Game Week: West Virginia vs. Texas Tech

1. Who is the opponent? The West Virginia Mountaineers (3-1, 2-0) travel for the second week in a row to take on Texas Tech. West Virginia has an opening win over Eastern Kentucky, then a loss at Oklahoma State in Stillwater, then had two straight home games, Baylor (winning in double-overtime) and last Saturday, a 38-17 win over Kansas.

2. What is the time and date of game? October 24th at 4:30 p.m. I don’t recall a 4:30 p.m. kickoff for Texas Tech in quite some time.

3. How do I watch or stream this game? The game will be on ESPN2 and can be streamed on WatchESPN.

4. What’s the opening line? Via OddsShark, Texas Tech opened as a slight favorite in a couple of online books, but according to OddsShark, West Virginia opened as a -3 favorite and it is still at-3.

5. Scattershooting, while wondering what ever happened to . . . John Denver . . . j/k, he’s not a graduate of West Virginia, Denver did attend Texas Tech, but dropped out to pursue his career in music . . . we’re wondering whatever happened to Don Knotts, who was born in Morgantown, and eventually received his bachelor’s degree in education from West Virginia. Knotts college career was interrupted by World War II, where he joined the military to entertain the troops, working as a ventriloquist and comedian, receiving the Philippine Liberation Meda, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, Marksman Badge, and Honorable Service pin. Most of us remember Knotts from the Andy Griffith Show, where he portrayed the memorable Barney Fife, the deputy with just one bullet. Knotts then played Ralph Furley on Three’s Company. Knotts died at the age of 81 in 2006 . . . the connections to Texas Tech run far and wide as head coach Neal Brown was the offensive coordinator under Tommy Tuberville. I always thought that Brown got a bad rap, no one liked him really and hated the NASCAR reference. I saw a reference one day last week that said that Brown was starting to get the offense humming, but Tuberville stepped in the way, but if you mean that Brown actually wanted to run the ball more than you think, then you would be correct. Brown actually loves to run the ball, currently at at 51% clip, 42% last year, but at Troy he ran the ball 56% and 47% of the time. At Texas Tech, Brown ran the ball 42%, 39%, and 40% of the time . . . offensive lien coach Matt Moore and running backs coach Chad Scott were also with Brown at Troy and were also at Texas Tech at some point and I thought they were good hires even back then . . . Brown had to fire defensive coordinator Vic Koenning after a WVU player, Kerry Martin, Jr., accused Koenning of insensitive comments . . . the staff is sharing duties in terms of defensive coordinators and they moved Jeff Casteel to coach linebackers and they’re sharing those responsibilities . . . WVU runs with a tight end or slot receivers (I don’t think they are married to one look) and on the defensive side of the ball, they run a 3-3-5 with the 5th defensive back being more secondary than linebacker . . . at quarterback for WVU is Jarrett Doege, the former Cooper Pirate and transfer from Bowling Green . . .

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