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WVU Football Notebook: Talking Defense
October 24, 2016 02:52 PM | Football
When you’ve got a defense that has somehow managed to contain some pretty prolific offenses the last couple of weeks, the head football coach is going to be asked about it.
Naturally, that was the case during Monday morning’s Big 12 coaches’ teleconference for West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen, whose undefeated Mountaineers cracked the top 10 for the first time since 2012 at No. 10/9 in this week’s two major polls.
The first question concerned what he believes has been the key to this year’s improved play on that side of the ball:
“I can’t say that is a whole lot different than last year,” answered Holgorsen. “I thought we had a really good defense last year. There were a couple of games in October last year when we gave up a lot of points and yards (Baylor and TCU) but other than that we played pretty good defense last year. I think we finished second in the league and the numbers aren’t a whole lot different.
“We had four or five guys drafted and playing in the NFL off that team last year,” Holgorsen said. “I think our recruiting and the overall aspect of how we play defense has changed over the last four years. We’ve got a defensive coordinator in Tony Gibson who is doing a good job, the staff is doing a good job and we didn’t quit recruiting a few years ago. We’ve been plugging people in and getting some transfers. Those guys feel pretty good about where we’re at and we’re looking to continue to improve.”
Another writer asked Holgorsen if it’s a matter of improved tackling among his back end players:
“I think the point people are missing here is we had really good players last year and the ball didn’t bounce our way,” he said. “We had an awful schedule, those guys played their tail off, they all left to go to the NFL and we replaced them with guys that are pretty capable players as well, whether they’re junior college transfers or four-year transfers.
“We’ve got three JC kids starting, we’ve got a four-year guy starting, another four-year guy playing and a couple of seniors in Jarrod Harper and Jeremy Tyler that have been in the program for five years,” Holgorsen added. “It looks the same to me. I said the same thing in camp and I’m glad everybody else is starting to take notice as well.”
And, yet another asked Holgorsen how much defensive coordinator Tony Gibson picks his brain during the off-season on ways to defend innovative, creative, spread offensive attacks such as the offense Holgorsen runs at West Virginia:
“We’ve got a great relationship and we work well together. It’s fun competing against each other,” noted Holgorsen. “One of the reasons why we changed offensively what we do a little bit and to be able to become a little bit more multiple is to be able to give (the defense) as many different things as we possibly can in our 15 spring practices and the three weeks of fall camp. Football is pretty much year-round now. All of our guys go against each other year-round and we’ve got to give them specific things to make them better. I like going against our defense because it’s so dang hard and it’s so multiple with what they can do. That’s good for us and that’s why I want to do what we’re doing defensively and Tony is the best one to be able to do it. We talk a lot about it.”
Briefly:
* One Oklahoma writer asked Holgorsen about his relationship with former Oklahoma State offensive line coach Joe Wickline while the two were at Oklahoma State and why he brought Wickline to Morgantown last winter.
“I think Joe is a hard worker,” said Holgorsen. “I knew he would do a good job with the game planning aspect of it. He does a good job of figuring out what to do with protections. We’ve had our offense pretty much set but he’s helped with the game planning aspect of things and he’s helped with our tackles.
“We had a good year there at OSU. That was good and I knew what I was getting with him and I think it’s helped our offense and our team in general,” Holgorsen said.
Holgorsen admitted it took a while for them to get comfortable working together at Oklahoma State, but both were eager to learn new ideas and different ways of doing things.
That certainly happened at Oklahoma State.
“We had no previous knowledge of each other or no previous relationship and we didn’t know each other. It took a little while to settle in, but regardless of personalities or any of that stuff it’s the knowledge and the working relationship that matters,” Holgorsen said. “We worked wonderfully together at Oklahoma State I understood what he was trying to do. He understood what I was trying to do and it worked out well there. I knew what I was getting when I hired him. We needed help with game planning and pass protections, tight ends and stuff like that and he’s brought to the table exactly what I thought he would.”
* Holgorsen was asked about soaking in his team’s accomplishments at this point in the season after being picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 preseason poll and now being one of only eight undefeated teams remaining from Power 5 conferences.
Holgorsen said there will be plenty of time to do that later on if things turn out the way they want them to.
“It’s hard to win in college football. There are a lot of good teams out there that have lost some games. We’re fortunate not to be one of those,” he explained. “You’ve got to celebrate the victories very, very short term and then you’ve got to get right back to work and worry about the next one. You’re only as good as your next game. Our team understands that. They’re not worried about rankings or preseason, they’re only worried about where we’re going to be at the end. The only way to be happy with that is by preparing your tail off and being in position to be successful the next game, which is this Saturday at noon in Stillwater.”
* West Virginia has had a clean sheet in its last two games against Texas Tech and TCU in terms of turnovers, something Holgorsen is pleased about - even if he didn’t sound too thrilled to be talking about the subject.
“The last two games we’ve turned the ball over zero. In six games I think we’ve got eight, but two of those happened right at the end of the second quarter with a couple of backup quarterbacks so Skyler has done a good job of protecting the ball and the receivers are fighting for it pretty good,” he said. “It’s the same formula we’ve been working on. We focus hard on it and the guys have done a good job with it. Hopefully it stays the same.”
* Last Saturday’s Oklahoma-Texas Tech shootout in Lubbock rewrote the conference record book for total offense, bringing back memories of West Virginia’s 70-63 victory over Baylor in the first-ever Big 12 game played at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Holgorsen was asked to recall how much of a toll that game took on his team’s psyche and the overall defense.
“That was a hard deal,” he admitted. “I knew we weren’t in a very good place on defense and the next week I think we beat Texas like 49-48 or something like that (actually 48-45). Those are tough games to play in, those are tough games to recover from. We’ve changed a lot of things around here to try and prevent those types of games as well both offensively and defensively. That was a wild one, that’s for sure.”
* And finally, Holgorsen was asked about some of the highlight-reel catches his wide receivers made last Saturday against TCU, specifically Daikiel Shorts Jr.’s grab overtop two defenders early in the game and then later Jovon Durante’s logic-defying catch before it hit the ground.
There were others, too.
“It’s about time,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of good receivers that have made a lot of tough catches. One thing we talked about going into that game was making contested catches. TCU is really good at reading routes and understanding what is coming at them and being able to be in the right spots and cover especially well. That’s Gary Patterson defense and they specialize in being able to do a great job of that and they do.
“We didn’t make those catches last year,” Holgorsen said. “TCU got after us pretty good and we didn’t help at all at that spot. (The wide receivers) were pretty motivated going into the game, they knew they were going to be covered and they knew some of those catches were going to be contested and they were in a decent place to be able to make some of those and it’s good to see.”
* Earlier today, the Big 12 announced that West Virginia’s game against Kansas on Saturday, November 5, has been exercised as one of its four six-day window opportunities, meaning the game will kick off at either 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. and will be televised on either ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.
Fox has already determined its television lineup for that weekend.
Tickets for the Kansas game are still available and can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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