Iowa State Notebook
November 30, 2014 06:31 PM | General
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| Quarterback Skyler Howard fires a 4-yard touchdown pass to Mario Alford in the second quarter of Saturday's game against Iowa State. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Give West Virginia some credit for going out and doing what it set out to do on Saturday afternoon against Iowa State at Jack Trice Stadium – win a November football game to finish the regular season on a positive note.
West Virginia’s November struggles have been well-documented, but the Mountaineers were able to find a way to win another tough football game on the road in the Big 12 on Saturday. The win was West Virginia’s fourth on the road this season.
“I’m proud of the guys for how they attacked this week,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. “Coming here, we know it’s going to be challenging – every game in the Big 12 is challenging, but this series between us and them has been tight and tough.”
The Mountaineers were also able to produce their first winning record in Big 12 play since joining the conference in 2012. Prior to this season, West Virginia was just 6-12 in league play.
WVU beat Iowa State on Saturday with several backups in the game, too, most notably second-stringer Skyler Howard under center at quarterback. The sophomore completed 21-of-40 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns, two of those TD tosses to Mario Alford and a third to Daikiel Shorts.
Howard also ran for 69 yards to help West Virginia’s ground game churn out a season-high 285 yards.
“I knew we needed a spark,” said Howard. “The running game opens a lot of different things and our O-Line had a great day out there, too.”
The Mountaineers were a perfectly balanced 285-285 in rushing-passing yardage against the Cyclones and nearly balanced in run-pass plays (38-41).
Speaking of balance, West Virginia actually ran the football more times than it threw it in seven out of 12 games this year and eight times the Mountaineers out-rushed their opponent, including Saturday against Iowa State.
The 285-yard performance against the Cyclones represented the sixth time this season that West Virginia ran for more than 200 yards in a game.
So much for the Air Raid Offense Dana Holgorsen has been known for.
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Sometimes the best way to get to the quarterback is by making him come to you. In the first quarter of Saturday’s game against Iowa State, West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson dialed up an assortment of blitzes to try and get to Cyclone quarterback Sam Richardson.
That led to Richardson completing 10 of his first 12 passes and touchdowns on three of Iowa State’s first four possessions.
“They brought some different pressures,” said Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads. “When you are looking at a team that has three down linemen and the ability to bring multiple blitzes from a lot of different places, you identify your protection and set everything. We were good to a point and they adjusted to that, and then we had to adjust at halftime to compensate for that.”
Then, when Gibson opted to change things up and drop his defenders back and make Richardson try to throw through them, West Virginia was able to intercept two of his passes and get their hands on several more.
“They really started dropping people in coverage to take advantage of certain down and distance situations where they knew we had to run the football,” noted Rhoads. “They were eating up our running game – it was almost non-existent – so they were able to play coverage, too. We were having trouble getting combinations and identifying where to get the ball and knowing where to throw the ball – nice job by their defense.”
Richardson finished the afternoon completing 26-of-50 passes for 275 yards and two touchdowns, but he misfired on 22 his final 38 pass attempts.
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Rushel Shell’s 54-yard touchdown jaunt on the opening possession of the game was something Mountaineer fans have been waiting to see from Shell since his transfer from Pitt last year.
Shell ran for a season-high 146 yards on 22 carries – the third time this season he’s topped 100 yards in a game. He had 113 yards and a touchdown against Kansas and ran for 110 yards and two scores against Texas Tech.
Shell remains the team leader in rushing with 766 yards and seven touchdowns on 164 carries.
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Kevin White became just the third player in school history to eclipse 100 receptions in a season (102) and he still comfortably leads the team with 1,318 yards receiving, but his production has fallen off significantly over the last five games of the regular season.
White had just three catches for 27 yards and a touchdown in the Oklahoma State win, three catches for 28 yards against TCU, seven catches for 63 yards and a touchdown against Kanas State and four catches for 48 yards in yesterday’s win against Iowa State.
As a matter of fact, White was not on the field late in the game when Howard hooked up with Daikiel Shorts for a 15-yard touchdown that gave West Virginia a 10-point lead with 9:10 left in the game.
He has been slowed with a tender ankle the last few weeks.
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Speaking of receivers, Mario Alford has quietly put together an outstanding season as West Virginia’s No. 2 option on the other side of the field opposite White. His two-touchdown performance against Iowa State gives him a team-best 10 touchdown receptions this season to go with 62 catches for 888 yards.
Jordan Thompson, too, has become a reliable No. 3 option working the middle of the field. Thompson has had by far his best season as a Mountaineer with 46 catches for 514 yards and two touchdowns heading into the bowl game.
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Josh Lambert kicked field goals of 46 and 43 yards on Saturday to set an NCAA record with 15 successful field goals of 40 yards or longer this season. Overall, Lambert has made 27 of 36 field goal tries, including four of 50 yards or longer and two game winners against Texas Tech and Maryland.
Lambert is 8 for 8 on field goal tries inside of 30 yards and is 11 of 12 on tries from 40 yards and in.
Lambert is No. 1 in the country this week with 27 field goals and ranks eighth in the country in scoring with 122 points.
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Here is how much the West Virginia defense has improved since last year (against a much more difficult schedule, by the way):
2013 Yards Per Game (NCAA Rank) – 455 (95)
2014 Yards Per Game (NCAA Rank) – 389 (59)
2013 Passing Yards Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 263.3 (97)
2014 Passing Yards Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 226 (66)
2013 Rushing Yards Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 191.7 (83)
2014 Rushing Yards Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 162.6 (75)
2013 Points Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 33.3 (99)
2014 Points Allowed (NCAA Rank) – 26.2 (61)
As you can see, there has been across-the-board improvement and the credit goes to defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, his staff, and the players who did a much better job this year of getting people to the ground and keeping them out of the end zone.
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West Virginia will not know its bowl destination until next Sunday following the conclusion of the regular season, but most bowl projections have West Virginia going to the Liberty Bowl to face a team from the SEC, possibly Arkansas or LSU.
This year’s Liberty Bowl will be played on Dec. 29 in Memphis, Tenn. Here is a link to West Virginia’s other bowl possibilities: http://www.wvusports.com/game-day-central.cfm?sport=1&game=37
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