For reference, here is what the proposed new stadium will look like:

Here’s the planned design for new #WVU and #NYPL ballpark in Morgantown twitter.com/GFCoyle/status…

— Geoff Coyle (@GFCoyle) March 26, 2013

The affiliation with the New York-Penn League would be a major benefit to West Virginia University. The minor league baseball team would assist with the operating costs and maintenance of the proposed new stadium, relieving the Mountaineers athletic department of some of the financial burden.

The partnership also brings significant tax breaks from Monongalia County for the construction of the ballpark as well as the road infrastructure work needed to support the additional traffic the stadium would bring in.

Construction of the new stadium is set to take place over the next two years and should be ready in time for the 2015 season.

You have to hand it to AD Oliver Luck for finding a finance partner for the new stadium project. This way, the baseball team can play in a Big XII-caliber stadium without having to fork over all the costs associated with one.

October 8, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: General view of Milan Puskar Stadium before the game between the West Virginia Mountaineers and Connecticut Huskies. WVU won 43-16. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE

As the spring practices march along towards the mid-point of the spring semester, the WVU athletic department announced the release of tickets for the annual spring scrimmage game: the Gold-Blue Game.

Since coach Holgorsen has assumed control of the Mountaineers program, attendance at the Gold-Blue Game has steadily increased each season with more than 10,000 fans taking in last year’s scrimmage.

With the dramatic turnover in the roster this off-season, it is expected that Mountaineers fans will come out in droves to get their first glimpses of the make-up of the 2013 starting line-up. This will be WVU fans first chance to see how the depth chart will shape up at wide receiver, defensive line, and defensive line.

Most importantly, WVU fans will be anxious to see which quarterback looks the most impressive operating the spread passing attack. It should be quite the interesting duel between Paul Millard and Ford Childress.

The 2013 Gold-Blue Game will take place Saturday April 20, at 2 p.m. Tickets for the game are $10 and can be ordered through wvugame.com or via 1-800-WVUGAME. Students get in free (with their student ID)!

If you aren’t already pumped about seeing the future West Virginia stars in action, then you will be really excited to hear that the proceeds of the Gold-Blue Game go towards the WVU Children’s Hospital.

Go watch some Mountaineers football, do it for the kids!

For more details on the Gold-Blue game, visit wvusports.com.

Jan 4, 2012; Hartford, CT, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers guard Taylor Palmer (2) reacts after a play in the first half against the Connecticut Huskies at the XL Center. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Quite a tough week for the basketball team. The Mountaineers opened their inaugural Big XII conference slate with two agonizingly close losses.

Mike Carey’s girls went out to Norman, OK to kickoff their Big XII campaign with a momentum building win. What they came back with was a heartbreaking loss. A disappointing result given that the Mountaineers had a 9 point lead early in the second half of the game.

Taylor Palmer fueled the Mountaineers upset bid over the #16 Sooners with 24 points in the first half. Oklahoma found a way to lock her down in the second half, keeping Palmer to only 6 points in the second half. Even with Palmer’s struggles in the second half, there were two glaring deficits in the Mountaineers game: rebounding and personal fouls.

The Mountaineers got owned on the glass by a 44-31 margin. Ayana Dunning, WVU’s woman on the glass, was only able to bring down 5 boards. It is not as if the Mountaineers weren’t playing physically, they played just a hair too physical in fact. WVU got into serious foul trouble late, having three starters foul out and a total of 32 team fouls.

In contrast, Oklahoma only took 15 fouls. That led to a massive disparity in free throw shooting, with the Sooners taking 26 more attempts than the Mountaineers. You cannot allow your opponent that many more opportunities at the charity stripe than you and expect to win. WVU lost a tight 68-71 decision.

Three days after dropping a close game to the Sooners, the Mountaineers returned to Morgantown to face the Kansas Jayhawks in their Big XII home opener.

West Virginia held leads of 13 and 6 points at varying points throughout the game, but the #21 Jayhawks battled back in each instance to tie the game. Taylor Palmer once again led the Mountaineers in scoring with 24 points.

