ESPN College Football

MIAMI -- After a month of analyzing keys, players, depth charts and matchups it is time for West Virginia to show what it is made of in the Discover Orange Bowl against Clemson.

This could be the Mountaineers' final game as members of the Big East, so you know they want to go out on top. And as always, a good performance in this one can be used as a springboard into 2012, especially with so many stars coming back on offense.

West Virginia announced several lineup changes before the game began: Tyler Rader will start at right guard in place of Quinton Spain; Pat Eger will start at right tackle in place of Curtis Feigt; Shawne Alston will start in place of Dustin Garrison; and Ryan Clarke will be the B-back as Alston takes over for Garrison.

The starting spur safety will be a game-time decision.

The stadium looks to be about half full, but a larger contingent of Clemson fans is on hand for this game.

Here are a few Big East news and notes from the final coaches teleconference of the season.

Cincinnati

Coach Butch Jones said Jordan Luallen will remain a part of the game plan against UConn in the season finale, after Luallen had 77 yards on six carries against Syracuse last week. He nearly had two touchdowns, but came up just short both times. Once, he fell at the 1 without being tackled.

"He's an individual who has great intensity, great energy and he's one of our team leaders, and our players really rally around him. He came in and gave us a spark. I thought Munchie (Legaux) took great strides from Week 1 to Week 2. We think he's going to do nothing but get better. Jordan has to learn how to pick his ankles up to keep him from not falling down on the 1-yard line."

Connecticut

The Huskies have played multiple quarterbacks for a majority of the season, and are now facing a team that will do the same against them. Though they are coming off a big win against Rutgers, coach Paul Pasqualoni is aware of what his team is facing on the road against the Bearcats.

"This will be a big challenge for us to go on the road and play a real physical defense, and an offense that scores a lot of points. This will be hard for us," he said.

Louisville

Coach Charlie Strong is hopeful to get some of his injured players on defense back for the bowl game. Defensive linemen Randy Salmon, B.J. Butler and Greg Scruggs have missed a good portion of the season with various ailments, so the month off between games should help get them back on the field.

"We would love to have those guys back," Strong said.

Pittsburgh

Coach Todd Graham said running back Zach Brown (bruised sternum) and receiver Ronald Jones (concussion) were questionable for the finale against Syracuse after getting hurt in the loss against West Virginia. If Brown is unable to go, the Panthers would start their third running back of the season -- true freshman Isaac Bennett.

"We're hopeful Zach will be able to play," Graham said. "If it's possible, he will because he's a tough guy. "

Rutgers

Coach Greg Schiano reiterated his disappointment over his team's performance in a 40-22 loss to UConn, costing his team at least a share of the conference title.

"I thought we had a great week of practice," Schiano said. "I thought they dealt with the hype of the game really well. We just did not perform with precision, we didn’t coach with precision, organization was not precise enough to be able to win a game against a good team like Connecticut in their stadium."

USF

Starting quarterback B.J. Daniels remains questionable with a bruised shoulder, and coach Skip Holtz didn't give any indication about whether he thought Daniels would be able to play Thursday against West Virginia.

"He was able to throw a little bit last night, but I don't know that he's going to be able to have the velocity on the ball or be able to protect himself," Holtz said. "We know he can go out there and run around right now, because his legs are fine, we'll just have to see how he rehabs and heals. We're going to have to wait and see how he responds to the treatment."

Holtz added there is a chance receivers Sterling Griffin and A.J. Love could return this week.

Syracuse

Coach Doug Marrone says his players have got to respond to the adversity that has hit in order to beat Pittsburgh in the season finale and make it to a bowl game. Syracuse has lost four straight after starting the season 5-2.

"It's a difficult situation," Marrone said. "We try to teach our players about adversity early on and in the offseason. Now it's real. Now you have to fight your way through it and go. A lot of the focus right now is making sure we get in the proper state of mind for how we're getting ready to attack, and go out there and play and not worry about not making a mistake or things that cause us to be tight. We just need to go out there and play a good football game."

West Virginia

Coach Dana Holgorsen said he would start Curtis Feigt at right tackle and Quinton Spain at right guard against USF. Both came on in relief -- for Tyler Rader and Pat Eger -- against Pittsburgh, and helped solidify the offensive line. Feigt is a converted defensive lineman who saw his first real significant action of the season last week.

Holgorsen added that Corey Smith would start the game at punter.

