Raising the Bar

Raising the Bar

By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com June 19, 2006 MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Owen Schmitt understands that the same magazines currently blowing up the West Virginia University football team are also being read by players from Rutgers, Pitt, South Florida, Syracuse, Connecticut, Cincinnati and Syracuse. Fullback Owen Schmitt ran for 380 yards and a pair of touchdowns as a sophomore in 2005. Van Slider photo One team’s satisfaction is another team’s motivation. If the bar wasn’t already raised by the Mountaineers’ eye opening 38-35 victory over Georgia in last year’s Nokia Sugar Bowl, then Athlon’s, Sporting News, Street & Smith’s and Lindy’s have taken care of moving it up several more notches this summer. “That’s what happens when stuff like this happens,” said Schmitt recently. “If you’re the guy on top you’ve got to try and stay on top and everyone else is gunning for you.” Schmitt, West Virginia’s rising junior fullback who also happens to play in the Big East shadows of Rutgers all-everything Brian Leonard, says the bull’s-eye is now squarely on his team’s back. “We should get everyone’s best every time,” Schmitt said. “We kind of raised the bar on ourselves as well,” he added. “We went 11-1 and we lost one so I guess next year we’re trying to be perfect. But we won’t take it like that: we’ll take it one game at a time as you should. We’ll stay hungry and we’ll stay humble which is Coach Rod’s motto. It will be interesting to see what happens this year.” Of course the one caveat to the humble and hungry thing is that the team must also somehow figure out a way to conduct their business with a certain swagger required of a BCS conference torch-bearer. And that’s easier said than done. “The ‘stay hungry’ and ‘stay humble’ is more for us and the ‘swagger’ is more about prestige. It’s kind of hard to explain,” said Schmitt. “He wants us to be confident but stay humble. Stay confident in yourself but don’t be cocky.” In past years, the fuel for West Virginia’s program has always been a perceived lack of respect -- whether true or manufactured. In 1993 when West Virginia won its first Big East title, the Mountaineers were predicted to finish in the middle of the pack despite having almost their entire team returning. In other years West Virginia also got great mileage out of being the underdog, like last year’s team. And yet there were other times when the Mountaineers were projected to do great things like in 1998 and 2004 and they didn’t quite meet those lofty expectations. Schmitt admits the team this year will be going up against more than just 12 quality football opponents. “The media pressure we’re going to go up against this year … everyone is going to be like, ‘You’ve got it on a silver platter,’” said Schmitt, alluding to WVU’s perceived easy schedule playing in the Big East. “But we’ve just got to do it. If you watch ESPN or listen to radio talk shows they’re still pretty much ripping us. “They say we’ve got an easy schedule and if we don’t win all our games we’re nothing and last year was a fluke -- stuff like that. We’re just a ball club like any other team,” he said. West Virginia is certainly one of those bandwagon teams everyone is jumping on right now like the Miami teams of the early-to-mid 1980s. Schmitt understands all the hype means absolutely nothing when you strap on the shoulder pads and put on the helmet. “If we stay on track of what we did last year, yeah, this year looks like we’ll do the same thing but every team changes,” he said. “We have a lot of big games this year that could ruin our season so we have to stay focused.” The focusing has already begun, according to Schmitt. “Workouts are 75 percent of the game,” he said. “Without Mike Barwis and the strength staff we might not have won half the games that we did. It’s a big thing that our program really relies on. Everyone says that because we’re really under-sized that (weight training) really helps us.” Because the summer conditioning program at WVU is so demanding, Schmitt says they are doing more than just getting into great shape. They are also conditioning their minds for another grueling football season. “This really helps us become stronger than the rest of the teams in the last of those four quarters,” he admitted. And while Schmitt may not be as well known to outsiders as Rutgers’ Leonard, he has already established himself as the standard for toughness and durability in the WVU program. He came to West Virginia gift-wrapped as a sophomore walk-on from Division III Wisconsin River Falls, and cracked the regular lineup for good after an 80-yard performance in a road win against Maryland. Following the game, talented Washington Post columnist Mike Wise referred to the 6-foot-3-inch, 250-pound bruiser as a “runaway beer truck without its parking brake.” Schmitt finished the season with 380 yards rushing and owns the distinction of having the longest carry from scrimmage (54 yards) of the running backs. Buying into Rodriguez’s mantra of staying hungry, Schmitt has a whole laundry list of things he wants to improve upon this year. Specifically he’s concentrating on his footwork, overall strength and speed, staying low, and catching the football out of the backfield. “Yeah, pretty much everything,” he says.