WVU preseason Top 5, just not on TV ... yet
MORGANTOWN — Is West Virginia shaping up as a Top 5 football team in preseason rankings for 2007? It’s obviously still too early to tell. Just two national publications’ Top 25 listings have been made public so far.
But both accord the Mountaineers a spot among the country’s Top 5.
Lindy’s College Football magazine rates West Virginia No. 4. That’s one notch higher than Athlon had pegged the team earlier in the week.
Rated ahead of the Mountaineers in Lindy’s Top 25 are Southern Cal, Louisiana State and Michigan.
Texas is No. 5, followed in order by Wisconsin, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Oklahoma.
Rutgers is the only other team from the Big East on Lindy’s list. The Scarlet Knights are ranked 16th.
Defending national champion Florida heads the second 10. California is 12th, Ohio State 13th, Arkansas 14th and TCU 15th.
Behind Rutgers come Georgia, Texas A & M, Hawaii and Wake Forest.
That magazine rates WVU’s Steve Slaton as the nation’s No. 2 running back, an All-America first-team selection and sixth among the leading Heisman candidates.
The record-breaking junior was a consensus All-America choice in 2006 and finished fourth in the Heisman balloting.
Teammates joining Steve Slaton on Lindy’s all-Big East first team were Ryan Stanchek, Vaughn Rivers, Keilen Dykes and Eric Wicks.
WVU quarterback Patrick White was named the Big East’s most valuable player. But he had to settle for a spot on the all-league second team.
Stanchek, leader of the offensive line, was tagged the Big East’s best blocker on running plays.
Scuttlebutt making the rounds this spring was that Pat Liebig might rejoin WVU’s football team this fall.
He’s the outstanding junior nose guard from Naples, Fla., who left school last December with a year of eligibility left.
Liebig explained at the time that his father was ill and needed him home to help run the family’s automobile dealerships.
But Bill Kirelawich, the veteran defensive line coach, said the other day that the big guy has said he won’t be back.
“I was recruiting down there a week or so ago and talked to him about returning,” Kirelawich revealed. “But he told me he still feels that he’s needed at home.”
Liebig, a business and economics major while at WVU, certainly would be a big boost to the Mountaineers were he to come back.
All but two of West Virginia’s 13 football games last season were televised.
As of now, however, only five of this year’s 12 regular-season contests are scheduled for telecasts.
ESPN or ESPN2 will air road games at Marshall, Maryland and South Florida, as well as the home games against Louisville and Pitt.
However, WVU’s visits to Rutgers, Cincinnati and possibly Syracuse could be good candidates for later TV bookings.
One or more of the other games might be offered on the Big East network.
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