MORGANTOWN - New West Virginia offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen's philosophy about spring practice is no different than most other coaches. It's a time to lay some groundwork for the fall and find out who can and cannot play.

It's also a perfect opportunity to accomplish as much as possible while "keeping the old, seasoned guys healthy and working the dog out of the young guys to see what they can handle,'' Mullen said.

And therein lies West Virginia's problem as the Mountaineers approach the beginning of spring practice a week from Friday. At least on the offensive side of things, where every coach is a new one, there's going to be a fine line between installing whatever changes are in store and allowing proven veterans to relax just a bit.

Take quarterback Pat White, for instance. He goes into the season as a fifth-year senior, a two-time Big East offensive player of the year, a two-time New Year's Day bowl MVP, an upper-tier Heisman Trophy candidate and, quite simply, West Virginia's most indispensible player. Normally spring ball would be a month at Club Med for a guy with those credentials, just watching other guys sweat.

But White, perhaps more than anyone else, is also the guy who most needs to understand every difference and nuance in WVU's new offense versus its old one.

"He's at least got to take all of the mental reps, even if he doesn't go out there and play every down in a scrimmage,'' Mullen said.

Fortunately, the basis of the offense that new head coach Bill Stewart has asked Mullen to install is the same as that of former coach Rich Rodriguez's no-huddle spread. There are essentially three real differences - terminology, added pre-snap motion and a stronger emphasis on throwing the football. The first two are fairly simple to install and for White, in particular, to grasp and with which to become comfortable.

"The good news is that for the past 21/2 weeks or so that we've had player meetings, we've installed a lot of the offense. And he seems very quick to it,'' Mullen said.

"At the end of the day, it's memorizing this word instead of that word. The execution of the plays is the same. We just call it A instead of B. And he's had that for a few weeks now.''

It's in the passing game where the work needs to be done, and that can't be done without White taking a very active part. It's the one thing above all else Mullen is interested in seeing during the spring.

"Throwing and catching,'' he said without hesitation. "How accurate are we at the quarterback position, how quickly do we decide where to go with the football and why, how well do we run routes and how well do we catch the football when someone's hitting us in the mouth? Those are things that I have not seen on tape simply because they didn't play that way [under Rodriguez]. They didn't call enough plays where they threw the ball and caught the ball and were successful to be able to evaluate any of that. And even when they did throw, was it a one-man read, was it a play-action and throw it deep no matter what, what was it? Those things you don't get until you coach them in that scenario.''

MORGANTOWN - New West Virginia offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen's philosophy about spring practice is no different than most other coaches. It's a time to lay some groundwork for the fall and find out who can and cannot play.

It's also a perfect opportunity to accomplish as much as possible while "keeping the old, seasoned guys healthy and working the dog out of the young guys to see what they can handle,'' Mullen said.

And therein lies West Virginia's problem as the Mountaineers approach the beginning of spring practice a week from Friday. At least on the offensive side of things, where every coach is a new one, there's going to be a fine line between installing whatever changes are in store and allowing proven veterans to relax just a bit.

Take quarterback Pat White, for instance. He goes into the season as a fifth-year senior, a two-time Big East offensive player of the year, a two-time New Year's Day bowl MVP, an upper-tier Heisman Trophy candidate and, quite simply, West Virginia's most indispensible player. Normally spring ball would be a month at Club Med for a guy with those credentials, just watching other guys sweat.

But White, perhaps more than anyone else, is also the guy who most needs to understand every difference and nuance in WVU's new offense versus its old one.

"He's at least got to take all of the mental reps, even if he doesn't go out there and play every down in a scrimmage,'' Mullen said.

Fortunately, the basis of the offense that new head coach Bill Stewart has asked Mullen to install is the same as that of former coach Rich Rodriguez's no-huddle spread. There are essentially three real differences - terminology, added pre-snap motion and a stronger emphasis on throwing the football. The first two are fairly simple to install and for White, in particular, to grasp and with which to become comfortable.

"The good news is that for the past 21/2 weeks or so that we've had player meetings, we've installed a lot of the offense. And he seems very quick to it,'' Mullen said.

"At the end of the day, it's memorizing this word instead of that word. The execution of the plays is the same. We just call it A instead of B. And he's had that for a few weeks now.''

It's in the passing game where the work needs to be done, and that can't be done without White taking a very active part. It's the one thing above all else Mullen is interested in seeing during the spring.

"Throwing and catching,'' he said without hesitation. "How accurate are we at the quarterback position, how quickly do we decide where to go with the football and why, how well do we run routes and how well do we catch the football when someone's hitting us in the mouth? Those are things that I have not seen on tape simply because they didn't play that way [under Rodriguez]. They didn't call enough plays where they threw the ball and caught the ball and were successful to be able to evaluate any of that. And even when they did throw, was it a one-man read, was it a play-action and throw it deep no matter what, what was it? Those things you don't get until you coach them in that scenario.''

But while Mullen and Stewart will have to see White in action to determine how quickly their quarterback is adapting to the changes, they don't have to put him at risk. And they won't.

For instance, when the offense goes through seven-on-seven skeleton drills [no linemen and no rush], there will always be a clock on the offense so that Mullen and the other coaches can evaluate how quickly White and everyone else is making decisions. If it's taking too long for White to make decisions or get rid of the ball, then obviously there's some work to be done.

If he's right on, then there are really no worries. It would be one thing if a rookie quarterback was doing everything right because there would still be the question of whether or not he could do it under pressure. Obviously, that's not an issue with White.

"If he's making them quickly there, he can make them quickly with pass rush,'' Mullen said. "So there are ways to evaluate his mental progress in a very live, full-speed setting without getting him hurt. And when we do go live, yes, he will have a [non-contact] shirt on and I think everyone on our football team knows that we have to keep him healthy.''

As far as other veterans on offense are concerned, the plan is much the same. Mullen will defer to Stewart and the offensive position coaches to decide which players need what amount of work. For instance, tailback Noel Devine might be nearly as indispensible as White, if for no other reason than unlike at quarterback, there are no proven backups at tailback.

"I've got to trust that Dave [Johnson, the offensive line coach] knows who his bell cows are,'' Mullen said. "If Chris Beatty [the running backs coach] thinks Noel needs the mental reps, we'll get him in the right situations. If he's good with it, let's get another guy in there because I think Noel's a proven commodity. I've watched tape on [slot receiver] Jock Sanders and I think he's a proven commodity.''

The bottom line, of course, is teaching as much as possible to as many players as possible without getting anyone hurt. But in a way, Mullen said, even that's a nice problem to have.

"If you're not worried about people getting hurt then you don't have any good players. And that's not good,'' Mullen said. "No one's trying to win spring ball. We're trying to get ready for the season. It's a good thing we've got players to protect. If you've got no players, now that's a bad, bad thing.''

BRIEFLY: The Mountaineers open spring drills March 14 and will spend more than a month getting in the allotted 15 days, thanks to a break from March 19 to March 31 for spring break. The Gold-Blue game is April 19.

To contact staff writer Dave Hickman use e-mail or call 348-1734.