Saturday, December 12
Morgantown, WV
12:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Oklahoma
Photo by: Caleb Saunders
United Bank Playbook – WVU to Conclude Pandemic Regular Season Saturday
December 10, 2020 12:01 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – One of the strangest, most bizarre seasons in 129 years of West Virginia University football winds down Saturday afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium against the 13th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.
It was supposed to have started on Saturday, Sept. 7 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta against Florida State in the 2020 Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game.
But that game never kicked off, nor did the Mountaineers' nonconference home contest against Maryland on Sept. 19 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, WVU began on Saturday, Sept. 12 against Eastern Kentucky in a pared down 10-game regular season schedule that included a full slate of Big 12 games.
The Big 12 deck got reshuffled, too, with the Mountaineers starting in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Sept. 26 before plodding through a five-game-in-five-week stretch from Oct. 17 until Nov. 14.
The start, the middle and the ending were successful with victories over Kansas, Kansas State and TCU, but in between were disappointing trips to Texas where the Mountaineers lost 34-27 at Texas Tech and 17-13 at Texas.
The Oklahoma game was supposed to have taken place two weeks after TCU, but COVID reared its ugly head in the Sooner program and forced them to hit the pause button for a week.
That required West Virginia to abandon its plans for Oklahoma and pivot to Iowa State, where the Cyclones are currently spinning at an F5 rate.
Iowa State scored the first three times it had the football and spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in its first conference regular season championship in more than 100 years.
WVU, down some key players because of contact tracing, provided little resistance all game long.
"If you understand contact tracing, let me know," West Virginia coach Neal Brown joked earlier this week. "Whoever is here we're going to coach them. We had some guys out last week. It's really not the positives, we don't have very many, but we've got several that are out because of contact tracing and we're working through it."
So this Saturday, instead of getting a week to get ready for early signing day and letting the players get some hard-earned rest and recovery time before learning their bowl destination, the 5-4 Mountaineers will complete their regular season in Morgantown this weekend against Oklahoma.
"What we've been basically doing this week is going back and looking at the game plan in all three phases and saying, 'OK, based on what they did against Baylor, does everything still hold true?'" Brown said.
In that regard, not much has really changed since we first previewed the 7-2 Sooners two weeks ago.
OU cobbled together enough players and coaches to defeat the Bears 27-14, once again securing what it considers to be its rightful place in the Big 12 Championship game in Arlington, Texas on Dec. 19.
One of Lincoln Riley's helpers last week was former OU coach Bob Stoops, who was permitted to lend a hand while some of Riley's staffers were still on the mend. Stoops' son Drake is a starting slot receiver for the Sooners this season.
Here is part of what Riley had to say about his team's performance against the Bears last Saturday night, "I thought our guys weren't coached worth a damn this week, to be completely honest. I don't think us as offensive coaches did a very good job putting our guys in positions to succeed."
Interesting comments, for sure, which leads us to these two prevailing storylines:
* Will the Sooners perform more to Riley's liking this Saturday afternoon in Morgantown, where they have won all four times they've played here?
* Or, will Neal Brown, whose teams have a long history of pulling off unexpected results, come up with another stunner?
"I think adversity will reveal who we are, and we must respond. We must respond, and we've got an opportunity to do that against a talented Oklahoma team," he said.
As of mid-week, Brown was not totally sure who he's going to have playing this Saturday, but the ones who do get on the field will get an opportunity to see how they measure up against one of college football's blue bloods.
For the seniors who are choosing to move on with their lives, it's one final opportunity to go out on a memorable note in the place they've called home for the last one, two, three, four or five years.
"This is a group that has invested a lot," Brown noted. "There are a lot of glue-guys in that group, including some guys here from the state of West Virginia who have meant a lot to this program, and this program means a lot to them. So let's lock back in, respond and finish in the right way."
For some of the younger players, it's a great opportunity to get firm footing in Year Two of Mountaineer football's climb under Neal Brown.
On Tuesday, he mentioned some of the younger guys who got into the game at Iowa State such as linebacker James Thomas, running back A'Varius Sparrow, cornerback Daryl Porter Jr. and wide receiver Devell Washington.
True freshman quarterback Garrett Greene also got in for one play and made a 7-yard run.
"We are really excited about Garrett's future," Brown said. "We love how he competes. He's really got a lot of energy. Without a doubt, offensively, he's the leader within our developmental group. He's established himself.
"He's been up and down in our Monday night football games (with the younger players). He's played better here in the last couple of weeks, and that's given us some faith," Brown added. "We may seem him on Saturday or we may not, but he's a guy with a bright future here."
So as we prepare to dim the lights on 2020, we can also look forward to the reboot for 2021 when, hopefully, things can finally return to some sense of normalcy.
Saturday's game will kick off at noon and will be televised nationally on ABC (Mark Jones, Dusty Dvoracek and Quint Kessenich). Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online via the popular WVU Gameday app gets underway bright and early at 8:30 a.m.
