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Hot Reads: Bloody Knuckles
December 01, 2016 11:46 AM | Football
Radio sideline reporter Jed Drenning provides periodic commentary on the Mountaineer football program for WVUsports.com. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @TheSignalCaller.
A lot can happen in 125 years.
The Inca Empire lasted just 95 years. The Industrial Revolution spanned no more than 80; the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in 20; “War and Peace” was written in six and the Sistine Chapel was painted in four.
That also happens to be the number of seasons WVU has now been playing football -- 125. To celebrate this milestone the University issued to its season ticket holders commemorative flags adorned with the newly designed 125-year emblem. Moreover, director of digital media John Antonik saw to it that much of the space on this very website was populated throughout the summer by special features, exclusive fan polls, interactive graphics and classic videos (some never-before seen).
The special hashtag #WVU125 officially became a thing.
In short, a proud, land-grant university did its part in making West Virginia’s 125th year of football a considerably big deal. And now -- three months into this landmark campaign, perched on the eve of a regular season finale against the Baylor Bears -- one thing is apparent.
Dana Holgorsen’s Mountaineers heard them loud and clear.
At 9-2, West Virginia is poised to step into some pretty high cotton. Only eight times in the previous 124 seasons have the Mountaineers reached the 10-win threshold. A victory over Baylor would make this the ninth. Just five times has WVU achieved that 10-win mark before playing its bowl game. A win over the Bears would make this the sixth.
As we sit on the precipice of such a potentially historic outcome, the magnitude of the moment is large enough to demand reflection.
So let’s reflect.
This year’s Mountaineers are a team the media kicked to the curb with a seventh-place prediction in the Big 12 preseason rankings. A team that entered the year with nine new defensive starters. A team with 4 new position coaches. A team labeled as a rebuild. A team forced to overcome injuries to its starting left tackle (season ending) in the first quarter of the opener and – at different points through the season – it’s top three rushers.
What outsiders didn’t know, what they couldn’t have known, was that the Mountaineers were abundantly blessed with the one quality that is so often attached to teams that exceed expectations.
Great leadership from a group of seniors that love to get their knuckles bloody.
So with the help of a few game notes, a little coach’s tape, a not-so-healthy dose of caffeine and a lot of data entry by the holiday elves over at CFBstats.com, allow me to present a few points to ponder as Jim Grobe’s Bears make their way toward Morgantown:
- Baylor has posted a record of 7-1 in the month of December since 2011; West Virginia is 2-3 in December during that time.
- Following its third straight loss the Bears fell out of the AP Top 25 on Nov. 13 after being ranked in 60 straight AP Polls, ending the nation’s fourth-longest streak.
- Baylor is hoping to snap its first five-game losing streak since 2007.
- Lost in the ugly shuffle of Baylor’s five-game skid is the fact that the Bears opened the season 6-0 for the fourth straight year. They are the only FBS team to do so.
- Baylor has utilized 25 first-time starters this season. That’s fourth-most in the nation.
- The Bears lead the Big 12 in rushing for the fourth time in five years and are the only FBS team with four players averaging 50-plus yards rushing per game – though one of those players (QB Seth Russell) was lost for the season against Oklahoma three weeks ago.
- Baylor offensive line coach Randy Clements has done a fantastic job in Waco, helping the Bears take home four consecutive Big 12 Offensive Lineman of the Year awards: Spencer Drango 2014 (co) & 2015; and Cyril Richardson 2012 & 2013.
- Think of all the high-flying passing performances we’ve seen from the Baylor offense through the years. Now consider this … In last week’s loss to Texas Tech, the Bears had two receivers catch 10-plus passes in a single game for the first time in program history. KD Cannon and Ishmael Zamora each had a dozen grabs against the Red Raiders.
- The Baylor defense allows just 3.8 yards per rush on first down – best in the Big 12. The West Virginia offense, meanwhile, averages a league-best 6.2 yards per rush on first down. This creates an obvious strength-on-strength match-up, but it also provides an opportunity for West Virginia to throw the football on early downs and keep the Bears off balance. Keep an eye on whether Phil Bennett’s defense utilizes the three-man, odd front scheme they’ve used for much of the season or if – against WVU’s formidable ground game -- they offer up the four-man even front look they showed against Oklahoma and Kansas State.
- The Bears allow the worst yards per rush on third down and short (1-to-3 yards) in the Big 12 (5.9 yards/carry). In these situations, when the outcome is determined by pad level and brute strength, it becomes most visible just how sorely Baylor misses the big-bodied playmakers they had on last year’s defensive line like Andrew Billings and Beau Blackshear.
