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WVU begins ‘mock week’ for Missouri

MORGANTOWN — With his team’s season opener against an invading Missouri Tigers squad less than two weeks away, veteran West Virginia University head coach Dana Holgorsen and his staff are using their final week of preseason as a dress rehearsal to give the new players, and coaches, a taste of what they can expect when the Old Gold and Blue begin the campaign for real next Tuesday.

“We call this our ‘mock’ week,” said the Mountaineers’ sixth-year head coach. “We have quite a few guys who haven’t done this before. We like doing this now, because we start the real deal after that.

“We had our final scrimmage of camp last Saturday. We started our mock week on Sunday, gave them Monday off like we do during the season, and they will come in today and we will treat this week just like we would a normal game week.”

That includes a mock game on Saturday that will end with the team signing “Country Roads” on the artificial surface at Mountaineer Field.

“We want to make it as close to the real thing as we can,” continued Holgorsen, who led the team to an 8-5 mark a year ago and a 43-42 victory over Arizona State in the Cactus Bowl. “We will have our normal practice routine, the team will travel on Friday night and stay at the hotel, and then we will have our normal routine on game day.”

The former-offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State, Holgorsen has been impressed with his team’s development from the spring until the end of Fall Camp saying, “I feel good with where we are at. We’ve got pretty good depth and we have a good idea of who are going to play.”

One player who won’t see action when the SEC’s Tigers visit Milan Puskar Stadium for the noon kickoff will be redshirt senior left guard Adam Pankey, who ran into legal problems during the final week of preseason and was suspended for the Missouri game. Pankey will join senior placekicker Josh Lambert, who has been suspended for the team’s first three games due to team violations, on the sideline.

“We hold these guys to a higher standard,” said the coach. “Currently, he is suspended from the team and we will hold him out through the Missouri game.”

Taking the Hamilton, Ohio player’s place will be redshirt senior Tony Matteo, who has missed time this summer recovering from an injury.

“Tony (Matteo) is a fifth year senior and he will step in. Our depth took a hit, but Grant (Lingafelter) has stepped in and done a good job while Adam and Tony have been out.”

The rest of the team will be “in the best health we have been in since the opening of camp” and looking to pick up where it left off in the Cactus Bowl. Especially, senior quarterback Skyler Howard, who threw for a bowl record 532 yards and five touchdowns against ASU.

“Confidence and consistency,” Holgorsen explained when asked about his senior signal-caller. “He’s more confident. Part of that is he is more trusting of the people around him. There is still a need for consistency, but from what I’ve seen so far, I like where we are offensively.”

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