Oklahoma has won 10 out of the 12 meetings against West Virginia since the two first began playing each other in 1958.
It was supposed to have started on Saturday, Sept. 7 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta against Florida State in the 2020 Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game.
But that game never kicked off, nor did the Mountaineers' nonconference home contest against Maryland on Sept. 19 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, WVU began on Saturday, Sept. 12 against Eastern Kentucky in a pared down 10-game regular season schedule that included a full slate of Big 12 games.
The Big 12 deck got reshuffled, too, with the Mountaineers starting in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Sept. 26 before plodding through a five-game-in-five-week stretch from Oct. 17 until Nov. 14.
The start, the middle and the ending were successful with victories over Kansas, Kansas State and TCU, but in between were disappointing trips to Texas where the Mountaineers lost 34-27 at Texas Tech and 17-13 at Texas.
The Oklahoma game was supposed to have taken place two weeks after TCU, but COVID reared its ugly head in the Sooner program and forced them to hit the pause button for a week.
That required West Virginia to abandon its plans for Oklahoma and pivot to Iowa State, where the Cyclones are currently spinning at an F5 rate.
Iowa State scored the first three times it had the football and spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in its first conference regular season championship in more than 100 years.
WVU, down some key players because of contact tracing, provided little resistance all game long.
"If you understand contact tracing, let me know," West Virginia coach Neal Brown joked earlier this week. "Whoever is here we're going to coach them. We had some guys out last week. It's really not the positives, we don't have very many, but we've got several that are out because of contact tracing and we're working through it."
So this Saturday, instead of getting a week to get ready for early signing day and letting the players get some hard-earned rest and recovery time before learning their bowl destination, the 5-4 Mountaineers will complete their regular season in Morgantown this weekend against Oklahoma.
"What we've been basically doing this week is going back and looking at the game plan in all three phases and saying, 'OK, based on what they did against Baylor, does everything still hold true?'" Brown said.
In that regard, not much has really changed since we first previewed the 7-2 Sooners two weeks ago.
OU cobbled together enough players and coaches to defeat the Bears 27-14, once again securing what it considers to be its rightful place in the Big 12 Championship game in Arlington, Texas on Dec. 19.
One of Lincoln Riley's helpers last week was former OU coach Bob Stoops, who was permitted to lend a hand while some of Riley's staffers were still on the mend. Stoops' son Drake is a starting slot receiver for the Sooners this season.
Here is part of what Riley had to say about his team's performance against the Bears last Saturday night, "I thought our guys weren't coached worth a damn this week, to be completely honest. I don't think us as offensive coaches did a very good job putting our guys in positions to succeed."
Interesting comments, for sure, which leads us to these two prevailing storylines:
* Will the Sooners perform more to Riley's liking this Saturday afternoon in Morgantown, where they have won all four times they've played here?
* Or, will Neal Brown, whose teams have a long history of pulling off unexpected results, come up with another stunner?
"I think adversity will reveal who we are, and we must respond. We must respond, and we've got an opportunity to do that against a talented Oklahoma team," he said.
As of mid-week, Brown was not totally sure who he's going to have playing this Saturday, but the ones who do get on the field will get an opportunity to see how they measure up against one of college football's blue bloods.
For the seniors who are choosing to move on with their lives, it's one final opportunity to go out on a memorable note in the place they've called home for the last one, two, three, four or five years."This is a group that has invested a lot," Brown noted. "There are a lot of glue-guys in that group, including some guys here from the state of West Virginia who have meant a lot to this program, and this program means a lot to them. So let's lock back in, respond and finish in the right way."
For some of the younger players, it's a great opportunity to get firm footing in Year Two of Mountaineer football's climb under Neal Brown.
On Tuesday, he mentioned some of the younger guys who got into the game at Iowa State such as linebacker James Thomas, running back A'Varius Sparrow, cornerback Daryl Porter Jr. and wide receiver Devell Washington.
True freshman quarterback Garrett Greene also got in for one play and made a 7-yard run.
"We are really excited about Garrett's future," Brown said. "We love how he competes. He's really got a lot of energy. Without a doubt, offensively, he's the leader within our developmental group. He's established himself.
"He's been up and down in our Monday night football games (with the younger players). He's played better here in the last couple of weeks, and that's given us some faith," Brown added. "We may seem him on Saturday or we may not, but he's a guy with a bright future here."
So as we prepare to dim the lights on 2020, we can also look forward to the reboot for 2021 when, hopefully, things can finally return to some sense of normalcy.
Saturday's game will kick off at noon and will be televised nationally on ABC (Mark Jones, Dusty Dvoracek and Quint Kessenich). Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online via the popular WVU Gameday app gets underway bright and early at 8:30 a.m.
Oklahoma has won 10 out of the 12 meetings against West Virginia since the two first began playing each other in 1958.
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