Countdown to Kickoff – Baylor Preview
November 25, 2023 11:51 AM | Football
| Tale of the Tape |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Points Per Game | 22.4 | 31.4 |
| Points Against | 33.3 | 27.2 |
| Rushing Yards Per Game | 114.5 | 232.9 |
| Rushing Yards Allowed Per Game | 179.0 | 146.6 |
| Passing Yards Per Game | 267.4 | 197.9 |
| Passing Yards Allowed Per Game | 233.5 | 242.2 |
| Total Yards Per Game | 381.8 | 430.8 |
| Total Yards Allowed Per Game | 412.5 | 388.8 |
| First Downs For | 221 | 251 |
| First Downs Against | 218 | 221 |
| Fumbles/Lost | 14/8 | 10/6 |
| Interceptions/Return Yards | 7/14 | 9/146 |
| Net Punting | 37.1 | 41.3 |
| Field Goal/Attempts | 17/22 | 12/15 |
| Time of Possession | 31:45 | 33:42 |
| 3rd Down Conversions | 60/165 | 62/151 |
| 3rd Down Conversion Defense | 64/142 | 56/144 |
| 4th Down Conversions | 20/46 | 18/33 |
| 4th Down Conversion Defense | 11/21 | 11/22 |
| Sacks By/Yards Lost | 18/110 | 23/157 |
The quarterbacks he was using in his system were geared more toward throwing the football and usually throwing their way out of trouble. Now, with junior Garrett Greene behind center, Brown has turned in a completely different direction, philosophically.
"I laugh, because a guy that coached me sent me a text the other day. Early on, when I started calling plays back in '08, we had a good run there when we were in the top five in passing for a couple of years and now to kind of flip it," Brown said Monday. "We had a really good rushing year at Troy my last year there, too. Our starting quarterback got hurt, and we were a predominant run team, but it's been kind of a 180."
Epiphanies in the coaching profession are not uncommon - and are often necessary.
Rich Rodriguez came to West Virginia in 2000 thinking he was going to have a perfectly balanced offensive attack by throwing for 200 yards and rushing for 200 yards as he did at Tulane with Shaun King and then at Clemson with Woody Dantzler.
But eventually, he realized that wasn't going to work with the players he had at West Virginia, and upon the suggestion of offensive line coach Rick Trickett, Rodriquez switched to a predominantly run-oriented offense with dual-threat quarterback Rasheed Marshall and running backs Avon Cobourne and Quincy Wilson on the field at the same time.
This was in 2002.
West Virginia averaged 283.6 yards per game on the ground that season and developed a blueprint for the success the Mountaineers enjoyed later in the decade with their triple-threat backfield of Pat White, Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt.
It was basically a modern-day version of those old-school rushing attacks used in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. If you look at West Virginia's most successful football teams going back to World War II, all of them had athletic quarterbacks.
It was that way in the 1950s with quarterback Fred Wyant and running backs Joe Marconi and Bobby Moss; it was that way in 1969 when Mike Sherwood complemented running backs Bob Gresham, Jim Braxton and Eddie Williams.
It was that way in 1988 with quarterback Major Harris and running backs A.B. Brown, Undra Johnson and Craig Taylor, and it was that way in 1993 with quarterbacks Jake Kelchner and Darren Studstill paired with running backs Robert Walker and Rodney Woodard.
Bobby Bowden's best West Virginia team in 1975 averaged 251.5 yards per game on the ground with mobile quarterbacks Dan Kendra and Danny Williams, and even Dana Holgorsen's best WVU squad in 2016 had a running threat at quarterback with Skyler Howard, who rushed for a team-best 10 touchdowns that season.
Geno Smith? He has some wheels, too.
As we conclude the regular season today at Baylor, Brown has finally got an offense with some explosive playmakers who are forcing defenses to cover the entire field.
