Red Raider Gridiron | Slowing Down West Virginia

DEFENDING WVU | LAJ's Nick Kosmider writes about defending West Virginia QB Geno Smith. Kosmider has quotes from a lot of folks, including DT Delvon Simmons:

"We have to get pressure," Tech defensive tackle Delvon Simmons said. "That’s the main thing. If we don’t get pressure, and we let him sit back there and hold the ball, he’s going to find somebody. They have fast, shifty guys, so we just have to get pressure. That’s the key thing."

DT's Michael DuPont II also writes about defending West Virginia and head coach Tommy Tuberville says that you have to have guys flying to the ball:

"You better have more than one person around them trying to tackle them," he said. "So we’ll go in with the same type of game plan. We’ll bring four. We’ll bring five. We have just got to make sure that whatever we do, that we tackle at the point of attack. We can’t give up 150 yards after the catch or after we’ve made contact on the run. We can’t do that."

Also, TTU's Brandon Rawe looks at defending against West Virginia:

Defense Gears Up for Mountaineers (via techathletics)

LINKS | The Daily Mail writes that Texas Tech won't take many risks on defense and does the simple things and WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen talks about what happens when you blitz or take chances:

"Blitzing means taking chances and pressuring means taking chances," Holgorsen said. "By blitzing, you're taking people out of position to help prevent the score if you put the ball in play. By not doing that, they're covering more ground. They have more people in coverage and if you happen to complete the ball, they have more people going to it. They're in position to make plays. We'll probably have a little longer to throw the ball - not that they don't do a good job with the pass rush rushing four people. They do. At times they do it with three. Every defense poses challenges and every defense we scheme to attack and put people in position to be successful."

. . . also the Daily Mail writes about RB Andrew Buie and his impact on the WVU offense . . . RP.com's Joseph Yeager writes about the game . . . 24/7 Sports Landon Wright talks with WR Javon Bell and how he is adjusting to Big 12 football and expects to score a lot of touchdowns:

"This week we should have a lot of touchdowns," Bell said. "The secondary shouldn’t stop us this week, there’s no way. Their secondary shouldn’t stop us. We have the best receivers in the Big 12, we just haven’t shown it yet. This week we should show it."

. . . a nice Boston Herald story on shenanigans of Wes Welker and Mike Smith . . . also congrats to Baron Batch for scoring his first touchdown in the NFL . . .

OPPOSING VIEWS | We all do this, in fact my Q&A with The Smoking Musket goes up later this morning, but we have LAJ's Nick Kosmider answering questions of the MetroNews and the MetroNews answering questions. Also, RRS.com's Aaron Dickens asks questions of WVSports.

PREDICTIONS | Football Study Hall's Bill Connelly's F/+ picks ends up picks Texas Tech . . . SI.com's Stewart Mandel picks the Mountaineers . . . DMN's Mike Graham picks Texas Tech in an upset . . .