Pat White For Heisman

WVU unveiled the website today promoting Pat White's campaign for the Heisman Trophy. The website link can be reached at the links to the left.

I generally fall in the group of people that aren't big on promoting a player for Heisman, but I'm OK with this. From a purely talent standpoint, I think that Pat White was easily the best player in the country last year and in the top 5 the year before. If this gives more people a chance to see his talent and helps his career in the long run, then I think WVU certainly owes him that. He may be the single greatest athlete/person to ever come through the WVU football program.

Oliver Luck now on BOD at WVU

"The WVU Alumni Association welcomes the appointment of another Outstanding Alumnus and former Mountaineer athletic star Oliver Luck to the Board of Governors."-anouncement of WVU Alumni Association by President Steve Douglas.

"After retiring from football, Luck practiced law in Germany. In 1991, he became general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the fledgling World League of American Football. He held the post for two years until the league was suspended. Upon its resumption in 1995 he became GM of the Rhein Fire, and was named league president the following year. Luck held that role until 2000, during which time he oversaw the league's rebranding as NFL Europe, intended to strengthen the connection between the league and it's parent, the NFL.
Houston Sports Authority - Oliver Luck was sworn in as Chief Executive Officer on December 3, 2001. In this role he oversaw the operations of the Harris County Houston Sports Authority, the governmental entity created in 1997 to provide the financing, construction and management oversight of the three large sports and entertainment venues in Houston: Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros), Reliant Stadium, (home of the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo), and the new Downtown multi-purpose arena (home of the Houston Rockets and Comets).
Prior to joining the Sports Authority, Luck was a top-ranking executive with the National Football League for over ten years, where he served as Vice President of Business Development and President and CEO of NFL Europe. A record setting quarterback at West Virginia University, Luck was selected in the second round of the 1982 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers and went on to play five seasons with the club. He earned a B.A. degree from West Virginia University, graduating with highest honors, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1987 he received a J.D. from the University of Texas, graduating with honors.
Luck, a two-time Academic All-American while in college, was recently named to the Academic All American Hall of Fame."-Wikipedia

Oliver Luck has previously run for the Governership of West Virginia as a republican. He has been envolved in policy making and business since his departure from the NFL. This author believes Oliver Luck will do a fantastic job in this roll.

Please Oli bring some leadership and integrety to this board.

Da Geek

Joe Alexander a "Buck"

Way to go Joe!!! Milwaukee is now blessed with a Mountaineer. What a wonderful beginning for his career. I know I speak for all Mountaineer Fans when I say that we are very proud of Joe. Anyway the 8th overall pick isn't to shabby. We have now witnessed the first WVU first round pick since 1968. Huggy was obviously proud of his student athlete as his name was called and the Huggs gave Joe a hug. Congrats to West Virginia's newest millionaire.

DaGeek

WVU gets 10th commit and it is a big one.

Well we are now seeing that Coach Holliday is also ready to bring home the bacon. I am very impressed with this 3 star get. He is fast and I believe he will give us the depth that we are seeking at running back. We are well on our way to a great recruiting season. One thing I love about this kid is that he is going to graduate early and attend WVU in the Spring. This is a great get.


"Daquan Hargrett, a 5-foot-9, 185 pounder described as another version of Avon Cobourne with speed, called WVU Holliday today with the good news that he would be the Mountaineers' 10th commitment for the class of 2009. Noted as the 18th APB in the nation by Rivals, Hargrett said he liked to run it as well as catch it, "but I guess I consider myself more of a running back," he said.And for good reason. Rival coaches say that Hargrett makes people miss and has good explosion to the crease. At the same time, he has lateral speed sideline-to-sideline punch and quickly gets into a second gear.Timed at 4.35 at a combine at Dolphins Stadium, Hargrett has been a serious sprinter since he was 13 years old. He ran an 11.13 100 meters to qualify for the Junior Olympics in Indianapolis in middle school. His personal best in the 100m is 10.5 running for the Metro-Dade Track Club last summer." ---http://www.wvsports.com/

