Quickness, tough love work for Mountaineers’ O-line

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, October 27, 2006  |  Comments( 2 )

West Virginia Mountaineers
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Here's what the scouting service attached to Pro Football Weekly has to say about West Virginia center Dan Mozes:

"Has short arms and struggles to handle big-bodied defenders. Shows little leg drive off the ball and too often falls off blocks and winds up on the ground. Is smart, makes all the line calls and is a vocal leader, but is too limited athletically to help most (pro) teams."

And Mozes is the fourth-ranked Mountaineers' best lineman, an All-America candidate.

Meanwhile, the other headliner on the WVU O-line, senior guard Jeremy Sheffey, comes from Catlettsburg, Ky., but wasn't recruited by either the University of Kentucky or Louisville. So he has a special incentive (as well as a lust for comp tickets) when the Mountaineers face the sixth-ranked Cardinals in Louisville on Nov. 2.

The rest of the current offensive line consists of three sophomores and a freshman.

So how is this unit among the national leaders in rushing offense? How do they pry open the gaps that allow Steve Slaton, Pat White and Owen Schmitt to burst through on all those breathtaking runs?

Quickness. Teamwork. And the ferocious influence of offensive line coach Rick Trickett. This, indeed, has become a line that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

"Football is not very complicated," Trickett recently told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "But people get bored, and they get away from the fundamentals."

It's rare, however, that boredom sets in on Trickett's watch. If he comes across like a Marine on the practice field, it's because he was -- and a decorated Marine at that, seeing combat at Khe Sanh and during the Tet offensive in Vietnam. He's also smaller than most O-line coaches, having played defensive back at NAIA Glenville State.

That doesn't mean he isn't tough.

"I don't care if you're 300 pounds," says Mozes, "he (Trickett) will still hit you in the helmet with his hat to try and get you motivated."

"He's a demanding coach," adds WVU head coach Rick Rodriguez of Trickett.

The same was true when he coached at LSU and Auburn and dealt with imposing pupils like first-round NFL draft choices Willie Anderson and Wayne Gandy.

His West Virginia linemen tend to be less than 300, though, which works fine for Trickett's zone blocking system. If a wide-load lineman didn't have the agility to spring quickly downfield, he'd be wearing Slaton's or White's cleat marks up his back like a tattoo. With that in mind, Trickett stresses conditioning.

"With our kids," Trickett said, "the game is usually easier than the practices."

Only freshman Greg Isdaner tops the 300-pound mark along this year's offensive front, a rarity in college football these days. But as one college football preview magazine noted before the season: "These guys aren't going to blow anybody off the ball, but they're amazing for the Mountaineer running game because of their quickness, pulling ability and smarts."

That's a rep that will be sorely tested by a strong Louisville offense on a fast-approaching Thursday night in Louisville. Yet Rick Trickett doesn't plan to let all the hype surrounding the contest deter him from directing the Mountaineers in what they do best.

"If you can run the football," he says, "you can pretty much do anything you want."
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