West Virginia University senior wide receiver Daikiel Shorts Jr. may not have gotten into the end zone during Saturday’s 26-11 victory over Missouri, but it was his big catches working the middle of the field that enabled the Mountaineers to score most of their points.

 

Shorts made eight catches for 131 yards, both career highs, and he was the receiver who hurt Missouri the most by working the soft spots when the Tigers played cover two.

 

“We knew the middle was going to be open but as the game went on we started attacking it more,” said Shorts.

 

He caught a pair of passes for 33 yards that led to West Virginia’s first points, a Mike Molina 19-yard field goal, and he had a hand in Molina’s second field goal with two more grabs, one going for 10 yards on third and eight to keep a drive alive, and then another for 29 yards to the Tiger 30.

 

But perhaps his biggest reception came during the biggest drive of the game at the start of the third quarter when he hooked up with quarterback Skyler Howard on a 24-yard pass play that took the football to the Missouri 10.

 

Junior running back Justin Crawford made up the rest of the distance to give West Virginia a commanding 20-3 lead.

 

If some of us were paying closer attention, we could have seen this performance coming from Daikiel.

 

Remember, it was Shorts who had six catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns in last year’s Cactus Bowl, and he did lead the team in receptions with 45 a year ago.

 

He’s not a blazer and he’s not going to beat teams with a lot of long touchdown receptions, but Shorts is dependable and dependability is something coach Dana Holgorsen has been seeking from his wide receiver corps ever since Kevin White and Mario Alford handed off the baton following the 2014 season.

 

And, dependable guys are usually the ones who put up big numbers in Holgorsen’s offense.

 

“(Holgorsen) says it in our room a lot, ‘Each year somebody should have 1,000 yards, and maybe even two guys,” said Shorts. “With the talent in our room I feel like somebody is capable of doing that.”

 

Perhaps it could be Shorts Jr.

 

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Redshirt freshman offensive tackle Colton McKivitz went into Saturday’s season opener planning to play against Missouri - he just didn’t expect to play as much as he did.

 

Starting left tackle Yodny Cajuste went down with a knee injury early in the game and McKivitz was his replacement and he never came out, McKivitiz holding his own against Missouri’s best pass rusher Charles Harris.

 

“He’s a really good player, he had a really fast edge rush and a really mean spin move, but I can take from that and work on my game,” McKivitz said.

 

When Cajuste was injured, McKivitz said the other starting offensive linemen came over to him and gave him a quick pep talk before he took the field.

 

“They said, ‘It’s time for you to step up and play because we’ve got to win this game,’” said McKivitz.

 

McKivitz was once a long-haired basketball player from a small town in Eastern Ohio that may or may not show up in your GPS. It took offensive line coach Ron Crook a while to find him, but once he did he instantly liked what he saw.

 

“Obviously you can’t miss how big he was but also how athletic and how fast he was,” Crook recalled. “You would see him running downfield to block people and he was out-running running backs sometimes, and then you realize he was once a basketball player and he didn’t spend a lot of time in the weight room and you knew those things were going to I improve and get better.

 

“He was in the mold of those players we like - those athletic guys that don’t back away from the physical part of the game, they stick their nose in there, they’re tough and those are the guys you have success with.”

 

After last year’s bowl game, McKivitz said he decided to cut his shoulder-length hair and dedicate himself to becoming an even better football player this season.

 

“It was a dare from the strength staff and on New Year’s Day I had to shave it and I think it kind of marked the beginning of this year,” he said. “I think I had enough of it anyway, it was just getting in the way.”

 

***

 

Make no mistake about it, the offense got a big boost when they saw Skyler Howard running back out onto the field after spending the entire halftime in the training room getting his sore ribs tended to by the athletic training staff.

 

It may not have been a Willis Reed moment, but it was a moment that did resonate with his teammates.

 

“At first I was like, ‘Did you get concussed?’ because he was like, ‘What’s the score?’ And the way he asked it, too. I said, ‘What’s up with you?’ But it makes our team tougher having him back there and it sparks the offense,” said Daikiel Shorts Jr.

 

In the past, Holgorsen has said the practices usually go better whenever Skyler gets hit by someone and the players feed off of that, which is what happened at the beginning of the third quarter when he went back into the game.

 

“He’s a tough kid,” said Holgorsen. “I don’t think anybody in their right mind would question his toughness. It hurts to breathe. That’s typically an injury guys don’t come back from and he did. He knew we needed him and he’s going to do anything in the world he’s got to do to help the team win, and he did.”

 

“He’s a competitor and he always wants to compete, so it’s nice having him like that,” added Shorts.

 

***

 

A quick scan of the stat sheet gives the impression that Tony Gibson’s defense had a so-so day against a so-so Missouri offense that struggled to make first downs and score touchdowns last season.

 

But keep in mind the Tigers got 185 of their 462 yards in the fourth quarter when the game was already decided and Gibson was playing many of his backup players.

 

“Some of those (defensive) calls were on me, because we were at the point in the game, up 26-3, when I didn’t want anything going over our head,” said Gibson.

 

When the game was still a contested affair for three quarters, Gibson’s defense had allowed just three points and 277 total yards, including an impressive goal line stand late in the second quarter when backup quarterback William Crest Jr.’s fumble had the defense backed up on its own seven-yard line.

 

“That was a game-changing series near the end of the half,” admitted Gibson. “They get the ball first and goal at the seven and we hold them to three-and-out and they missed the field goal, which was huge. I told our kids at halftime, ‘That’s a game changer.’ They didn’t get any momentum at that point and I knew we were getting the ball back at the start of the second half. I was very impressed with that.”

 

In some ways, it will be hard for Gibson and his defensive coaches to get an accurate gauge on just how well their guys performed yesterday because of some of the head-scratching things Missouri chose to do offensively.

 

“They missed a lot of stuff not seeing wide outs, hell, there were times the ball was snapped and our corner was just trying to get lined up,” Gibson said. “That’s the fastest offense I’ve ever coached against. But they weren’t checking to anything, which helped us. I really don’t know their game plan - and still can’t tell you after watching it for 100 snaps what they were trying to do.”

 

On the other hand, the corners are going to have to get lined up a lot faster than they did yesterday when they are facing high-tempo teams such as Baylor, TCU and Texas Tech down the road.

 

***

 

Junior running back Justin Crawford appears to be as good as advertised. Crawford’s college debut on Saturday against Missouri included 101 yards rushing and a touchdown on 21 carries, becoming the first back since Charles Sims against William & Mary in 2013 to rush for more than 100 yards in his Mountaineer debut.

 

“I’ve hinted at it that he’s a good player and I think he’s just getting started,” said Holgorsen. “He’s competitive, he’s shifty and he’s got great ball skills. You didn’t see a whole lot of the passing game stuff that he brings to the table. He had five catches for nine yards but he’s a threat in the pass game.

 

“The more we use him out of the backfield, much like we did Wendell (Smallwood) last year, the (fewer) amount of touches he will get in the pass game but he’s a threat.”