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Campus Connection: October Not Kind to WVU
October 30, 2015 05:05 PM | Football
FORT WORTH, Texas – This October has not been a very kind month to Mountaineer football.
Within a span of 26 days from October 3 to October 29, West Virginia has faced Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU in succession, with three of those four games being played on the road.
Oklahoma is currently 6-1, ranked 14th in the country, Oklahoma State is now 7-0 and ranked No. 12 heading into Saturday’s game against Texas Tech, Baylor is 7-0 and ranked No. 2 heading into Saturday night’s game at Kansas State, and, of course, on Thursday night West Virginia got to see third-ranked TCU up close and personal right here in Fort Worth.
Three of these four teams are still in contention for a college football playoff spot as we are about to flip the calendar to November.
Indeed, it has been a brutal stretch both physically and emotionally for a Mountaineer football program unaccustomed to experiencing four-game losing streaks.
“We just have to get back into the lab, break the film down and get back to work,” shrugged senior safety KJ Dillon when asked about the team’s recent struggles.
The general impression I’m getting is that the gauntlet is now over for the 3-4 Mountaineers following Thursday night’s 30-point loss at TCU.
The remaining five games seem to be more manageable, beginning with next Saturday’s contest against Texas Tech in Morgantown. The Red Raiders have already lost three times this season and could drop another one at home against undefeated Oklahoma State this Saturday.
That’s certainly one way of looking at things, or, as defensive coordinator Tony Gibson reminded us after the TCU loss, perhaps the gauntlet is not over.
If there is one thing Texas Tech can do it is score – and score a lot.
Yes, the Red Raiders did lose to TCU earlier this year, but they put up 52 points against the same defense that held West Virginia to only 10 points and 327 yards of total offense on Thursday night.
And yes, Texas Tech has given up a boatload of points this year, but of late West Virginia has demonstrated an inability to match what the other teams are putting up on the scoreboard and down on the stat sheet.
Baylor scored 62 points and racked up 693 total yards in a 24-point victory in Waco 13 days ago. On Thursday night, TCU scored 40 points and produced 616 yards of offense.
Considering where West Virginia’s defense is healthwise right now, particularly in the secondary where Gibson jokingly mentioned the need to recruit some media members to play cornerback, the possibility of Texas Tech lighting up Milan Puskar Stadium’s scoreboard next Saturday is a very real one.
“What everybody is forgetting is Texas Tech has the third best offense in the country right now,” said Gibson. “They are going to be able to score points and move the ball, so we are going to have to come up with a way to get some stops.”
Of equal importance is that West Virginia’s offense is going to have to figure out a way of getting back into the end zone on a more frequent basis. During this recent four-game skid, WVU has had double-digit halftime deficits and has never held the lead in any of those games.
Earlier this week, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen talked about the need for matching what the other high-power offenses in the Big 12 are doing. In the Baylor game the Mountaineers were able to do that for a while before the Bears pulled away in the second half.
Against TCU, West Virginia was trailing by only a touchdown with about a minute left in the second quarter. Then, in span of three minutes between the end of the second and the start of the third quarters, the Horned Frogs turned on the gas and sped out to a 30-10 lead by the time the offense got its hands on the football once again.
When WVU got its opportunity to answer it couldn’t, the Mountaineers unable to connect on a deep pass at the TCU two – one of five big drops WVU receivers had against the Horned Frogs Thursday night. What could have been a 13-point game turned into a 37-10 rout when TCU scored on its ensuing possession.
Consequently, West Virginia’s pregame plan of running the football right at TCU’s two small inside linebackers and throwing down the field off of it was effectively finished for the night when the deficit grew to 27 points.
Junior Wendell Smallwood, who rushed for 113 yards Thursday night (one of four 100-yard games he’s had so far this season), admitted afterward that it was disappointing not being able to capitalize on what the TCU defense was giving them, especially on third down when the Horned Frogs were daring West Virginia to throw the ball down the field to its outside receivers.
“Yeah, especially when we’re moving the ball and we get those third-down misses and then we’ve got to punt,” Smallwood said. “That’s what the offense has been since I’ve been here – we’ve got to take shots and most of the time we’ve been making them; sometimes we don’t.”
The beauty of Dana Holgorsen’s offense has been its ability to capitalize on the matchup advantages defenses give it. We’ve seen that time and again during his four-plus years in Morgantown.
When teams drop eight in coverage or use two high safeties, he’s going to run the ball against a light box. And when teams have a single high safety or show man coverage on the outside receivers, his quarterbacks are going to take their shots down the field.
Skyler Howard took them against Baylor and he took them against TCU.
Well, guess what Texas Tech’s defense is going to do next Saturday when they face West Virginia? The Red Raiders are going to play man coverage on WVU’s young outside receivers and dare Howard to throw long passes down the field.
Sports – it doesn’t matter which one you are playing … football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, you name it … are all about percentages. You try and take away the high percentage plays and force the opposition to attempt the lower percentage plays.
Right now, throwing the ball down the field has not been a very high percentage play for West Virginia - for a variety of reasons.
Many years ago, I remember once walking through the outer ring of the Coliseum when an opposing basketball team was going through its pregame walk-through. The coach for the other team stopped practice to scream at one of his players for running out to cover the scout-team guard about to take a wide open shot from the top of the key.
“Why did you run out there to cover him?” the coach yelled in a voice loud enough for everyone in the arena to hear him. “We WANT him to shoot the ball! We will let him shoot the ball until he proves to us that he can consistently make that shot. When he does, then we will adjust.”
The point I am making is that the Mountaineers are going to have to come up with a way of taking better advantage of what defenses are giving them, especially in the passing game, beginning next Saturday when they face Texas Tech and continuing in their remaining games against Texas, Kansas, Iowa State and Kansas State.
If they can’t, then November will turn out to be a much crueler month than October was.
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