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July 28, 2012

Jeff's Sports Corner: WVU should be wary of lofty expectations

By JEFF HARVEY Princeton Times

PRINCETON — This is an “uh-oh” week for me as in, “Uh-oh, WVU is ranked second in the Big XII pre-season poll, which means fan expectations are going to be ridiculously inflated for the football team.”

I guess I should be, as a casual WVU fan, flattered that a new conference’s media contingent ranks a new team, which played and plays in another time zone, so highly. That’s not to mention that Geno Smith was named the Pre-Season Big XII Offensive Player of the Year over Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones and Tavon Austin was both named to the pre-season first team offense at wide receiver and first-team punt returner on defense.

If both Smith and Jones repeat their 2011 seasons, it’ll be interesting to see their positioning in the 2013 NFL Draft. Austin is another player who could be a first-round pick with a repeat of his junior year.

However, I’m in the cautious camp where WVU projections are concerned. I’d rather see a WVU team get underpublicized early then spring upon the national scene in November, than this highly rated early projection, which will lead to major deflation should WVU lose a game in a daunting Big XII schedule.

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I still can’t see why media that have failed to vet presidents and covered up other political scandals involving favored politicians (the sports media does this, then turn on their subjects later) has a moral high ground when it comes to Joe Paterno.

Right now, it’s the statue at Beaver Stadium and the possibility of the NCAA “death penalty” for the program. Give the media enough time and it’ll be a virtual blacklist of Paterno if not a Jehu-style purge against his family. Jehu was the man through whom God destroyed the House of Ahab in the Bible.

I apologize for that, but I can’t help but feel that way. I’m both pessimistic and paranoid, which can make for either reading good columns or out-of-control wrecks.

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I think I’m with the majority, though, in wishing for an end to this Dwight Howard saga. In my opinion, Howard, though highly-talented, can’t decide what he wants to do and has held his team hostage to his constant vacillations about staying or going. The team, to its discredit, hasn’t realized that he has to go after the situation were the head coach and general manager both got fired which will be pinned upon Howard. They want to dump other contracts on teams as part of any Howard deal, despite the fact that no team is going to take more than one “bad” contract (“bad” meaning the team doesn’t want to pay it, not in the sense that the players are useless).

•••

Well, Jeremy Lin is now away from New York and the Knicks, thanks to a three-year contract with the third year much larger than the first two from the Houston Rockets. It’ll be interesting to see how Lin thrives or doesn’t away from Madison Square Garden with a team that doesn’t have established stars. In New York, he allegedly didn’t mesh with his second coach, Mike Woodson, or established superstar Carmelo Anthony. Now, with the losses of Lin and Landry Fields, the Knicks are much older (Jason Kidd, Raymond Felton) at point guard, but not necessarily better.

•••

It’s getting time for NFL training camps to start and I predict that the Super Bowl champion New York Giants will be overshadowed by the New York Jets, who have slipped from the team which were one game away from the Super Bowl two years in a row, but bought itself a quarterback controversy by bringing in Tim Tebow. As sure as clams have shells, Tebow’s going to be called for by fans if/when Mark Sanchez struggles and if/when Tebow struggles, people are going to turn on him and his faith. Maybe another book the Bible, Revelation, would be more applicable to the times.

Let me know what you think by writing me c/o Jeff’s Sports Corner, P.O. Box 1199, Princeton, WV, 24740. I can also be reached at delimartman@yahoo.com or jharvey1@frontiernet.net or on Facebook.

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