And once again, unfortunately, the Mountaineers played far to physical on the defensive side of the court, committing 27 fouls to Kansas’ 16. Had the Mountaineers not put the Jayhawks on the line 20 more times than they were there (34-14 margin), then WVU would not have been in such a close affair. Kansas used their free throw margin to hold off WVU, 59-60.

This coming week, the Mountaineers will host Texas on Wednesday January 9 at 7 PM and then travel to play at Kansas State on Saturday January 12 with a 4 PM tipoff.

January 4, 2012; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers quarterback Geno Smith (12) hoists his MVP trophy after his team defeated the Clemson Tigers 70 to 33 in the 2012 Orange Bowl at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Barr-USA TODAY Sports

“Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Soon the bowls will start,

And the thing that will make them gay, is the parlay that you play;

Right within, your heart.”

-Lyrics by Johnny Mathis (after a pint of bourbon and the SEC Championship Game)

Tis’ the season to be Jolly, and to obsess over meaningless bowl games, of course.  Don’t tell the guys over at Bleacher Report that bowl games are meaningless, because they went ahead and projected each bowl via playing NCAA ’13.  As much as everyone always complains about having too many bowl games, let’s be honest, come this Saturday, we will all be watching Rich’s Wildcats teeing it up against the Wolfpack in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl.  Heck, if the weather holds out, I may fire up the barbecue and head out to the porch!

Personally, I have never quite understood the constant bemoaning of too many bowl games.  Seriously, what else are you going to do, watch figure skating?  The more bowl games the better!  The exciting part of bowl games is that you never know what is going to happen.  Sure, there are a few terrible matchups, but every year there is that team that clearly doesn’t want to be there and some lowly underdog upsets a double digit favorite (here’s looking at you Northern Illinois).  After that, how do you factor in the team that’s excited to make its first bowl game, the two to five week layoff teams face, seniors geared up for their last game, seniors that could care less about anything except for the draft, interim coaches, despondent teams that lost their head coach, or teams that would love to stick it to their head coaches?  It may be meaningless drama, but it’s still drama and in that spirit, the staff here at HailWV is more than excited to fire up our bowl pickoff.

First and foremost, the one thing you need to know about our staff pickoff is that this is not a friendly competition.  We all want to beat each other badly, err, I mean the rest of the staff wants to beat me badly, but know in their hearts that their efforts will be futile.  Alas, if they somehow win a segment in the pickoff, the winner will get to write the follow up post and talk some smack against me and the rest of the staff.

As referenced above, we will be splitting the bowl season up into segments, three segments to be precise.  The winner of the first segment will receive four points, the second place writer will get three, then two, and one point for the last place finisher.  The second round will be worth double points and the final round will be worth triple points.  Each section will have a tiebreaker, based on the point total of the segment’s last game.  The total points leader at the end will be declared the world famous, HailWV 2012 Pickoff Winner.   He will likely then need to hire a bodyguard just to keep all of the female suitors at bay.

To preview segment one; the bossman goes straight chalk with Brandon only mixing it up with the Toledo Mud Hens.  Oops, I mean Rockets.  Obviously these folks don’t know the basic rules of betting, not that I’ve ever bet, ahem, but taking straight favorites will be the demise of these Ill witted chaps.  My superior intellect tells me that the MAC is going to show up huge in the bowl season, riding on the coattails of fabulously underrated regular season.  Recent coaching departures at Western Kentucky (plus late season falters), San Jose State, and Cincy confirm my picks against these squads.  The Dukies haven’t been in a bowl game since the New Deal, so expect Cutcliffe to have these guys ready to rumble.

Here is segment One:

Segment Two:

Segment Three:

Follow along to see how we do, previews for the next segments, and listen to the staff talk all sorts of Christmas trash talk to each other.  Even better yet, post below to tell us why we are idiots and who you would pick in each game.

October 20, 2012; Morgantown, WV, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Dana Holgorsen looks on from the sidelines against the Kansas State Wildcats during the second quarter at Milan Puskar Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

Dear  BFAs,

I really don’t have much to say about the Mountaineer’s this week.  Wish I had a witty comment or two, but honestly, what do you say without being incredibly negative?  I never truly thought we were a national contender, but was sold on a top ten team, yet we are staring at a substantial meltdown.  Go back and read my first email and I certainly warned (so didn’t everyone else) that we could have major problems, but shoot, we look like a bad 1-AA team on defense right now.   I’ll stop here, cause I really don’t know what else to say, however here is a good article to read for those of you jumping off cliffs.