- Tony Gibson’s West Virginia defense has held opponents to the lowest Red Zone Yards Per Rush (2.4) in the Big 12 Conference. Conversely, Baylor has allowed the highest (3.4). This contributes to my next bullet point.
- Baylor is one of only 3 FBS teams (Washington State, Colorado State) without a single red-zone stop recorded away from home this season. In five games outside of Waco, opponents have scored on all 18 trips inside the Bears 20-yard line, including a dozen touchdowns.
- Baylor has allowed 35-plus points in five straight games. The last time the Bears did that was 2012 and one of the games was that 70-63 loss at Mountaineer Field.
- Take a look at Baylor's national ranking in Penalties Per Game (a.k.a. – Penalty Avoidance) over the last four seasons. In each of these four seasons the Bears ranked last in the Big 12 in this category:
2013 – Last nationally
2014 - Last nationally
2015 - 2nd-to-Last nationally
2016 – Last nationally
- Big 12 Conference - Most completions of 50-plus yards since the start of the 2015 season:
Pat Mahomes - 23
Skyler Howard - 21
Baker Mayfield - 18
Mason Rudolph – 14
- West Virginia's Shelton Gibson now leads the nation with seven catches of 50-plus yards.
- When looking at receivers with a minimum of 40 grabs in a year, Shelton Gibson this season is posting the highest yards per catch (23.2) since Georgia Tech's Demaryius Thomas (25.1) in 2009.
- A quick glance at the evolution of Dana Holgorsen's ground game at West Virginia (per game averages):
2011 – 32 rushes/123 yards
2012 – 36 rushes/171 yards
2013 – 36 rushes/149 yards
2014 - 43 rushes/183 yards
2015 - 48 rushes/228 yards
2016 - 43 rushes/233 yards
- The past two weeks (vs Oklahoma and Iowa State) mark the first time in this century that a West Virginia offense has averaged eight yards per play in consecutive games.
- Dana Holgorsen began coaching FBS-level football in the 2000 season. WVU’s 14.8 yard average per pass attempt against Iowa State last week was the highest a Holgorsen offense has ever posted in a single game.
- Including the victory at Iowa State, West Virginia is now 11-0 under Holgorsen when averaging 10-plus yards per pass attempt. Overall, WVU has won such games 20 straight times. The last time the Mountaineers averaged 10 yards per pass attempt and lost was on Thursday night, Nov. 2, 2006, at No. 5 Louisville (10.6 yards/attempt).
- Iowa State had lost the fewest turnovers through 11 games (12) in school history and in their previous five games (348 plays) heading into last Saturday, the Cyclones had committed a total of just three turnovers. In 78 snaps against West Virginia’s defense they committed four.
- Here’s a look at the number of Big 12 games in which West Virginia has held opposing offenses to 24 or fewer points. It’s worth noting that, overall, Big 12 offenses in general averaged 34 points per game during this span:
2012 – Two
2013 - Two
2014 - Three
2015 - Four
2016 to date - Six
- There are 128 FBS level football teams. Only 12 of those teams at this point have lost one or fewer games at home AND one or fewer games away from home. West Virginia is one of them.
- A neat WVU hat trick that you don’t often see played out last week in Ames, Iowa, as three different Mountaineers scored their first career touchdown. More evidence of a bright future.
- West Virginia's Rasul Douglas is the first Big 12 player since TCU's Chris Hackett in 2014 to intercept a pass in four straight games.
- Douglas is also the first Big 12 defender to intercept five passes in a four-game span since WVU’s Karl Joseph did it to start the 2015 season.
- The eight picks by Douglas so far are second-most in WVU history and the most by a Big 12 player since Texas’s Earl Thomas had eight in 2009. The last time a Big 12 player had more than Douglas’ eight was all the way back in 2003 (10 by The Sporting News All-American Josh Bullocks of Nebraska).
- Looking to make a case for Rasul Douglas as Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year? In addition to sharing the national lead with eight interceptions, Douglas has also forced a fumble and recorded the most tackles by a West Virginia cornerback (60) since 2011.
Much of what we’ve seen play out during the second half of Baylor’s season is what some projected when the Bears were hit by an unprecedented degree of attrition. It forced them to roll into September some 15 bodies light – with a roster populated by merely 70 scholarship players. That’s just seven more than the 63 scholarships that FCS level programs can award.
