Football Friday - Kansas
October 05, 2018 07:00 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The prevailing question Mountaineer football fans have following last Saturday's 42-34 victory over 25th-ranked Texas Tech is which WVU team is going to show up on Saturday against Kansas for homecoming?
Will it be the one in the first half that looked like the New England Patriots, the one that RPOed its way down the field at will in building a commanding 35-10 halftime lead?
Or, will it be the one that needed a fourth-quarter pick six from junior cornerback Keith Washington Jr. to hang on for an eight-point victory?
That team was outscored 24-7 by the Red Raiders in the second half.
If that's the one we see on Saturday against 2-3 Kansas then buckle your seatbelts.
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said the second-half performance at Texas Tech has been addressed with his team.
"I'm not going to keep harping on it," he said Tuesday. "I don't think it's a recurring problem. They came in and watched the video. The first half it looks really good and the second half, it looks like crap. So, they know and they have to go out and do better."
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital attributes the team's second half performance to a lack of energy and focus.
The ninth-ranked Mountaineers produced just six first downs and 107 total yards after intermission against basically the same Texas Tech schemes they faced in the first half.
"I don't know exactly what the cause was," Spavital said. "It could be a lot of other things, but when it comes down to it, we have to be able to play with effort and energy. That's something we can control."
Spavital cited uncharacteristic drops by players who don't usually drop passes, missed blocks and some missed assignments as the culprits.
He also believes he should have passed the ball a little bit more than he did in the second half when they had the big lead.
"There was a lot of momentum changes in that game, and you could see we didn't have any momentum in that second half," Spavital said. "It was tough to get out of that. I should have ended up throwing the ball a little more on first and second down, because there ended up being a tendency where we would run the ball on first and second down and throw it on third.
"A lot of it was we were trying to run some clock and trying to be more efficient with the time management, but at the end of the day we probably should have had more efficient pass plays," he said.
The run game that generated 104 yards at halftime against the Red Raiders, including Kennedy McKoy's 38-yard touchdown burst, finished with just 119, which comes out to just 15 net yards on 13 attempts in the second half.
West Virginia is still seeking a consistent and reliable ground attack when it needs to run the football and keep the clock moving.
"I believe that if you want to have a lot of success in this game, then as a team you have to be able to run the ball efficiently," Spavital mentioned. "If you look at how we ran the ball in the first half to the second half, then you can see that it's two different teams and two different outcomes."
Holgorsen believes blocking played a role in that.
"They blocked people in the first half," he said. "Tech tries to take the run away and we had over 100 yards and averaged, I believe 5.5 (yards per carry) in the first half. And then we just decided we didn't want to block anybody in the second half. We couldn't run the ball at all, and we gave up sacks and pressures. We are not nearly good enough to be able to line up and just go through the motions and block anybody."
So the message all week has been to practice hard, play hard and play a full 60 minutes instead of just 30, as it did last Saturday against Texas Tech, or 45 minutes two weeks ago against Kansas State.
A full 60-minute performance on Saturday will lead to the outcome everyone expects against the Jayhawks.
Anything less will keep everyone on the edge of their seats.
Game time is noon and the contest will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Anish Schroff, Ahmad Brooks and Roddy Jones). The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's pregame coverage begins with the GoMart Mountaineer Tailgate Show at 8:30 a.m. leading into regular game coverage at 11 a.m. on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online at WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
Will it be the one in the first half that looked like the New England Patriots, the one that RPOed its way down the field at will in building a commanding 35-10 halftime lead?
Or, will it be the one that needed a fourth-quarter pick six from junior cornerback Keith Washington Jr. to hang on for an eight-point victory?
That team was outscored 24-7 by the Red Raiders in the second half.
If that's the one we see on Saturday against 2-3 Kansas then buckle your seatbelts.
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said the second-half performance at Texas Tech has been addressed with his team.
"I'm not going to keep harping on it," he said Tuesday. "I don't think it's a recurring problem. They came in and watched the video. The first half it looks really good and the second half, it looks like crap. So, they know and they have to go out and do better."
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital attributes the team's second half performance to a lack of energy and focus.
The ninth-ranked Mountaineers produced just six first downs and 107 total yards after intermission against basically the same Texas Tech schemes they faced in the first half.
"I don't know exactly what the cause was," Spavital said. "It could be a lot of other things, but when it comes down to it, we have to be able to play with effort and energy. That's something we can control."
Spavital cited uncharacteristic drops by players who don't usually drop passes, missed blocks and some missed assignments as the culprits.
He also believes he should have passed the ball a little bit more than he did in the second half when they had the big lead.
"There was a lot of momentum changes in that game, and you could see we didn't have any momentum in that second half," Spavital said. "It was tough to get out of that. I should have ended up throwing the ball a little more on first and second down, because there ended up being a tendency where we would run the ball on first and second down and throw it on third."A lot of it was we were trying to run some clock and trying to be more efficient with the time management, but at the end of the day we probably should have had more efficient pass plays," he said.
The run game that generated 104 yards at halftime against the Red Raiders, including Kennedy McKoy's 38-yard touchdown burst, finished with just 119, which comes out to just 15 net yards on 13 attempts in the second half.
West Virginia is still seeking a consistent and reliable ground attack when it needs to run the football and keep the clock moving.
"I believe that if you want to have a lot of success in this game, then as a team you have to be able to run the ball efficiently," Spavital mentioned. "If you look at how we ran the ball in the first half to the second half, then you can see that it's two different teams and two different outcomes."
Holgorsen believes blocking played a role in that.
"They blocked people in the first half," he said. "Tech tries to take the run away and we had over 100 yards and averaged, I believe 5.5 (yards per carry) in the first half. And then we just decided we didn't want to block anybody in the second half. We couldn't run the ball at all, and we gave up sacks and pressures. We are not nearly good enough to be able to line up and just go through the motions and block anybody."
So the message all week has been to practice hard, play hard and play a full 60 minutes instead of just 30, as it did last Saturday against Texas Tech, or 45 minutes two weeks ago against Kansas State.
A full 60-minute performance on Saturday will lead to the outcome everyone expects against the Jayhawks.
Anything less will keep everyone on the edge of their seats.
Game time is noon and the contest will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Anish Schroff, Ahmad Brooks and Roddy Jones). The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's pregame coverage begins with the GoMart Mountaineer Tailgate Show at 8:30 a.m. leading into regular game coverage at 11 a.m. on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online at WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
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