Here are your links for today:

• Cincinnati has hired an interim athletic director.
• No news on the UConn quarterback derby. George DeLeone's career has come full circle.
• Louisville goes deep at receiver.
• Illinois transfer Hubie Graham has locked down the starting H-back spot for Pitt. Three Woodland Hills graduates are on the rise.
• David Osei is excelling in his new role at center for Rutgers. Receiver Quron Pratt is healthy and getting noticed. Tejay Johnson is ready to learn after a year away from football. Duron Harmon has big shoes to fill in replacing Joe Lefeged.
• Syracuse football has had to overcome the pain. The run of injuries began with the head coach.
• Is the USF secondary better than the 2007 group?
• Quinton Spain learns to adjust as he competes for a starting job at right tackle, a new position for him. The biggest unknown is how the defense will do this season. Former Kentucky walk-on quarterback Michael Burchett is transferring to the Mountaineers. Ten points on West Virginia after 10 days of practice. The swagger is back.

West Virginia starting left guard Josh Jenkins is out for the season after undergoing surgery on his left knee, the school announced Wednesday.

Jenkins sprained his MCL in the spring game and underwent an extensive rehab program. But following rehab, team doctors felt his kneecap was still unstable, so he underwent surgery on July 5. Jenkins is eligible for a medical hardship waiver and should be back for his senior season in 2012.

Trainer David Kerns said in a statement the surgery was done to "help better track his patella for normal function. Jenkins will remain in a leg brace for six weeks, then will regain strength and slowly regain any residual lost motion due to the immobilization period.

"At the appropriate time, he will begin the back-to-run/play-progression, which all totaled will be six months from surgery until fully healed and strong enough to play football. He should be fully participatory for winter training and then spring football."

This is a big blow for West Virginia. Jenkins, a two-year starter, has been one of its most solid contributors and one of its most experienced players returning. But there was always uncertainty about whether he would be able to play this season. On the post-spring depth chart, coach Dana Holgorsen listed Jeff Braun at left guard. Braun moves over from right tackle, where he started every game last season. Redshirt freshman Quinton Spain would be in the No. 1 spot at right tackle.

• Big plays in a weekend scrimmage provide optimism that the Syracuse offense can be more explosive in 2011.
• Pitt will be blitzing more on defense under Todd Graham, although it would be hard to do it much less than Dave Wannstedt's teams did.
• New West Virginia assistant Daron Roberts might have a Harvard law degree, but he only wants to coach football. Mountaineers offensive lineman Quinton Spain is still huge, but just a little less huge now after slimming down.
• Skip Holtz needs to see a better passing attack from his South Florida Bulls.
• Louisville's Victor Anderson seeks a return to the form -- and health -- that made him the Big East's 2008 rookie of the year.
• Dallas Hendrickson is a small-town guy who could make a big impact on the Rutgers offensive line.

West Virginia opens practice on Wednesday, and I had a chance to catch up with head coach Bill Stewart on the eve of spring drills. Here's Part I of our conversation. (Note: Stewart offered a thorough, lengthy overview at the start of my interview, so I'm going to divide that up by topic rather than make you wade through several unbroken paragraphs).

You obviously had some great leaders on last year's team. How do you see this year's team replacing that?

Bill Stewart: We've lost seven guys on our defensive side of the ball to graduation and four of those guys went to the NFL combine. That tells you not only the kind of players we had, that tells you about the leadership we had on the 2010 football squad.

This year's team, I see a guy now like Keith Tandy; we're counting on big, big things from Keith. We've got some other young corners in Patrick Miller and Brodrick Jenkins, who have played, so that's kind of exciting. We've got some underclassmen to jump in the mix as well. I'm anxious to see Ishmael Banks, and Brantwon Bowser is ready to go and he has a chance to step up and make plays. We lost some players at safety, and certainly who I feel was the best corner in the league in Brandon Hogan. But I really feel good about our corners. With the inside guys, the spur, free safety and the bandit, we have Terence Garvin back, who gave us great play last year, and I'm looking for a big year out of him. Eain Smith is back, and he had a really good last couple of years. Then it's time for guys like Travis Bell and Mike Dorsey and Darwin Cook, Wes Tonkery, see these guys step up and make plays. That's going to be a fun thing to watch.

[On linebackers]: We lost three great linebackers; everybody knows that. We have Najee Goode back, and he's given us great leadership, as Casey Vance has done. A newcomer coming into the fold is Josh Francis. Man, he's real fast, he's explosive. He's going to be a real force, I think, in there at linebacker. We have Branko Busic, and Doug Rigg is a rising superstar, I really believe that.

[On the defensive line]: We lost Scooter Berry and what I think was the best nose guard in the league in Chris Neild. But we still have Julian Miller and Bruce Irvin, the great sack master. And now we have some young guys like Will Clarke, Jorge Wright, Josh Taylor and J.B. Lageman in there at nose guard. So there are some guys in ready to step up and make plays. Now it's their turn.