Somewhere in Mountaineer field, I feel like there are two asian grounds keepers having this conversation right now.

Sometimes when I get down like this, I just have to turn to my good man, Bill Brasky for a good laugh.  If the Mountaineer season does go down in flames and die, I foresee the funeral looking something like this, but with WVU hoodies, haha.  How can these classics not bring a smile to your face??

So, as the forever optimist, lets examine who we can be thankful that we are not and give thanks that we don’t suck THAT much:

-  We are not Auburn.  Gene Chizik is two years removed from a national championship and is 1-6.  With an inevitable blowout loss to Alabama, Gene better watch out that Takeo Spikes doesn’t break him and feed him to War Eagle.  It would be awesome if they hired Harvey Updike.

-  We are not Kansas or Charlie Weis.  What a god awful marriage that is anyway.  Charlie has to hop around the field with a crutch and his defense gives up more yards per game than Charlie has been able to hobble in his entire life.  Kansas is also 1-6.

-  We are not Arkansas or John L. Smith.  Remember folks, this team was ranked higher than us in both polls to start the year and are now 3-4, their original coach was busted for banging out his employee and breaking his neck, then they replaced him with ole John L., who going through a bloody bankruptcy proceeding in which he is some $40 million in debt.  Joe Deforest, you should be looking up to this man.

-  We are not Virginia Tech who is 4-4, seems to be on a back slide as a program, and has lost to UNC, Pitt, and Cincy.  They will finish the year 0-2 versus the Big East.

-  We are not Mizzou who the SEC picked over us, debated how they were better than us on blogosphere, and so darn excited about joining the SEC.  Now they are 0-4 in league play and appear destined to join Kentucky as perennial doormats in the East division.

-  At least we are not one of the moderators to the presidential debates.  Talk about getting your a** beat.

- At least we are not Wyoming, who has a coach that was fined $50k last week for shouting expletives at Troy Calhoun, coach of Air Force.  Watch this.

Phew.  I feel better after that . . . and no, I don’t feel cheap because I make myself feel better on other’s misfortunes.

Around the Nation

Another week, another win for ND and Ohio State, further adding to my football misery.  Seriously, these guys gotta lose.  Thankfully both have tough opponents this week.  Personally, I will be headed to the Scandal Bowl of the Buckeyes and Sanduskys.  If you want to spot me in the crowd, I’ll be that guy wearing gold in the middle of a white out.  I have actually been to this game once before, back when Tamba Hali wrecked Troy Smith, and the Lions upset Sweater Vest . . . here’s hoping for history to repeat itself.

Quick round up on the remaining undefeated teams:  Kansas State (TT this weekend), Louisville (Cincy), Rutgers (Kent State), Notre Dame (OU), Bama vs Mississippi St, Florida (UGA), Ohio State (PSU), Ohio (Miami of Ohio), Oregon (Colorado), Oregon State (Washington).  I wouldn’t be surprised if half of these teams, if not a third lost this weekend, but I would love to see the two Oregon teams survive until the Civil War game at the end of the season.  Stuff like that is what college is all about . . . war.

Looking forward, you must start with Friday.  Friday night Big East games have largely been a punch line for the past few years, but cincy and Louisville should actually be an entertaining game.  After that, one must turn and praise Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson to gaze upon their SEC minions.  Alabama gets its first legit competition in a long time in facing an undefeated Mississippi St.  I am vary intrigued to see if team cowbell can keep up with Bama or will they be exposed.  In the 3:30 spot, the SEC East gives you Florida’s last major hurdle until they face of against Jimbo, as they travel to Athens.  UGA will be looking to rectify its blowout loss to Cocky.

In the Big XII, the two teams that have fostered our demise face off at 3:30.  Lets hope this turns into a 6-4 game for the comedic value.  More importantly, Notre Dame faces off against Oklahoma in Norman.  Oklahoma has revived itself from its early struggles and if they don’t pull off the win this weekend, we may be looking at the worse possible scenario of 2012 actually occurring  Notre Dame playing for the NCG.  Outside all of those games, it appears to be a rather quiet weekend.

