Carpenter’s Crunch Time Column: Look for the Bucs to rebound against Ripley

Duane Carpenter
September 2, 2022

BUCKHANNON – Well, the West Virginia-Pitt game is now in the record books and what a disappointing loss. While the team looks better than last year, J. T. Daniels is certainly an upgrade at quarterback and C.J. Donaldson looks like the future, there was still a lot to nitpick.

Eleven penalties, countless drops and still a lack of physicality from the team. It would seem with the way we lost, that Neal Brown’s seat is only going to get hotter.

Looking at the high school games from last week, I think the biggest surprise for me was the Grafton-Philip Barbour result where the Colts won by a 52-7 score. My sources told me that the Colts would be better this year and I know the Bearcats lost a lot of talent to graduation, but I don’t think anyone saw a 45-point blowout coming.

For those B-U fans that circled the Philip Barbour game as a sure win, you might want to take that sure win part off your calendar.

Last week, Brian Bergstrom and I both went 4-1 missing on that PB-Grafton game.

We have five more games this week…and we will start with our two games from last night.

West Virginia (0-0) at Pitt (0-0)

Brian and I both thought WVU could get the win…how wrong we were. I said, WVU, 31-28; Brian said WVU, 17-14.

West Virginia Wesleyan (0-0) at Saginaw Valley State (0-0)

We both figured Wesleyan would struggle in their opener at a very good Saginaw Valley State team, but neither thought it would be 72-0 bad. I said Saginaw Valley State, 44-14; Brian said Saginaw Valley State, 35-21.

Now onto our three high school Friday night games.

Ripley (0-1) at Buckhannon-Upshur (0-1)

I don’t think B-U is as bad as what the final score said last week. Bridgeport is very good and is going to do that to a lot of teams. Ripley is on a 10-game losing streak and I think the Bucs will add one more to that this week. My pick: Buckhannon-Upshur, 28-13; Brian’s pick: Buckhannon-Upshur, 21-13.

Bridgeport (1-0) at Morgantown (1-0)

If I wasn’t covering the B-U-Ripley game, I would pay for a ticket to watch this one. Everyone got hyped about Morgantown’s game last week with South Charleston, but SC is not what they were, losing a ton of players to what is known as the Kanawha Valley portal. We will see who the local power is in Class AAA after this one. My pick: Bridgeport, 21-14; Brian’s pick: Morgantown, 24-23.

East Fairmont (0-1) at Grafton (0-1)

We have already talked about Grafton, while East Fairmont lost a 40-19 contest to North Marion. One has to wonder how the Bearcats will respond this week. I like the Bees to break into the win column. My pick: East Fairmont, 28-14; Brian’s pick: East Fairmont, 13-6.

Until next week…see ya!