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Turnovers Doom WVU in Stillwater
October 30, 2016 07:08 AM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia’s 37-20 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium boiled down to three plays.
The first happened midway through the first quarter.
The second occurred with 3:38 left in the third quarter and the final one took place with 5:15 remaining in the game.
And all three of them resulted in Oklahoma State points. Those three plays, of course, were West Virginia turnovers - something the Mountaineers were able to avoid during their six-game winning streak to begin the season and something Oklahoma State has preyed on all season.
The 6-2 Cowboys don’t stand out in many defensive categories, but the one area they do excel at (turnovers) helped them to another Mike Gundy football victory, his 100th at Oklahoma State.
OSU came into Saturday’s game ranked ninth in the nation in turnover margin at plus-seven. Today the Cowboys are now tied with five other teams for fourth after Saturday’s plus-three performance.
“Two pretty evenly matched teams, but they made three plays that flat-out affected the game, it’s as simple as that,” said West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen. “They forced three turnovers and they took all three of them down to the red zone. We basically gave them 17 points and we lose by 17 points.”
Vincent Taylor’s second-quarter sack and strip of Skyler Howard was the play that really set the tone for the game and put the Mountaineers on skates for the remainder of the afternoon.
At the time, West Virginia had just produced a 12-play, 75-yard drive that ended with seven points when Shelton Gibson made a pretty over-the-shoulder catch in the corner of the end zone. WVU had some things going in the run game that enabled it to methodically move the ball down the field.
Then, at the snap of a finger, Taylor came barreling through the line, hit Howard as he was trying to get rid of the football, his arm went backwards, the football fell to the ground and Cole Walterscheid pounced on it at the WVU 8.
Two plays later, West Virginia’s 10-6 lead had become a 13-10 deficit.
“When you turn the ball over on the 5-yard line it’s going to be a major factor in the game and sure enough it did,” said Orlosky. “I thought we started off well. We went down the field on our first drive and got the field goal and then when we had our first turnover I think that pretty much did us in the rest of the game. We were never able to recover from that.”
West Virginia’s second critical mistake happened on the first play of its third possession in the third quarter when the Mountaineers were only trailing 20-10.
Howard zipped a pass toward Ka’Raun White at the Cowboy 32, but the ball bounced out of his hands and right into the arms of Ramon Richards, who took off to his right, reversed field to his left and followed a wall of blockers all the way down to the Mountaineer 9.
Once again, Oklahoma State was able to turn a short field into another touchdown when Rudolph slipped in from the 2.
Gundy said afterward that Richards’ interception return was a result of working on those types of quick-change turnover situations during practice.
It was 59 yards of offense for the Cowboys that doesn’t show up as offense on the stat sheet.
“Most interceptions or fumble recoveries when the guy runs down one sideline for 40 yards, cuts all the way back across the field and goes down the sideline for another 30, you’re gonna get a flag,” said Gundy. “I told them that the work they’ve put in and understanding what we can do and can’t do made a huge difference today.
“We started on the 9-yard line when in most cases you get an illegal block in the back and start on your own 30,” said Gundy. “It’s been really important that our coaches coach it and our players understand it and are able to execute it.”
The final turnover that sealed West Virginia’s first loss of the season came when the Mountaineers trailing by two touchdowns and desperately trying to make a play downfield on third and 15 to get back into the game.
Howard didn’t see backup linebacker Kevin Henry dropping back into coverage, and his pass over the middle hit him right between the numbers.
Henry returned this one 26 yards to the WVU 10, leading to Ben Grogan’s chip-shot field goal.
“(Howard) threw for a lot of yards but I was scared to death of their pass defense on third-down situations, which is why we ran it early,” said Holgorsen. “You get down and you’ve got to throw it. They made a couple of plays (interceptions) down the field.”
Those three turnovers resulted in only 21 yards of offense for Oklahoma State, but 17 critical points. When you can go 21 yards and get 17 points that makes the game pretty simple.
Now, West Virginia must cast this game aside and turn its attention to Kansas next Saturday. The Big 12 Conference champion is going to have at least one loss now that Texas upset Baylor, so the goals the Mountaineers had at the season’s outset are still in play, as Orlosky pointed out afterward.
“This isn’t the end of our season,” he said. “We didn’t go into the season thinking about a national championship. We went into this season thinking about a Big 12 championship and that’s still on the line. We have a game next week against Kansas and that’s what we are looking toward.”
Can this team bounce back after today’s disappointing performance?
Orlosky thinks so.
“I sure hope so, or else we’re going to be the same old West Virginia team we’ve been the last five years and we can’t let that happen,” he said.
“We’ll be fine,” added West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. “Obviously we would have liked to have gotten another stop to give our offense a chance there at the end to tie this thing up, but we just couldn’t get it done so we’ll go back to work and see what happens.”
A quick scan of today’s NCAA turnover leaders doesn’t show Kansas ranked among the NCAA’s top 50 in either turnover margin or turnovers gained.
It would behoove West Virginia to keep it that way next Saturday in Morgantown.
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