Penn State’s Great Start At West Virginia | Are Nittany Lions For Real

The new in-helmet communication was an issue for West Virginia in their loss against Penn State on Saturday, with head coach Neal Brown explaining that it wasn’t working early in the Week 1 matchup for the Mountaineers.

Brown explained that communication was an issue early in the game and it forced the Mountaineers to go off their initial gameplan. That included going away from motions before the snap after a pair of bad snaps came on them.

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“We went to it after we took that,” Neal Brown said. “So, if you look at that play, that was in the third series. So, the first series of the game I think we went six plays. My mind’s working right. We went six plays and we had a couple where the play clock — in full transparency, our coach-to-player [communication] didn’t work the first series.”

The coach-to-player communication is new this year and it allows the coach to communicate with one player, typically the quarterback on offense, up to 15 seconds before the snap. That allows for some changes in how a team operates.

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When those in-helmet communications went out, it forced West Virginia to adapt. That included doing things like not going to a huddle and using hand signals.

“It went out, and I don’t know what the case was but we didn’t have our coach-to-player. So, we were gonna huddle the whole time but because the coach-to-player went out, we didn’t. So, we had some issues there.”

Certainly, the West Virginia offense struggled early in the game. Part of that can be attributed to first-game anxiety and the talented Penn State defense. Another part is likely related to those communication issues.

“First play after the turnover, we motioned. Garrett asked for the ball late. Ball hits him. Next play, we’re gonna run a running play because defensively we still got a stop after that. It was still 0-0. We get the ball back. Very next play is a motion play. We’re gonna run the ball…that ball goes boom, off. It was a really hard snap,” Brown said.

“So, at that point, I went off our opening script and just went to some very standard plays, really into that or we went to some motions that aren’t affected by the snap…we got away from those until later…we went back to them later and it was after Garrett had settled down a little bit.”

This also forced Neal Brown and West Virginia to use hand signals more than they initially planned, though they had been prepared to use those signals in the right occasions.

“We did it more than we were planning on. We wanted to play with some tempo vs. those guys because they wanted to match personnel. So, when they went to their their big sets, we wanted to play open…but to play fast you’ve got to still use signals. Okay,” Brown said. “Then, there’s some times when you’re gonna huddle. When you huddle, you don’t need signals. So, you’ve got to have plans for a rainy day, AKA the system goes out. So, you’ve got to still have the signals.”

West Virginia is going to hope to have an easier time communicating on Saturday when the Mountaineers host Albany.

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) – The Little Kanawha Area Community Foundation (LKACF) is an advisory board aligned with the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation representing the counties of Wirt, Calhoun, and Gilmer.

The goal of the LKACF is to give support and help to a section of the rural communities in West Virginia.

Fred Rader, the executive director of the Parkersburg Area Community

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A recently released MetroNews West Virginia poll shows that Jim Justice is a prohibitive favorite to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Joe Manchin. The poll shows the Republican Governor leads Democrat Glenn Elliott 62 percent to 28 percent.  Only ten percent either favor another candidate or are not sure.

The support for Justice is broad. He has a significant advantage over Elliott in all the major demographic categories—gender, income level, age, region of the state and level of education. The only potential weak spot is among voters with bachelor’s degrees, where Justice is favored by 49 percent to 36 percent for Elliott.

Justice’s favorables among West Virginia voters are almost as strong as Donald Trump’s—60 percent for Trump and 57 percent for Justice. Just 32 percent of voters view Justice unfavorably, compared with 37 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Senator Shelley Moore Capito.

Two-thirds of the state’s voters approve of the job Justice is doing as Governor, while only 27 percent disapprove. Notably, Justice maintains that high job approval rating even though a majority of voters have a negative view of the state. Fifty-six percent believe West Virginia is on the wrong track and 75 percent think the state’s economy is likely to get worse or just stay the same.

The numbers for Justice are remarkable given that in the latter part of his first term he was underwater. The MetroNews West Virginia Poll in 2019 had Justice’s job approval rating at just 42 percent, while 40 percent disapproved. However, since then Justice’s numbers have been steadily rising.

That increase can be attributed to several factors. He handled the pandemic with science-based decisions and great empathy for the victims. His daily briefings were informative and comforting. In addition, the state has experienced more economic development announcements in the last few years than any time in recent memory.

Meanwhile, Democratic challenger Glenn Elliott has spent the summer traveling the state, going door to door, and trying to build a grassroots base for his campaign. It is a solid strategy for a candidate with limited resources, but it is also a tough row to hoe.

Elliott’s biggest challenge is that most voters simply do not know him. Our poll found that 27 percent have a favorable opinion of him, only 17 percent view him unfavorably, but 57 percent just are not sure. A potential upside is that Elliott is a blank slate to many, so he has a chance to create a favorable impression, but that takes time and money, and the election is just a little over two months away.

There has been a lot of news lately about the Justice family businesses’ non-payment or slow payment of bills, taxes and even health insurance premiums for Greenbrier employees. However, neither that nor perceptions about the state’s economy are having much of an impact.

It is clear that a majority of voters like Jim Justice and think he is doing a good job.