"Hargrett ... plans to graduate from Northwestern [a 6A school in Miami-Dade] in December and enroll at West Virginia in January. That’s another example of the planning with which he has conducted his scholastic career. “Once I found out you can graduate and enroll early, I got into the right classes so I can graduate and get the best GPA I can,” Hargrett said. “I’m waiting to take the ACT this summer, and I should be in good shape to get everything done and come to West Virginia in January.” As for his future home, Hargrett hasn’t seen it yet. He will, however, be traveling to West Virginia at the end of June for the one-day rising senior camp, and doesn’t anticipate any surprises. “I feel like West Virginia is the spot for me,” he explained. “The coaches were great with me. We just built great relationships right from the start. I talked with Coach Holliday once a week, and he is just a phenomenal guy. He’s very genuine and easy to talk to. Everything we talked about, it just made me feel at home.”"--- http://www.blueandgoldnews.com/ Immage was also property of B&G.

Da Geek

Ohio State to Play WVU in Basketball next 2 seasons.

This is a great regional match up. This has been a long time coming and is a great opportunity at increasing our out of conference RPI. I look forward to this Buckeye challenge. I am hopeful that we can go there and pick up a win. That would certainly give us a solid measuring stick for the NCAA's. Anyway, it is nice to see that Huggins will finally get to play this team after years of OSU ignoring Cincinnati. Go EERS!

"Coach Thad Matta confirmed yesterday that Ohio State will play Huggins’ current team, West Virginia, on Dec. 27 in Value City Arena and during the 2009-10 season in Morgantown, W.Va."-www.dispatch.com

Da Geek

Update on FB Recruiting from 2 major recruiting services.

When you read this list of recruits you will see that WVU is having no problem "shopping for groceries" as Bill king of Rivals Radio says. Below you will find the relative player rankings according to the Scout.com and Rivals.com sites. I think that maybe we will keep our running backs coach, Beaty. He apparently knows how to recruit Va Beach. If we sign this class look out Big East the Mountaineers are not going anywhere. Regardless of the site you will see that none of these recruits are less than 3 stars. I think a "wow" is in order. What do you think?

Da Geek

Scout.com:
Pos Ranking; Rating; Name;
WR 1 ***** Logan Heastie
FB 2 **** Chris Snook
QB 9 **** Tajh Boyd
DT 18 **** Dominik Davenport
SLB 24 *** Branko Busick
WR 41 *** Deon Long
OG 42 *** Jordan Weingart
OT 43 *** Cole Bowers
RB 58 *** Shawne Alston

Rivals.com:
COMMITTED/NOT YET SIGNED
Name: Pos Stars Ht Wt 40 RR Hometown
Shawne Alston RB *** 5-11 220 4.5 5.5 Hampton, VA
Cole Bowers OL *** 6-5 288 4.9 5.5 Ona, WV
Tajh Boyd QB **** 6-0 208 4.7 5.9 Hampton, VA
Branko Busick LB *** 6-1 220 __ 5.5 Steubenville, OH
Dominik Davenport DT *** 6-0 268 4.75 5.7 Hampton, VA
Logan Heastie WR **** 6-2 192 4.4 5.8 Chesapeake, VA
Deon Long WR *** 6-0 175 4.45 5.7 Washington, DC
Chris Snook LB *** 6-3 222 4.6 5.6 Medina, OH
Jordan Weingart OL *** 6-2 287 __ 5.5 Gainesville, FL

Alexander watch.

The deadline for backing out of the NBA draft is almost here and supposedly Joe is still mulling over his decision. Two months ago I thought that he would be wise to stay in college another year, but now, I think there is no wrong decision. Not to imply that things will work out for Joe no matter what he does, but there are risks either way, and with how high his stock has risen, jumping could not be considered a bad decision. Anyway, there is a feature article about Joe's decision on the "crawler" on the front page of espn.com. He talks about the decision he is about to make and he certainly sounds as if he has an excellent perspective on his choice.