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Rigg warns foes expecting cakewalk: They will ‘feel it on the plane ride home’

West Virginia linebacker Doug Rigg says any team expecting an easy win in Morgantown will feel differently on the plane ride home.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As Oklahoma State’s traveling party lands in Pittsburgh and begins GPSing directions to WVU, here’s a rundown of the week’s best quotes:

West Virginia linebacker Doug Rigg on OSU being heavily favored (by 19 points as of Friday morning):
“If they think they can come into Morgantown and just pull out with an easy victory, we’re going to show them it’s a tough place to play. They’re going to feel it on the way out; they’re going to feel it on the plane ride home.”

More from Rigg on opponents undervaluing WVU:
“I’m not a fake optimist. I honestly feel like we can compete with every team left. A lot of teams are not going to look at us on the schedule, they’re just going to blow by and think they’ve got a win.”

Oklahoma State running back Jeremy Smith on the scene he’s expecting in Morgantown:
“I keep hearing a lot of crazy stories about the fans and stuff. I’m ready to go down there and see if everything is true. I’ve heard they’re pretty loud and that they try to get in your head, but we’re not going to let that happen.”

Rigg’s assessment after watching film of OSU’s Smith:
“He’s a good back—similar to Oklahoma, except that Oklahoma has three of them.”

WVU plans to use left tackle Quinton Spain at guard this week.

Dana Holgorsen on the pectoral injury that sidelined Ford Childress this week:
“It’s something you can’t fix—it’s just got to heal. It’s not going to end his season; he’ll be able to work through it. We’ll re-evaluate him next week and see where he is.”

Holgorsen on junior left tackle Quinton Spain shifting to left guard (replacing sophomore Marquis Lucas) and senior Nick Kindler moving into Spain’s tackle spot:
“It make us older.”

Center Pat Eger on whether WVU linemen are gunning to get less blame, more praise this week:
“As an offensive lineman, you’re not in it for the praise. All the skinny guys, they’re going to get their face in the newspaper. We’re here because we play in the trenches and we love to be physical.”

Right tackle Curtis Feigt says it’s crucial to encourage the younger linemen:
“You can definitely see when a young guy is getting down on himself and kind of putting their head in the sand and getting kind of frustrated. I’ve been in that position most of my career.”

Nose guard Shaq Rowell on his game preparation:
“It’s day and night how I look at film now vs. when I first got here. I watch a way lot more film now—probably like three or four more hours every day more than I used to. I didn’t used to watch film, to be honest.”

Offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson admits he and Holgorsen are facing a new kind of slump:
“You never know what any season will bring. Obviously this season threw us a little curveball here at the beginning. We haven’t faced this much in our offensive careers.”

Rowell on the WVU defense carrying the offense, a script-flip from 2012:
“Now you can’t point fingers at nobody, because you just remember last year. They was over there going, ‘Dang, what’s wrong with the defense?’ This year we just keep our heads up, because we win or lose as a team. (Maryland) still put 37 points on the defense at the end of the day. No matter where the ball was, we allowed them to score.”

Holgorsen on changing the mentality of WVU’s offense after the shutout at Maryland:
“When a couple (bad) things happened early in the football game, we kind of got wide-eyed and said, ‘Oh, crap.’ You can’t have that.”

Former OSU president David Schmidly, speaking to The Daily Oklahoman about the Sports Illustrated allegations, many of which date back to his tenure:
“It was grossly sensationalized. I’m not saying none of it was true, but those things were never reported to me. I left the field with the football team. I went into the locker room, and I stayed until the players left. I never saw any donors hand out money. I never saw any coaches handing out money.”





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