In an effort to keep you informed on various happenings with the ECU Pirates’ opponents this season, we are going to begin posting news about players and coaches from teams that we will be facing this season. If you ever hear any news or rumors about the Pirates or their opponents, shoot us an e-mail at 200YearsTooLate@gmail.com and we will work to get to the bottom of it and get more information to you using some of the various sources that we use.
Photo Credit: ESPN.com
Last week, Eugene Smith, one of West Virginia’s most promising recruits from its 2009 recruiting class broke his foot “in an unspecified off-the-field incident.” I came across an article on ESPN.com via Boneyard Banter thanks to Hummell. According to the Charleston Daily Mail, “If the bone was displaced, it’d be a bigger problem, but this is a non-displaced fracture,” Dave Kerns, WVU’s athletic trainer, said. “Everything is in line.”
My guess: He was getting down and dirty at the Roller Rink during the limbo contest over at Skate A Way in Fairmont, WV and hadn’t tied his skates well enough. Just kidding. I bet he broke his foot doing something like I did back in the day like walking or playing beach volleyball. They haven’t released how he officially broke it or what part of the foot is broken but they have said that he will be out for about 6-to-8 weeks with the injury. Check out this video of Smith playing 7-0n-7 football in high school for Mirimar. He threw for 3,089 yards and 32 touchdowns during his senior season there:
Brown is going to be missing a lot of snaps over the next few weeks during their preseason practices. Practice is the time that so many young players develop the relationships with teammates and get a feel for what it is like to play at the collegiate level. He will be sidelined during the next 6-to-8 weeks during practice and probably won’t get the necessary snaps that it takes for a young quarterback to get to the point that a coach is not nervous about giving them playing time.
Smith is the third string QB for the Mountaineers behind Jarrett Brown (the current starter and 5th year senior) and Bradley Starks. Does it really sound like Smith’s injury will affect the game we have against them on September 12th? No, not really but it does take the depth out of their depth chart. Brown is the third string QB behind Starks but Starks is also the first string WR so that pretty much makes Brown the second string QB. If Brown goes down for any reason from coming down with the flu to injured during practice or their first game, the pressure is put on the WVU coaches to decide whether to pull Stark out of his WR position and put him at QB (which weakens WVU’s WR depth) or to try out Smith who will just becoming out of a cast a few weeks before the game.
With that being said, I believe that Bill Stewart has a tough season in front of him. He did a great job recruiting (from the talent that I saw in the video at the end of the post) but he is going to have a tough time maintaining his depth at QB especially if any more injuries occur or Smith’s injury doesn’t heal like it is supposed to.
The Pirates will be facing the Mountaineers the week after WVU opens their season against the I-AA Liberty Flames of Lynchburg, VA (who went 5-0 in their conference and 10-2 for the season). I don’t expect the Flames to win the game but they are going to be playing as hard as Appalachian State did against Michigan in ‘07 and could possibly pull something out. It is highly unlikely especially with someone so dominant as Noel Devine in the backfield.
If you are interested in seeing some of the other recruits that WVU picked up in the 2009 class, check out the following video. The quality isn’t great but you can get an idea of their class. Eugene Smith’s segment is at the 5:11 mark in the video:
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