[On wide receivers/running backs]: Brad Starks can be as good as there is in this league. Stedman Bailey, what a player he was, and then Tavon Austin, J.D. Woods and Ivan McCartney. So we've got five or six top quality receivers. I'm really anxious to see how they do in this new offense. And then you take our new tight/end fullback type in Tyler Urban, who I think is going to be as good a big back as there is. And then you take Ryan Clarke, Matt Lindamood, Shawne Alston ... these guys have all played and they've done well.

[On the offensive line]: I'm worried about our offensive line, simply because Don Barclay and Jeff Braun, our two starting tackles, are out with shoulder injuries. They're healing up fine. That just makes way for the young guys. Now we'll see what Quinton Spain, the big redshirt freshman, can do with a chance to come into his own. Some other tackles like Nick Kindler and Pat Eger will get a lot of snaps this spring. And I'm really excited about our inside guys. Our center, Joey Madsen, is a great leader, he's the heart of the offensive line. Josh Jenkins has started a bunch of games at left guard. And then we have Cole Bowers, who's probably the most talented lineman we have, he just hasn't played that much. I'm really excited to see those inside guys.

I'm really looking forward to this offensive scheme. We have a lot of speed and we're very very blessed to have tremendous speed at our skill positions. And our offensive line, once Braun and Barclay get back, could be very very formidable

[On special teams]: I worry about our special teams a little bit. We're now on our fourth punter in four years in Corey Smith. Our punting game is still a question mark. Our kicker, Tyler Bitancurt, he's won big games for us, but he missed two there in the [Champs Sports] Bowl, so he's got some work to do. ... What we really need to step up to the plate, to be very honest, is our return men. Our return men we just haven't hit the big play like Tavon did a couple years ago against UConn [in 2009], or like Shawn Terry used to do in the early 2000s. We need to get more productivity on our punt and kickoff retrun. That's one of the big things we'll work hard at this spring.

Who do you have now as your return men?


BS: Tavon Austin and Bradley Starks could be good return men. I really like Brodrick Jenkins with the punt return game; I think he has a chance to catch punts and maybe make a name for himself. Some other skill guys we'll throw back there. That's what spring practice is all about. We'll see who can catch a punt, make a couple of guys miss and give us a couple of first downs on these returns.

Sounds like you hired an interesting special teams coach this week in Daron Roberts.


BS: He's going to help out. I got a nice call from a friend of mine with the Detroit Lions who said, "Boy, he's a great guy, very much a student of the game." He's going to bring some excitement to the game. He's young, and I know our players will rally around him. ... We're going to break it up again -- Steve [Dunlap] will be doing the defensive side of the special teams like kickoff and punt return, punt block, and Daron is going to be heading up kickoff return units and things like that. So there shouldn't be that much change there.

Again, we need more productivity there. We do have the talent, we just haven't done it yet. That's something that has to come back to the arsenal. I know what we're going to do on defense, and I think I know what we're going to do on offense, because we have fast playmakers who make people miss in space, and that's what this new offense is going to be all about. That's going to be exciting, and I can't wait to see it in action. But our return game has to get better.

Can you get a sense, through meetings and workouts, how well the team is picking up the new offense so far?

BS: Oh yeah. It's like anything else. It will look worse before it gets better. That's true no matter what brand of offense or defense you run. We think we have a pretty good deal going with this 3-3 stack. We know it, the coaches know it, the players know it inside and out pretty much. Now we just have to get the new players ... to carry on the tradition. And then offensively, I'm excited about what's on the horizon. We haven't done it yet, we haven't gotten a first down yet, but I think we're going to have a few tricks in the arsenal that's going to make us more explosive, and maybe we can get some of that game-breaking type play that we need to have.

It's March mailbag madness.

Jesse from Vernon, Conn., writes: Now that UConn has Paul Pasqualoni and Boston College played its first Big East team since they left, what is the likelihood that UConn and Boston College can play each other? I find it absurd these two schools are not playing each other. They are the only two D-1 schools in New England, not to mention only being about two hours away from each other. It could form into such a good (or bitter depending on how you look at it) rivalry. It could bring national attention to the Northeast at least once a year. So please tell me if my Huskies will ever get to play the Eagles up the road.

Brian Bennett: It's going to take more than a coaching change. I bet it will take significant changes in both schools' athletic administration before the bad blood is set aside. I agree with you, though: it's time to bury the hatchet and play again.

