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Mountaineers, Bears to Battle Saturday in Waco
October 14, 2015 01:32 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - If we can take anything away from the three times West Virginia and Baylor have played football games it is this - both teams can move the ball.
The two have combined to rush for 1,093 yards and pass for 2,454 yards, which adds up to 3,547 yards, or a little more than two miles worth of real estate.
They have combined to AVERAGE 6.9 yards each time they run a play, with 43 of those plays resulting in touchdowns.
Even the refs have had to change shoes at halftime, the zebras walking off 683 yards in infractions in those three games including a staggering 353 yards in march-offs last year alone.
Based on that - along with the gaudy offensive numbers Baylor has put up so far this year in blowout victories over SMU, Lamar, Rice, Texas Tech and Kansas – many, many more yards and points are going to fill the stat sheet this Saturday in Waco.
The question is: will West Virginia be able to keep up?
Slow starts have plagued the 3-2 Mountaineers in their two losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the latter a disappointing overtime defeat at Milan Puskar Stadium last Saturday night.
In both instances, West Virginia needed earlier wakeup calls.
Three weeks ago in Norman, Oklahoma jumped out to a 24-7 halftime lead before West Virginia finally woke up. Same deal last Saturday when Oklahoma State jumped out to a 17-2 halftime lead before the Mountaineers came alive in the third quarter.
Unfortunately, if that happens again this Saturday Baylor could have 30 or 40 points on the scoreboard before West Virginia stops hitting the snooze button.
All indications point to Baylor being that good.
Statistical Comparison
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It’s pointless to run down all of the Bears’ offensive numbers because there are simply too many of them to consider, so I will cut to the chase and give you the two most important ones: Baylor is averaging 64.2 points per game and nobody has come close to putting up a challenge so far this season.
The undefeated and second-ranked Bears also have the memory of last year’s 41-27 defeat in Morgantown still smoldering in the backs of their minds. Baylor believes that loss cost it a chance to play in the college football playoff, so naturally revenge is a big theme being played up in Waco this week.
The transcription of this week’s Baylor press conference included several references to the word “revenge” in the media’s line of questioning to the players and coaches on Monday.
Baylor coach Art Briles artfully danced around the subject.
“As silly as it sounds, revenge is not something that is really thrown into our vocabulary,” he said. “I was asked that on the (Big 12 coaches’ teleconference), and if there’s any revenge it needs to be on us. Are we going to blame them for beating us? The way we look at it is that it’s our fault – my fault. We didn’t take care of business.”
Briles has clearly gotten that message across to his players, at least in their dealings with the Fourth Estate this week.
“Coach said it best, it was an on-us type of deal,” said junior quarterback Seth Russell, a sideline observer of last year’s game in Morgantown. “They played the game they were going to play and we kind of fell into what they were playing. This year, we are going to have to stick to our plan and do what we do best, and that’s scoring points.”
More to the point, what Baylor does best when scoring all those points is running the football and using play action pass off of their running plays.
“Their whole offense starts with the run game, and you have a quarterback that understands that,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, now 2-1 against the Bears after last year’s surprising victory in Morgantown.
Junior Shock Linwood has already run for 719 yards and scored seven touchdowns, while backups Terence Williams and Johnny Jefferson have added a combined 744 yards and five scores on the ground.
Baylor is averaging 357.6 yards per game rushing and an unheard of 7.4 yards per tote, with the Bears’ top three backs all having seven-yard, per-carry averages.
“Everyone wants to talk about Shock Linwood, but the other two are pretty good as well,” said Holgorsen. “They keep rotating backs in there.”
And when teams load the box to try and stop Linwood and Company that’s when Briles throws the ball downfield to what Holgorsen believes is the deepest wide receiver corps he’s seen, perhaps in decades.
The Bears already have 25 pass plays of 20 yards or longer with 10 different players being on the receiving end of those longs passes.
Junior Corey Coleman (21.9 ypc) and senior Jay Lee (22.5 ypc) are averaging better than 20 yards per reception while KD Cannon, a freshman All-American in 2014, is averaging 17.8 yards per grab.
“They look for one-on-one matchups with what is probably the deepest receiving corps in the country, or maybe even several decades,” admitted Holgorsen.
