Nehlen issues a challenge

MORGANTOWN - Coach Don Nehlen said Sunday his West VirginiaUniversity football players must want to keep playing hard or suffermore defeats.

Unless they motivate themselves, now that the team has been allbut eliminated from the Big East championship race, he doesn't thinkthe Mountaineers can improve on their disappointing 4-3 record.

He challenged them to show strong character in the four gamesleft, including Saturday night's clash with Big East leader Syracusehere.Nehlen said a brief scuffle between Barrett Green and a teammate,shown on television, stemmed from an argument after Virginia Techblocked a punt to take an early lead in Saturday's 27-13 loss atBlacksburg. He said it was "no big deal."The veteran coach thought WVU's offensive play was its poorest ofthe season. He noted that quarterback Marc Bulger began pressingafter his unit failed to score in the third quarter.Other comments are included in the weekly postgame interview whichfollows:Q. Do you have an update on injuries?A. I don't think we've got anybody hurt bad. Barrett Green is theworst one. He fractured a thumb. Ryan Brady's injured hip is a day-to-day thing. Hopefully, that will come around.Q. Now that WVU has been eliminated from the Big East title race,how do you get your players motivated for the remaining four games?A. That's a good question. First of all, you hope they'refootball players and a football team and that they're willing to goout and claw and scratch.If they're not, then you've got a major problem. There's nothinga coach is going to say to get them to go.Q. Can you recall another game in which one of your teams failedto score on either of two back-to-back opportunities from the 1 andthe 7?A. No. That killed us. It really did, it really did.Q. If you had it to do over, would you change any of the fourplays called after getting first-and-goal at the two?A. Oh, you know, maybe. But the one run should have scored. Andthe two passes could have scored if guys blocked where they weresupposed to block. You get about nine out of 11 guys doing the rightthing. Two guys that don't do the right thing foul up the wholeworks.Q. Was Marc Bulger groggy after Tech was penalized for roughingthe passer on the first drive of the third quarter? He did not seemas sharp after that.A. I don't think so. When we didn't get it in down there, I thinkhe started to press and that led to a couple other mistakes. Butthat's the first time he's really pressed like that.Q. How did tailback Amos Zereoue grade out in both running andblocking?A. I thought Amos played pretty well. He ran better than he had.But he still doesn't seem to have that gear he had last year. We gothim in the open three or four times.Q. WVU had more first downs, more plays, more yards and morecompletions against the Hokies than any other Tech opponent had.Does this make the defeat even more difficult to digest?A. Oh, yeah. Heavens, if we execute just two or three plays, it'snot even close. And if the defense eliminates three plays, theydon't even get on the board.Q. Bulger was sacked only seven times in the first five games buteight times in the last two. Were there breakdowns in passprotection or just great defense?A. Well, I think it's a combination of both. When you throw 40-some times, that ups your average. We sacked Tech five times andthey threw only 21 passes. They sacked us four times and we threw46. But that's no consolation.Q. TV showed a shot of two WVU players scuffling on the sidelinesduring the game. What was the problem?A. It happened after the punt got blocked. We had a new guy inthere, and he and Barrett Green started to argue.It was no big deal. The TV guys blew everything up. And theperception of us is damaging.Q. Finally, any lingering thoughts about the Virginia Tech game oryour team?A. Our guys really played hard Saturday. But, offensively, thatprobably was the poorest game we've played all year.Also, the Big East scheduling kind of bothers me. Here VirginiaTech plays Alabama-Birmingham before us. Then after our game theyget a week off before playing Syracuse.We play Temple, Miami, Virginia Tech and Syracuse in succession.And this is two years (of that) in a row.When you have to play the top dogs 1-2-3, it's murder. Plus youstill have got to play the other ones, too.