Random

I will be posting the NCAA EA Sports predictions until they begin to falter.  Going 4-1 last week, and again predicting an Eer loss, these predictions have been hilariously correct.

Props to the Dukies for being bowl eligible.  As much as we hate them in hoops, how can you not feel for the little guy?  Rutgers has beaten WVU more recently than Duke has been to a bowl.  How great would it be to play Rutgers right now for a guaranteed win?

Anyone else hopeful to see a dominant offense like Oregon’s play the SEC Champ in the championship game this year?  I mean, I fully respect the league and their defenses, and feel that Bama is the best team, but with all these games being won with under 200 yards of offense, seriously??  Tough to criticize considering where WVU is right now, but you cannot tell me that Florida and LSU are complete teams.

What has this season really missed?  The Honey Badger.  He was incredibly fun to watch . . . getting busted for drugs, again

This is Awesome.  Awesome.

That’s all I got for you this week.  Everyone, stay strong and I’ll see ya back in Morgantown next week.

Al

November 25, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: West Virginia Mountaineers fans celebrate a third quarter touchdown against the Pittsburgh Panthers at Milan Puskar Stadium. WVU won 21-20. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE

Today’s blog post was written by future HailWV.com staff writer Alan Searles.

Dear Blog Followers of Al (BFAs),

1. Every time you see a grammatical error or find some other issue with my writing, please remember that I am probably drinking, and if you really care about pointing these out, maybe you should be as well. If you reply about an error, self punish yourself to two Schlitz beers. If you hit reply, but catch yourself before sending, drink one.

2. Competitive banter is appreciated. Your beer spilling, livid tirades are not considered banter, but will likely cause some tailgate humor. If you respond with an angry tirade that isn’t productive, you will be sentenced to watching Sun Belt football . . . on Saturdays.

3. Any unauthorized reproduction or selling of this blog is a violation of the Bro Code and will be prosecuted. Your punishment is shame.

4. I refuse to buy into the NCAA’s Bowl Subdivision crap. It is still 1-A and 1-AA in my world and I do not find that politically incorrect. I will not address the Big Ten’s new division names either. They are ridiculous. I’ll consider Nebraska part of the West division and Penn State in the East. Any reference to this nomenclature will be a violation. Sit quietly and reflect on Craig James’ career.

5. If you hear the song, Sweet Caroline . . . well you know what to do. There are no exceptions. Work, church function, wedding, 5 year old birthday party, at the bar, or elevator music are all perfect times to let people know how you feel. Sing it loud, sing it proud. Your punishment for neglect? Obtain Pitt season tickets and attend each game, even if you are there alone.

Notes

- To the newcomers or to some of the readers who are starting to lose their memory, you may be wondering at this point how did I get on this blog? Why am I still reading? What is the meaning of life? Did I just soil myself? Well to answer your questions, 1 – you were either referred, you asked to be on, or The Blog selected you. 2- You don’t have anything better to do. 3 – the meaning of life is 42. 4 – You need this.

- A lot of people ask what an BFA is. Mr. Jay Stewart coined the term and I liked it, so it stuck. Blog Followers of Al.

- I cannot guarantee that all internet links are appropriate to watch at work or in front of your children. I will try to stray from anything that will give you a virus, but I cannot guarantee that you perform the act in the video that you will not get hurt or receive a virus. This link for example is one of my favorites and is relatively harmless, however; the humor may have to be explained to your young daughter if she is watching. Here is another example. Even this one may be interesting to explain. You know what though, all of these were published on a channel owned by Disney.

- I would be remiss if I did not at least give you the opportunity to opt out this blog, especially with the consumer protection laws today. Please opt out here if need be and take a moment to provide feedback as to why you hate me.

September 4, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: Marshall Thundering Herd running back Travon Van (right) is stopped for no gain while carrying the ball against West Virginia Mountaineers defensive end Will Clarke (left) during the second quarter at Milan Puskar Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE

This Saturday’s Friends of Coal Bowl marks the last scheduled meeting between West Virginia and Marshall in football for the foreseeable future. Should the heavily favored Mountaineers beat the Thundering Herd; it will be the 12th straight victory for WVU in the series. The series has only been played 12 times total.

