Making Strides
September 28, 2008 11:21 AM | General
September 28, 2008
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| Jeff Casteel |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Chalk one up for the defense. The unit that couldn’t get off the field against Villanova and East Carolina is growing by leaps and bounds under veteran defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel.
Yesterday, West Virginia held a Marshall offense that scored 34 points the previous week against Southern Mississippi to just three points and 158 total yards. The Mountaineers are now working on a streak of seven consecutive quarters without allowing a touchdown dating back to the Colorado loss.
“Our kids are getting better day by day and they practiced well getting ready for the Colorado game and they practiced well getting ready for this game,” said Casteel. “I think the key is that we wanted to get off to a fast start. The first three ballgames we gave up touchdowns on the first drive.”
West Virginia was able to force Marshall to punt on its opening possession but the Mountaineers gave the ball right back to the Herd when Ellis Lankster fumbled trying to catch a punt. The football wound up in Marshall’s hands at the WVU six yard line.
Marshall was only able to come out of that with a field goal.
Later, West Virginia produced two key turnovers on its side of the field when Mortty Ivy made an athletic interception on a Mark Cann pass at the 50 near the end of the first half. On Marshall’s second possession of the third quarter senior defensive end Doug Slavonic made a terrific play by wrestling the football out of Cann’s arms, coming up with a key turnover at the WVU 36 after a 75-yard kickoff return gave Marshall great field position.
“We forced some turnovers,” Casteel said. “Those things change the game and we talked to the kids about that. In fact, that’s the last thing we talked to the kids about at the hotel before we came to the game was being able to change the game with turnovers and we were able to go get points off of them.
“Also, being able to handle the sudden change which we hadn’t handled the first three games,” Casteel said. “I thought we did a better job with that. All in all, we’re getting better but we just have to go back to work over the next four or five days and get ready for Rutgers.”
After giving up 21 points and 399 yards of offense to Villanova and 24 points and 386 yards of offense at East Carolina, West Virginia is now allowing just 16.2 points and 327.2 total yards per game.
“We’re still doing some things like jumping offsides early on third downs and we still have a lot of things that we have to clean up but we’re getting better as we play,” Casteel said.
The Mountaineers were able to completely shut down Marshall receiver Darius Passmore, who came into the game with 26 catches for 473 yards and four touchdowns. Passmore also had 109 yards rushing including an 80-yard TD run. In last year’s game in Huntington, Passmore caught five passes for 76 and a touchdown.
On Saturday, Passmore managed just four receptions for 39 yards.
“From last year’s game the Passmore kid made big plays on us, Marshall made big plays on us as did Cody Slate,” Casteel said. “We were really aware of their big-play ability all throughout the week and we talked to the kids about their three guys that have the ability to make a play. We thought Passmore was a one-play guy – he could go and make it a one or two touchdown game in a hurry.
“I think we were just aware of that and we did a lot of work on trying to defend the deep ball and those types of things,” Casteel said.
West Virginia appears to be getting more consistent play at corner with senior Ellis Lankster and now sophomore Brandon Hogan. Hogan made his first career start on defense against Marshall and finished the game with four tackles and a fumble recovery.
“Ellis Lankster is a good football player and he didn’t get a lot of time and he’s going to get better as he plays,” Casteel said. “And Brandon Hogan started today and did some good things. We have some talented kids and I think they will get better as they play and gain more experience.
“It’s night and day from the Villanova game until we played here and if we can continue to get better we have a chance,” Casteel said.
Hogan particularly has made strides after being moved from slot receiver to corner early in fall camp.
“The thing that you have to remember about Brandon Hogan was that he was a receiver all the way up until he came to camp. He’s really only been playing corner now for a month,” Casteel explained. “The more time he gets the better he’ll get. He just has to continue to work hard in practice. Our young players or new starters are starting to understand that work ethic is what makes you a good football player. You are going to win games from Sunday until Friday and then go and get a chance to see how well you can play on Saturday.”
