decent read on "assignment football"

by Jay, San Diego, Friday, April 24, 2009, 08:09 (6243 days ago) @ Spesh

http://www.tbo.com/sports/MGBBWWO917F.html

Burnham said that facing West Virginia is certainly not easy, but the philosophy is "very simple."

"When you play against an option football team, it's assignment football," Burnham said. "Someone has the dive, someone has the option, someone has the pitch. Now against West Virginia you might have to put two people on the quarterback, two people on the dive and somebody on the pitch. You can't freelance. You can't do a lot of different things. You have to be patient and know they're going to get some plays."

Besides White and Slaton, this year the Mountaineers will have highly touted freshman running back Noel Devine of North Fort Myers.

"They can run the ball, they're all good backs," USF senior cornerback Trae Williams said. "Pat White and Steve Slaton are up for the Heisman. We have our work cut out for us. We have to worry about your job, just do your job."

Added senior cornerback Mike Jenkins: "If you try to do more than you need to do, you're in trouble. If I play corner, I can't try to help the safety. You have to do your assignment and that's it."

Defensive end George Selvie, who returned a fumble for a TD last year in Morgantown, said Burnham had demanded perfection in practice.

"We just play our assignment," Selvie said. "Coach Burnham had a specific thing we had to do and we had to do that to a 'T.' If we didn't do it right in practice, we had to do it over again until we did."