Talk about a rivalry.

There is no widely accepted definition of a sports rivalry. While there are as many definitions of sports rivalry as there are teams in the NCAA basketball tournament, there are a few key components that can be used to define these rivalries.

1.) History: West Virginia and Marshall first played in 1911. Since then, the schools have only played 11 times in the 100 years after the initial match-up.We’ll call this a check.

2.) Geography: WVU and Marshall are the only two FBS football programs in the state of West Virginia. They are only a 3:30 hours drive apart making it relatively easy for the schools to meet. Check.

3.) Animosity: Anyone who has ever lived in the state of West Virginia, or who is a member of either fan base, will tell you that these two groups of fans just do not like each other. Having grown up in the Huntington area, I can tell you that Marshall is as much a part of life in that town as the oxygen in the air. People in Huntington build their lives around Marshall athletics.

The same can be said of Mountaineers fans. It seems that everybody in Morgantown is in some way related to or affiliated with the athletic department. Instead of reading their children fairy tales at bedtime, they tell their children stories of the 2008 Fiesta Bowl, the 2005 Louisville game, and of the 1988 Penn State game.

When you have fans as passionate and personally invested in their teams, any talk of their team being inferior to the state’s “other team” is tantamount to refusing Tudor’s Biscuit World (which is phenomenal). Solid animosity, double check.

4.) Competitiveness: This is the criteria that this “rivalry” lacks. Marshall has never beaten West Virginia on the gridiron. More over, the Thundering Herd has only twice lost by single digits: 1911 WVU 17 – MU 15, 2010 WVU 24 – MU 21 in OT.

West Virginia and Marshall discontinued their series after the 1923 season, presumably due to competitive issues. In the first four games of the series, WVU outscored MU by a total of 210 – 21.

The two schools would not play each other for the next 54 years, primarily due to the fact that Marshall was playing at the Division 1-AA level (now FCS) and WVU was playing at the Division 1-A level (now FBS). Yes, teams now conventionally play FCS teams in “rent-a-victim” games. Playing lower level competition was not as acceptable in the pre-BCS era.

Marshall spent the 1990s dominating the Division 1-AA level of competition before moving up to 1-A ball in 1997. Once Marshall decided to play on WVU’s level, the Mountaineers welcomed them to Morgantown for their first taste of big time football. The game was very close, with WVU coming from behind late to win 42-31. Clearly, Marshall was on the rise and WVU was in decline. Was that a factor in why the two teams did not play for the next 8 seasons? Possibly.

Whatever the reasons may be for the two schools not playing one another after the thrilling 1997 game, the two programs would need legislative intervention to renew their series. Former Governor Joe Manchin got the two schools to agree to the present Friends of Coal Bowl series starting with the 2006 season.

Sept 10, 2010; Huntington, WV, USA; Marshall Thundering Herd kicker Tyler Warner (37) reacts to a missed kick as West Virginia Mountaineers players celebrate at Joan C Edwards Stadium. West Virginia defeated Marshall 24-21 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-US PRESSWIRE

Marshall has shown flashes of competitiveness in this recent series. The Herd held leads into halftime in the 2007, 2009, and 2010 games. The Herd had WVU on the ropes in front of their home crowd in the 2010 game, before suffering a monumental collapse.

Last year’s game, although shortened by rain, was true to the series history: WVU was the better team by three scores. This year’s game promises to be no closer, but hopefully less rainy.

All time, West Virginia has beaten Marshall 11 straight times by a combined score of 451 – 129. Competitiveness NOT check.

If Marshall really wants for this series to become a rivalry, they’ll have to at least win one game. Surrendering leads late in games does not make a rivalry. It takes beating a team for 60 minutes (not 53 minutes like in 2010). This year may be their one and only chance to beat the Mountaineers; at least until another West Virginia governor decides to force these teams to get together again.

If Marshall can beat the Mountaineers, at least once, this series has all the other makings of a true rivalry.

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1. BILL STEWART FIRING
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3. BILL STEWART FIRING
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