSU played WSU (who was over-rated at the time), Wisky on the road, and a good UM team. It was an awesome season - no debate here!

If I was a Mountaineer fan, I'd have the same outlook that I had in 2002 as a Buckeye fan - Just Win, Baby! It will all sort itself out in the end. Then I can send the rest of the country a big fat crow to eat.

Oh yeah, just for the record, I do think OSU would devastate WVU this year. I just don't want to get too cocky about it. Basically, if WVU was playing the Bucks in Tempe, I wouldn't print my NC Champs invitations until AFTER the game.
 
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methomps to english translation:

Make fun of the schedules of Rutgers, West Virginia, Louisville, and Boise State all you want, at least they won their games.

Auburn lost to Arkansas for crying out loud, and Arkansas sucks! :sneaky:
 
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Although I tend to agree that WVU does not look like a top 5 team, don't we sound a lot like the rest of the country did in 2002 when talking about the Buckeyes?
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Yes and no. Clearly we made it through the season by the skin of our last molar. But we were a talented team full of great athletes who was capable of competing against and defeating a number of other qualty opponents. We were not a dominant team, but we belonged in that top rung.

WVU is a very good football team - perhaps one of the top ten in the country. But when you look at the quality of their players I don't see them in the same category as Texas, Florida, or Tenn. They have two great athletes on O who work extremely well in the Offense that they run. But they don't play a quality schedule and they have gotten more mileage out of that one game against Georgia than any team has a right. They are in the same category as the BYUs and Boise States (OK, a notch or two above those teams) who play weak schedules, go undefeated and scream for recognition. Then when they play somebody they get their butts whipped and are ranked back where they belong.
 
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