CSNbbs

MSNsportsNET.com Wrote:On Board
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
February 15, 2008


Jeff Mullen

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – With guys like Patrick White and Noel Devine running around in the backfield and an offensive line that is returning intact, new offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen has the look of a guy that has just been handed the keys to a brand new Ferrari.

“I’ve heard a lot about the talent here and certainly we don’t lack for talent,” Mullen said earlier this week. “We’re going to miss guys like Owen Schmitt, Darius Reynaud and Steve Slaton – that’s a lot of offense that is not around. But having said that we’ve got a lot of fine football players here at West Virginia and we’re going to use them all.”

Mullen comes to West Virginia from Wake Forest where he tutored quarterback Riley Skinner, who completed 72.4 percent of his passes to lead the nation in completion percentage last year. The Demon Deacons won an ACC title in 2006 before facing Louisville in the Orange Bowl. This year Wake beat Connecticut in the Meineke Bowl in Charlotte.

Mullen said he is only planning to incorporate minor tweaks to an offense that put 48 points on the board against Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl and averaged 456.2 yards per game for the season. Much of the new stuff will come by taking some of what each new coach did at their respective schools.

“We’re talking about a guy in Doc Holliday who won a national championship at Florida, David Johnson who won SEC championships at Georgia; of course I bring an ACC championship. You’ve got Lonnie Galloway who has got three national championships under his belt and Chris Beatty who has won two high school state championships in Virginia. We’ve got a lot of good ideas in that room right now.

“I wanted to come into this thing and absorb all that they had to offer and implement that. What I’ve been able to bring is a system that allows different looks and different things.”

Equally important for Mullen is to make sure Patrick White is on board with the system and can manage the differences in terminology.

“The biggest process has been to hone in on what we want to be at West Virginia with all the great coaches and ideas we have and most importantly tie them to a quarterback that needs to execute and that’s where the buck is going to stop with what Pat can handle and what he can do,” Mullen said.

Most of the adjustments for the players will be pre-snap, according to Mullen.

“If the kids can handle the pre-snap terminology the post-snap is going to be easy,” Mullen explained. “That’s kind of how we are selling it to them if they put in the time with the new playbook and the new terms. We’ve got to do those types of things or as a staff we just wouldn’t be able to call a football game.”

The primary goal for this spring is to get the base offense installed and for the coaches to have a good idea what the players can and cannot run.

“We have goals this spring to make sure that we get into the core of our offense which quite frankly, is going to be very similar to what you’ve seen in the past,” Mullen said. “We’re going to start with that and we’re going to make sure that they understand why we call those plays and then, of course, execute them.

“Then we’re going to start flipping around this spring and see how that looks. In the fall we’ll have a good feel for what our players can execute and what to call,” Mullen said.

Mullen, who indicated that he will be up in the coaching box during games this year, believes it is important for the coaches to break down film on all of the players so they have a good idea what they are working with when the Mountaineers begin spring practice in less than a month.

“You’ve got to know your personnel. That’s where it starts,” Mullen said. “I learned a long time ago it’s about football players and not coaches. We’re going to take a couple of weeks to look at the Wake Forest cut-ups, the Georgia cut-ups, the Florida cut-ups – all of the stuff that we’ve brought together as a staff and kind of hone in on what we want to do on that end.

“We’re also going to take a week, week and a half, to look at what West Virginia did last year from a personnel standpoint and from a scheme standpoint,” Mullen said. “That was a good group of coaches that were very, very successful so we certainly don’t want to fix anything that’s not broken. We’re going to look at both sides of it and analyze it and put together a good plan.”

Mullen is a firm believer in the passing game and he says you can’t solely rely on one facet of your offense no matter how good it is. West Virginia found that out the hard way in the Pitt loss when it was unable to take advantage of openings downfield in the passing game that ultimately cost it a shot at playing in the national championship game.

“If we’ve got vertical threats we’ll go and stretch the field vertically,” Mullen said. “If we’ve got great route runners then we’ll find holes in zones and use picks in man coverage. I do believe you have to throw it; you have to be efficient in throwing it.

“Within time we’re going to have a legitimate throw answer to defenses that won’t allow us to run it,” Mullen said.

Mullen says he has coached teams that could run the ball effectively but eventually reached its ceiling because it didn’t possess a good enough passing game.

“I spent five or six years in a spread-option offense from the University of Hawaii to Ohio University and we were one of the best in the country every year in rushing the football and we’d win seven or eight games a year. But there were teams that you couldn’t beat because you couldn’t throw it and so we’re going to have the ability to throw the football,” Mullen said. “Whether or not we do it is going to be based on our personnel and how well we pick up our schemes and terms.”

Mullen is making the first major move of his professional career after spending the last 14 seasons with Jim Grobe at Ohio and Wake Forest.

“There were four coaches on that staff that were together that long and then another three coaches that were 10 seasons together,” Mullen said. “Our wives know each other, our kids know each other; we’ve been to everybody’s weddings and birthdays. That was difficult to leave.”

Mullen admits the opportunity to work with Bill Stewart was simply too good to pass up.

“I don’t know if people truly understand this guy and what he is about,” Mullen said of Stewart. “He’s gold-plated. That’s the term I’ve used often and I’m really looking forward to working for him and starting to develop those relationships with this staff.

“Everyone can coach ball,” Mullen added. “I think there is a personal side to it that is pretty cool. I feel very close to these people already and I am looking forward to starting a long-term relationship with all of their families.”