MORGANTOWN - Most of the work Dana Holgorsen hoped to accomplish this spring is already done. Now comes the time to show the progress made.
MORGANTOWN - Most of the work Dana Holgorsen hoped to accomplish this spring is already done. Now comes the time to show the progress made.
Well, sort of.
West Virginia concludes its spring drills toady with the annual Gold-Blue game at Mountaineer Field. The 6 p.m. kickoff will be preceded by activities that include an autograph session, a concert and an old-timers game.
But when it's actually time to see what the Mountaineers might look like come fall, well, today probably isn't the day for that. While the team will go through a full four-quarter scrimmage, it won't be very telling.
"We're not going to show a lot,'' Holgorsen said. "There's no reason to.''
Indeed, while the offense and defense will get another practice in, it will all be pretty basic. The idea is not to show anything new, but to give fans an opportunity to gather and watch the personnel.
"It's something festive more than anything,'' Holgorsen said. "I would challenge you to find one coach across the country that gets a kick out of the spring game. You've got to do it. We want to do it for the fans. The players get a kick out of it because they get to put their nice uniforms on and they go out there in front of a bunch of people and try to make a play.
"But it's the end of spring and you want to get out healthy. We want it to be festive and we want everyone to kind of get a glimpse of the younger kids more than anything.''
The format for the game will be much the same as in the past. The No. 1 offense will run a series until it is either stopped or scores, then the No. 2 offense will do the same. Initially, at least, the No. 1 offense will go against the No. 2 defense and vice versa.
"But that gets distorted very quickly,'' Holgorsen said, referring to frequent substitutions. "We'll attempt to go with that format early, but then you're running people on and off the field from a defensive line perspective and a receiver perspective. It'll look like the same people out there quite a bit.
MORGANTOWN - Most of the work Dana Holgorsen hoped to accomplish this spring is already done. Now comes the time to show the progress made.
Well, sort of.
West Virginia concludes its spring drills toady with the annual Gold-Blue game at Mountaineer Field. The 6 p.m. kickoff will be preceded by activities that include an autograph session, a concert and an old-timers game.
But when it's actually time to see what the Mountaineers might look like come fall, well, today probably isn't the day for that. While the team will go through a full four-quarter scrimmage, it won't be very telling.
"We're not going to show a lot,'' Holgorsen said. "There's no reason to.''
Indeed, while the offense and defense will get another practice in, it will all be pretty basic. The idea is not to show anything new, but to give fans an opportunity to gather and watch the personnel.
"It's something festive more than anything,'' Holgorsen said. "I would challenge you to find one coach across the country that gets a kick out of the spring game. You've got to do it. We want to do it for the fans. The players get a kick out of it because they get to put their nice uniforms on and they go out there in front of a bunch of people and try to make a play.
"But it's the end of spring and you want to get out healthy. We want it to be festive and we want everyone to kind of get a glimpse of the younger kids more than anything.''
The format for the game will be much the same as in the past. The No. 1 offense will run a series until it is either stopped or scores, then the No. 2 offense will do the same. Initially, at least, the No. 1 offense will go against the No. 2 defense and vice versa.
"But that gets distorted very quickly,'' Holgorsen said, referring to frequent substitutions. "We'll attempt to go with that format early, but then you're running people on and off the field from a defensive line perspective and a receiver perspective. It'll look like the same people out there quite a bit.
"It will be similar to what we did last year and similar to a scrimmage. We'll go ones on twos and twos on ones with very little special teams, just because there are so many moving parts with special teams. We've done a lot of work on our special teams in the spring. All of our units have got a lot of work. You want to keep working it, but for the sake of time and putting jerseys on people and disorganization and making a whole bunch of people mad, because it looks bad, we're not going to do it. It will basically be offense on defense. There will be a scoring system if the defense stops us, then they'll get some points. If we score, then we'll get points. That will pretty much be it."
Today's events begin with an autograph session with the players from 1 to 2:45 p.m. at the indoor practice facility. Then things move outside to the west side of the stadium for a concert featuring Taylor Made.
The old-timers game in the stadium will begin at 5:30 p.m. and as many as 200 former players are expected to be present.
BRIEFLY: Freshman quarterback Ford Childress was arrested late Wednesday night in Morgantown for driving under the influence.Childress, 18, was stopped driving without his headlights on near WVU's downtown campus at 12:22 a.m. Thursday. An initial field sobriety test showed his blood alcohol content at 0.189, well above the legal limit of 0.8. He was released on $250 bond.
Holgorsen said he will take "appropriate action when all the facts are in.''
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com or follow him at Twitter.com/dphickman1.
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