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John from Morgantown: I saw your video at Cincy weight room. Good workout man, you also need to work on your fingers to write about all good things coming from Big East this season. A quick question, do you know anything about a player name Quinton Spain OL from WVU? Everybody talks about the 300+ players signed this season but nobody mention Mr. Spain -- a 300-pounder himself and highly rated in the last recruiting period.

Brian Bennett: Should I be worried that you mentioned my workout and a 300-pounder in the same paragraph? Anyway, Spain redshirted last season, which is not surprising given that A) he was a true freshman on the offensive line and B) he was listed at 330 pounds. You don't see many kids coming out of high school at that weight who are truly in shape. But Spain right now is a second-stringer at left tackle on West Virginia's depth chart, behind Don Barclay. He'll get a chance to show how much he's developed this spring.

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Luke from Louisville writes: I'd like to comment on the question posed by a reader in the mailbag earlier this week about how successful a small school can be in the Big East. The schools he listed as examples (Duke, Vanderbilt) are, like Villanova, significantly larger than Wake Forest. Wake Forest, as you may recall, won the ACC in 2006 and went to the Orange Bowl to play Louisville.

Brian Bennett: True. Another tiny city school that has done well of late: Tulsa.

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Kevin U. from Syracuse writes: In 2009, the Syracuse Orange added a new wrinkle to their offense with the Stallion, their version of the Wildcat. From what I remember, it was a relatively successful play. Jump ahead to the 2010 season, and I don't recall Syracuse using it once. Any ideas as to why they may have dropped it, and any opinions on the play itself?

Brian Bennett: My opinion is that it was your basic Wildcat formation, and with Delone Carter rushing for more than 1,000 yards it wasn't really necessary to use that much. Ask Rutgers fans how they feel about seeing the Wildcat in heavy use.

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John from Kandahar, Afghanistan, writes: Quick question: Two years ago, Victor Anderson was the next big thing at Louisville. Last year, Bilal Powell took over and ran with it. Now with Powell gone, the talk is about Jeremy Wright. Well, what happened to Anderson?

Brian Bennett: Anderson suffered a series of injuries in the 2009 season, and Powell simply was a bigger, more durable back. I think the coaches like the way Wright runs through the tackles better than Anderson, who's not a big guy. But it's not like he completely disappeared: Anderson ran for 302 yards last season, averaging 4.5 yards per pop, and caught 11 passes. With Wright injured, he'll be the main tailback this spring. I have to believe the Cardinals will find a way for him to be an effective weapon this year.

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Daniel C. from Bel Air, Md., writes: In regards to the article, "Breakout Years for Big East Quarterbacks?" was Geno Smith not listed because he already had a breakout year, or that he played average defenses?

Brian Bennett: That article by Football Outsiders pointed out quarterbacks whose ratings went way up when accounting for opposing pass defenses, and who therefore might be primed to improve in 2011. Smith is pretty properly rated. His breakout came in 2010.

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Brandon B. from Savannah, Ga., writes: Which would you prefer: Oliver Luck and the ADs start a new conference taking the BE football teams away and invite East Carolina, Kansas, K-State, Maryland, UCF and, oh for fun, Virginia (They are getting nowhere in the ACC) since they've carried the b-ball league as well. Or kicking out the cellar-dwellers / leeches (DePaul, Notre Dame, and Seton Hall) and bring in three of the above mentioned teams?

Brian Bennett: Why not invite Alabama, Texas and USC? Again, for the millionth time, until someone can give me a rational reason why a team in a current AQ conference will leave that league for less money with the Big East or a new version of the Big East, it's not even worth discussing. I'm all for getting rid of DePaul and Seton Hall, but then who would play on Tuesday of the Big East tournament every year?

• While freshman quarterback Jeremy Johnson ponders a transfer, West Virginia welcomed massive tackle Quinton Spain to the team.
• Camp Holtz is definitely a change from what South Florida's players were used to in the preseason. Pretty sure Jim Leavitt wasn't organizing hula hoop contests and egg tosses.
• Some of Louisville's players look the part but haven't delivered on their potential. Charlie Strong wants to change that.
• Rutgers' Joe Martinek, who's been battling a hamstring injury, is motivated to hold onto his starting running back job.
• Cincinnati tight end Ben Guidugli wants to go back to a BCS game -- and play Notre Dame and former coach Brian Kelly.
• Syracuse will rely on young untested players to man left tackle.
• Former UConn receiver Mike Lang is embracing his switch to safety. And why not? He's starting right now.
• Pittsburgh cornerback K'Waun Williams was an unheralded recruit, but the true freshman is pushing for playing time on a veteran team.