Baylor might be a wounded animal, but it’s a wounded animal that can score – and that makes it dangerous.
But West Virginia should know better than most never to count a team out.
After all, the rumors of the 2016 Mountaineers’ own demise were greatly exaggerated. And now, as kickoff against Baylor quickly approaches, WVU has become a team that is four quarters away from joining the most elite assembly of squads in the annals of West Virginia football - the 10-win club.
Each team on this list has woven its own story into the fabric of Mountaineer history. In addition to Coach Clarence Spears' 10-0-1 team that beat Gonzaga in the East-West Bowl to achieve the feat in 1922 before the Associated Press poll existed, here's a look at the West Virginia squads that have pulled it off. In the big picture, these squads might mean different things to different fans but there are easily discernible traits we associate with each. Feel free to sing along.
2011 Mountaineers (10-3 overall; 9-3 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 17th
Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Bruce Irvin and the 2011 Mountaineers clawed their way to a Big East title but will forever be regarded as the squad that dropped the bomb of all bombs on Dabo Swinney’s shell-shocked Clemson Tigers in the Orange Bowl, ambushing them, 70-33 … a blitzkrieg that might still has Clemson fans recoiling at the sight of anything gold and blue.
2007 Mountaineers (11-2 overall; 10-2 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 6th
Nine of the 2007 Mountaineers 11 wins were by 17-plus points, but the legacy of this team paced by Pat White, Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt would be its ability to overcome unprecedented hardship. WVU rebounded from one of the darkest losses in school history to follow interim head coach Bill Stewart into the Fiesta Bowl and walloped a No. 3 Oklahoma squad that many pundits pegged as the best team in college football.
2006 Mountaineers (11-2 overall; 10-2 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 10th
After finishing No. 2 in the nation in rushing offense, the 2006 Mountaineers proved that the sixth time was a charm in Jacksonville, Florida. Riding the play of Pat White, West Virginia erased a 35-17 second-half deficit to knock off Calvin Johnson and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, 38-35, and grab the school’s first Gator Bowl Trophy in half a dozen tries.
2005 Mountaineers (11-1 overall; 10-1 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 5th
On the strength of a record-setting, 204-yard performance by Slaton, the 2005 Mountaineers lifted the program’s ceiling. West Virginia upset No. 8 Georgia, the SEC champ, in the Sugar Bowl, in Atlanta, to show the world that they could do more than merely reach one of college football’s biggest postseason stages – they could also win on it.
1993 Mountaineers (11-1 overall; 11-0 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 7th
Behind the running of Robert Walker and a dual-quarterback system that featured Jake Kelchner and Darren Studstill, the 1993 Mountaineers kept fans on the edge of their seats. West Virginia won five games by five points or less and along the way claimed breakthrough wins over No. 4 Miami and No. 11 Boston College to finish the regular season unbeaten and earn the program’s first Sugar Bowl berth in four decades.
1988 Mountaineers (11-1 overall; 11-0 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 5th
Sophomore sensation Major Harris zigged and zagged as the 1988 Mountaineers ran roughshod through a flawless regular season that included blowout wins over Maryland (55-24), Pitt (31-10), Boston College (59-19), Penn State (51-30) and No. 14 Syracuse (31-9). In the end, Harris landed in New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist and WVU headed to the Fiesta Bowl for a national title showdown with Notre Dame.
1969 Mountaineers (10-1 overall; 9-1 regular season)
Final AP Ranking: 17th
With Bob Gresham and Jim Braxton racking up rushing yards and a rugged defensive line led by Playboy All-American Carl Crennel, the Mountaineers only regular-season blemish was a loss to an unbeaten Penn State squad that finished the year ranked No. 2 in the country. West Virginia’s shining moment, however, came in a Peach Bowl win over South Carolina as WVU ambushed the Gamecocks on a rain-soaked field in Atlanta by rushing for 346 yards out of a wishbone offense that had been covertly installed in the weeks leading up to the game.
Time will tell how a similar season synopsis that one day chronicles the 2016 Mountaineers might read. Will the moment prove too large or will history favor this team?
Winston Churchill once boasted: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
Maybe he was on to something.
With the match-up against Baylor remaining then, what figures to be a marquee bowl game to follow, it’s up to West Virginia to grab a sturdy pencil and a blank writing pad. These final two contests will then determine how the Mountaineers author the ending to this very memorable season.
When you do one day read it, try to ignore the smudges on the page.
They were left by bloody knuckles.
I’ll see you at the 50.
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