“If they keep improving, maybe ever,” he added.
All of this offensive firepower around him makes Russell feel like a kid in a candy store. Bryce Petty’s replacement averages 305.4 yards per game through the air with 22 touchdowns while completing nearly 65 percent of his passes.
Therefore, matching Baylor on the scoreboard will undoubtedly be one of West Virginia’s top objectives going into Saturday’s game.
That won’t be easy because Holgorsen believes this is the best Baylor defense he’s seen since he’s been at West Virginia, specifically up front where the Bears have manhandled opponents in their five early victories.
“Defensively, they have made more strides in the four years that we have played them than anywhere else,” noted Holgorsen.
Baylor Statistical Leaders
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#17 Seth Russell 6-3 | 220 | Jr. | QB Passing: 83-of-130, 1,527 Yards, 22 TDs, 5 INTs |
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#32 Shock Linwood 5-9 | 200 | Jr. | RB Rushing: 75 Att., 719 Yards, 9.6 Avg., 7 TDs |
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#1 Corey Coleman 5-11 | 190 | Jr. | WR Receiving: 31 Rec., 678 Yards, 21.9 Avg., 13 TDs |
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#5 Grant Campbell 6-1 | 230 | Sr. | LB Tackles: 39 Total, 27 Solo |
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#2 Shawn Oakman 6-9 | 275 | Sr. | DE Tackles for Loss: 6.5 Total, 3.0 Sacks |
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#4 Xavien Howard 6-2 | 200 | Jr. | CB Interceptions: 3, 4 Pass Breakups |
The player who really shows up well on tape is 310-pound junior nose tackle Andrew Billings, who has 15 solo tackles and five tackles for losses so far this season. Because teams have concentrated so much on blocking Billings, that has enabled playmakers such as Shawn Oakman, Grant Campbell and Jamal Palmer to put up impressive numbers through five games.
“(Billings) is just tough; he’s a hard-nosed, tough, powerful football player that plays every snap,” said Holgorsen. “He has good quickness off the ball, he can bull-rush you and he can get around you. He’s a good player.”
The one area West Virginia can help itself – and was unable to really do so in its three prior meetings against Baylor – is by running the football. The Mountaineers are averaging 222.4 yards per game on the ground and have run the ball effectively in all five games this year, including the two losses.
Against the Sooners, West Virginia ran the ball 54 times for 196 yards with two touchdowns and had 255 yards and two scores on the ground last Saturday against Oklahoma State.
The health of junior Wendell Smallwood could play a big role in that strategy, however. Smallwood ran 147 yards and scored a touchdown in last week’s loss to Oklahoma State, but he logged very little practice time leading up to the game because of a sore ankle, which Holgorsen admitted Tuesday is still bothering him.
Smallwood wasn’t on the field in overtime of last Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State, although he said it wasn’t because of his ankle but rather because he was cramping up at that point in the game.
Smallwood, junior Rushel Shell and quarterback Skyler Howard have gotten the bulk of the carries, but backup quarterback William Crest Jr. ran the ball three times last week against Oklahoma State and could become more of a factor in the run game as the season progresses.
A solid rushing performance on Saturday can help manage the game and keep Baylor’s explosive offense on the sidelines, and can also aid a passing attack that has still been a work in progress under first-year starter Howard.
The Mountaineers threw the ball well in their first three games against Georgia Southern, Liberty and Maryland, but have found the airways much more difficult to navigate in their recent two losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
In those two games, Howard is completing just 52.2 percent of his throws for 361 yards and two touchdowns with four interceptions.
Turnovers have also been an issue, the Mountaineers giving the ball away nine times in their last two games after coughing the ball up only two times in their first three outings. Giving extra possessions to Baylor’s offense is clearly not something West Virginia wants to do on Saturday.
“Overall, it’s going to be a tough task,” said Holgorsen. “We all understand that. Basically, it’s the same position we were in last year. We are going to line up and play ball, and I am looking forward to going to Waco and doing that.”
It will be an early kickoff on Saturday, noon eastern (11 a.m. local), with the contest being televised nationally on FOX.
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s pregame show begins with the Mountaineer Tailgate Show at 8:30 a.m. (EST) leading into game coverage with Tony Caridi and Dwight Wallace beginning at 11 a.m.
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