There is a lot of noise around Saturday's matchup between West Virginia and No. 8 Penn State. For WVU's offensive coordinator Chad Scott though, he wants his offense to remain focused on themselves through it all.
When West Virginia's offense lines up against Penn State on Saturday there will be a level of unfamiliarity on multiple levels for Scott.
Not only is it week one of the season, but PSU replaced all three coordinators from last season.
"It’s because it’s the first game. Obviously, it’s a big game for us, they’re all a big game for us. We prepare the same way regardless of who the opponent is. Obviously got a lot more time to prepare for the opponent so that’s what makes it different, you got a lot more time than you normally have in a game week to prepare for them and that’s a good and bad thing," Scott said. "Sometimes you can see too much and work on too much and feel like you can do too much and put in too much, install too much, and now you got guys out there thinking instead of reacting. As far as it being different not necessarily from a mentality standpoint just that we got more time to prepare for them."
There is also a lot of talk about the magnitude of the matchup and the emotions the atmosphere can create for players. Scott said he wants his team to have energy from the start, something that was an area of focus in scrimmages during fall camp.
"To be honest with you, our last couple of scrimmages, we’ve had several scrimmages and we weren’t as good at least to start in a couple scrimmages, and the last two scrimmages I thought our guys came out ready to play the first drive and they brought a lot more energy to it," Scott said. "For our guys, we just got to come out, we’re an energetic football team, the quarterback is an energetic, high-confidence guy and that’s what makes him go so we need him to come out and play with that kind of energy. Obviously we can’t get too high, can’t get too low, but we got to come out with some kind of energy."
The obvious piece to WVU's offense is quarterback Garrett Greene. Greene is known for the passion and emotion he tends to play with and has when during games. Scott wants to just let Greene be himself and hope the rest falls into place.
"Be Garrett. Garrett be Garrett. That’s just for us period, we got to be who we are. Offensively we got to be who we are, he got to be who he is, us coaches understand that. he’s matured over the past year, he’s grown a lot, he has a respectful understanding of what he can do and what he can’t do and how it should and should not be. Otherwise, we just let him be him," Scott said.
That is not the focus for Greene but for WVU's offense as a whole, continuing to do what they're good at and not be someone they're not just because of a coordinator change or because of a bigger stage the game is being played on.
"Just go back to doing what we’re good at. When you go into a game where you don’t necessarily would as much as you typically would if the coordinators were in place you’ve got to do the things that you know you’re good at and be ready to make adjustments early in the game if you see anything different," Scott said.
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