Football Notebook: D Gets Gold Star Saturday
October 05, 2014 12:18 PM | General
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| Christian Brown wraps up running back Corey Avery during Saturday's 33-14 victory over the Jayhawks at Milan Puskar Stadium. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Tony Gibson’s defense gets the gold star following Saturday’s 33-14 victory over Kansas at Milan Puskar Stadium.
The Jayhawks had trouble moving the football all day, finishing the game with just nine first downs and 176 total yards. In fact, Trevor Pardula punted the football 14 times, the most ever at 34-year-old Milan Puskar Stadium.
“I can’t say enough about the defense,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. “Forcing them to punt 14 times is amazing.”
No, Kansas does not have a good offense, and no, the Jayhawks are not going to win any shootouts this year, but Saturday’s performance was another step in the right direction for a West Virginia defense that, by and large, has performed much better this season.
“We stopped them,” said Holgorsen. “We didn’t give up a big play, which was awesome. I thought the guys flew around, tackled well and played with high effort and high energy.”
Coming into Saturday’s game, West Virginia wanted to clean up a run defense that was allowing almost 200 yards per game. In last year’s 12-point loss at Kansas, the Mountaineer gave up 315 yards on the ground.
On Saturday, the Jayhawks showed a net of 35 yards rushing on 34 attempts. Put a check next to that category.
West Virginia wanted to spy quarterback Montell Cozart, who consistently beat the Mountaineers last year with his feet, either on designed runs or by scrambling out of the pocket when pressured.
On Saturday, Cozart ran seven times for 5 yards before being lifted in the second half in favor of backup Michael Cummings. Put another check next to that category.
West Virginia was concerned about Kansas’ two big playmakers at receiver, Nick Harwell and Tony Pierson. Harwell caught three passes for 18 yards and Pierson had two catches for 8 yards. A check goes there as well.
Actually, if not for some shoddy special teams play West Virginia would have likely pitched another shutout. Jordan Thompson’s fumbled punt at the 18 resulted in Kansas’ first touchdown, and later, the punt team gave up another cheap score when they watched Harwell run right past them for a 76-yard TD.
Had those two things not happened, the defense would have registered its second shutout of the season.
“I thought our linebackers and D-line played much more physical, so I was excited about that,” said Gibson. "The quarterback draw really worried me on long yardage situations and after the first one I thought the kids reacted well and did some good things with it.”
Schematically, the Mountaineers made a couple of personnel changes during the open week in an effort to try and create more pressure on the quarterback – not so much for Saturday’s game against Kansas, but for later on when West Virginia faces the spread teams it has left on the schedule.
Outside linebacker Brandon Golson played some defensive end in place of injured Dontrill Hyman, and Edward Muldrow moved into Golson’s spot at will linebacker to give the Mountaineers another explosive athlete on the field.
In doing so, however, the Mountaineers are conceding quite a bit of size up front.
“We moved (Golson) there to try and get him into a better position to be able to rush the passer. He’s one of our better pass rushers,” explained Holgorsen. “I don’t think he got any sacks, but he affected the play a couple of times. I was pleased with the way we played up front.”
When Golson lines up at end, that means Kyle Rose, Noble Nwachukwu, Christian Brown and Eric Kinsey are going to have to hold their ground against the bigger teams West Virginia is facing down the road.
“Noble is playing well,” noted Holgorsen. “Shaq Riddick got a bunch of snaps and we’re hoping to get him better and better. We’ve got Kyle Rose and Christian Brown. (Eric) Kinsey has started playing a little more and when you play those guys they’ve got a little more mass to them.”
Where Hyman fits in health wise with his knee moving forward is still up in the air, says Holgorsen.
“Long term we don’t know,” he said. “He hasn’t practiced in a week and a half and at this point he’s out.”
Statistically, the West Virginia defense has shown considerable improvement in several key areas through the first five games of the season.
The Mountaineers have been much better on third down so far, allowing opponents to convert just 35.9 percent of them after they were converting third downs at a 42.7 percent rate last year.
On Saturday, Kansas was just three of 17 on third down.
“Three of 17 on third downs? That’s pretty good defensive football,” noted Holgorsen.
In total defense, West Virginia has gone from near the bottom of the NCAA in 2013 giving up 455 yards per game to the middle of the pack this year allowing 358.6 yards per outing.
In passing yards allowed, West Virginia has gone from 106th last year giving up 263.3 yards per game to 21st so far permitting a much more manageable 186.8 yards per game. So far is the key phrase there, however.
On the flip side, the defense has really struggled in the run game but a 65-yard performance on Saturday helps, boosting West Virginia to 79th in run defense allowing an average of 171.8 yards per game.
As noted above, the Mountaineers have struggled getting to the passer with only seven sacks in five games (one of the lowest totals in college football) and creating turnovers have been an even bigger issue with three through five games.
Only two schools, Michigan and Louisiana Lafayette, have created fewer.
“The TV media people asked me on Thursday on our conference call about turnovers and I said I’m going to quit talking about them because obviously we’re not doing something right to get them,” said Gibson. “We’ve dropped a lot of picks and we haven’t created any fumbles. The one good thing we are doing is three-and-outs. As long as we’re doing that we can treat those like turnovers, I guess.”
Of course a lot of this is subject to change, as West Virginia gets deeper into the Big 12 schedule. There are more spread teams on the horizon, including one coming up next weekend in Texas Tech, so the passing yards allowed are likely to go up and the rushing yards allowed should go down (hopefully).
“Next week is going to be a whole different deal,” noted Holgorsen. “They are going to throw the ball all over the place and we’re going to have to get guys into position to be able to get to the quarterback. (Saturday) was a step in the right direction.”
Indeed, it was.
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