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Campus Connection: Passing Key to Cactus Bowl Win
January 04, 2016 02:31 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Now two days removed from West Virginia’s exciting, 43-42 come-from-behind victory over Arizona State in the 2016 Motel 6 Cactus Bowl, we can take better stock of precisely what happened out in the desert late Saturday night.
It was obvious Arizona State’s pass defense was not very good, from the guys out there attempting to cover West Virginia’s fleet receivers to the schemes that were being used to continually put them at a disadvantage.
But you have to give West Virginia quarterback Skyler Howard a lot of credit for hanging in there and taking some big shots (at least one a clear targeting call that wasn’t made) to make timely throws when the Mountaineers needed them most.
“That gets nerve-wracking back there and I give him credit for hanging in there,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. “That’s tough when you get hit; you know they are going to bring six or seven (each time he drops back to pass).”
Howard threw for a WVU bowl-record 532 yards (the second-most passing yards in school history), and he matched Brad Lewis’s five touchdown passes thrown against Ole Miss in the 2000 Music City Bowl as the second-most ever by a Mountaineer quarterback in a bowl game.
It was an impressive performance in all aspects for Howard, from his throwing to his running and decision making, and that winning drive he led late in the fourth quarter was something the offense can really build on for 2016.
“About time we did something on offense,” Holgorsen joked.
“Our goal throughout this season was to get better each week on offense, keep improving each week,” added Howard. “It finally started clicking.”
Indeed, it did to the tune of 676 yards, only three shy of the Cactus Bowl record of 679 yards Arizona State produced against Rutgers in 2005.
ASU’s constant blitzing was finally having some success getting to him, and the Sun Devil secondary was also beginning to make plays on some of Howard’s second-half passes.
When West Virginia got the football back with 4:56 remaining and trailing, 42-36, it was a much different football game with the momentum and the crowd clearly in Arizona State’s favor.
Backed up to his own 25 and facing another wave of oncoming blitzers, Howard immediately got the Mountaineers out of a hole with an 11-yard run to the 36.
Three plays later, following an incomplete pass to Gary Jennings and a short pass out in the flat to running back Wendell Smallwood, Howard made a critical third-down throw to Jordan Thompson to the far side of the field for 20 yards, taking the ball to the ASU 40.
Then, after Howard hit Daikiel Shorts Jr. for 13 yards to the ASU 27, the Sun Devils got the Mountaineers going in reverse. On second and 10, Antonio Longino sacked Howard for a 10-yard loss back to the ASU 39; Howard fumbled the football on the play, but senior tight end Cody Clay alertly fell on it there.
That made it third and 22 – a down and distance very favorable to the defense, even a bad one that takes unnecessary risks like Arizona State does.
Here, Howard noticed the secondary playing off and he checked down to a Smallwood run that netted 24 yards to the Sun Devil 15. Howard’s check was so timely (and so accurate) that Smallwood almost broke free to score on the play.
“He made the check, like he normally does,” Holgorsen noted.
Two plays later, Howard made the pass - a throw out in the flat to freshman David Sills in single coverage at the ASU four. Sills was able to turn his body and get into the end zone.
Howard demonstrated on that 10-play, 75-yard drive that he can be a winning quarterback, a leader who can make the right decisions and the right plays under fire to win tough football games for the Mountaineers.
No, Arizona State wasn’t Oklahoma, or Baylor or TCU, but it was a football team that had everything going in its favor on Saturday night, from the crowd to the late kickoff time (the game ended at 2:30 a.m. EST).
Nobody batted an eye, including West Virginia’s junior quarterback.
“Skyler didn’t need this (to boost his confidence) – he earned this,” Holgorsen pointed out. “You talk about a humble kid that has taken some criticism, it’s not fair. I mean, the kid battles. It’s what it means to be a Mountaineer, play his tail off, earn the respect of your teammates, continue to fight, continue to work. That’s what he’s done.”
Howard did take some criticism this season, some of it probably deserved but a lot of it unwarranted considering he didn’t have an experienced and established set of wide receivers to whom he could throw the football.
There was no Kevin White, an NFL lottery choice of the Chicago Bears, or Mario Alford, a really good No. 2 college receiver who spent this season as a member of Cincinnati Bengals, for Howard to go to.
There was no Tavon Austin, who could catch the ball at the line of scrimmage and turn it into an 80-yard touchdown, and no Stedman Bailey, who possessed the best set of hands in school history.
Those are things Howard’s critics sometimes conveniently overlook.
“We got better in the pass game, a lot of the (reporters) in Morgantown, they know my frustrations with the passing game,” Holgorsen said. “We didn’t run the ball very good today and we knew we wouldn’t be able to, so the emphasis was on the pass game. We finally did something in the pass game to warrant a win.”
Clearly, Howard’s passing won Saturday’s Motel 6 Cactus Bowl. Putting aside some of those missed opportunities earlier this season against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, TCU and Kansas State, Howard passed for 3,145 yards and 26 touchdowns this season - figures that rank among the top five in school history.
Furthermore, in the 122 seasons of playing football here at West Virginia University, there have only been 12 starting quarterbacks to ever win a bowl game.
And Skyler Howard is one of them.
“Things are coming together because he’s getting better and the people around him are getting better,” Holgorsen said. “We got everybody coming back on offense. We should be even better next year.”
Next year, Howard has a chance of becoming only the second quarterback in school history to win two bowl games.
The other?
The incomparable Pat White.
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