It's so much easier to score when you've got guys who can hit three-run homers instead of stringing along a bunch of singles, and it all starts with Greene, who accounted for 354 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns in last Saturday's 42-21 victory against Cincinnati. There were times against the Bearcats when a pass was called, Greene saw open field and turned what was probably a 10- or 15-yard completion into a 35-yard gainer.
In my book, those are the best play calls!
Rich Rod used to encourage White to take off whenever he saw green grass because Pat might not stop running until he crossed the goal line.
Brown admitted it's been a long process getting to where they are at this point in the season, first because he didn't want to overload Greene in the season opener at Penn State and then because Garrett suffered an ankle injury on the sixth play against Pitt that really slowed him down.
It wasn't until the TCU victory when he was still operating at about 60% that we began to see what this offense could become.
"He made some wow runs and some wow throws," Brown admitted. "That scramble he made for a touchdown was almost four miles per hour faster than he ran for two weeks."
It became evident to the rest of us during the TCU win that West Virginia could score quickly and win football games because of Garrett Greene. With one week remaining in the regular season, the Mountaineers are now fourth in the country in rushing, averaging 232.9 yards per game with a gaudy 5.1-yards-per-carry average.
WVU has three guys with more than 600 yards rushing – CJ Donaldson Jr. (775), Jahiem White (659) and Greene (605). When Brown first got here in 2019, the Mountaineers could barely run the football beyond the line of scrimmage.
Not coincidentally, this is Brown's most successful season at WVU with seven wins to date and the opportunity to add to that with one regular season game remaining and a bowl game coming up in December.
"We now feel like we've got some guys who can make some explosive plays," Brown said. "Garrett has had the most by far, but Jahiem, CJ and then Devin (Carter) and Kole (Taylor) have shown the ability, plus our young wideouts, I'm kind of excited about as we finish up the season and head into our bowl prep. Traylon (Ray), Rodney (Gallagher) and Hudson (Clement), I'm excited to see how those young guys finish up," Brown added.
It is exciting, because if Brown can keep the core group of returning skill players intact, he's got the makings of an extremely potent offense in 2024 - the type of offense that can sell tickets and get people around here excited.
Regardless of what happens in the offseason, Brown has shifted his philosophy from recruiting pocket passers to more dual-threat guys, and he's also pursuing even more explosive playmakers to complement them, either through the transfer portal or on signing day.
"If you would have asked me 10 years ago if we were going to be fourth in the country in rushing, I wouldn't have had the vision for that," Brown admitted. "We've recruited well on the offensive line; our quarterback is a game changer and we've got multiple running backs that can play. Our tight ends have done a nice job, so I think with the pieces we have right now, we're utilizing them in the best way."
What Brown is doing fits the climate here, particularly in November during championship season, and it also matches the types of players West Virginia can successfully recruit (and retain) living closer to WVU's campus.
Having the ability to run the football with dual-threat quarterbacks has been the most successful way of doing things in the Northeast going all the way back to the days of Jim Thorpe.
"We are making it difficult to defend the entire field from a run-game perspective from sideline to sideline," Brown admitted. "We're splitting the defense doing a bunch of different things off some base run plays, and then vertically getting the ball down field.
"I think this is what's best for this team, and history has proven here the most effective way to win is with a dual-threat quarterback," Brown concluded.
West Virginia and Baylor concludes the regular season tonight at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas. The Bears are 3-8 in coach Dave Aranda's fourth season after he led Baylor to a Big 12 championship in 2021. Since then, Baylor is just 9-15 and has won only once at home this season.
However, Waco has not been a very hospitable place to West Virginia as the Mountaineers have won just once there, in 2017, and needed to hang on until the final play to do so.
Two years ago, Baylor routed West Virginia 45-20.
Here is tonight's Countdown to Kickoff:
10 – West Virginia has held six of its last TEN opponents to 21 points or fewer.
9 – CJ Donaldson Jr. extended his streak of scoring at least one touchdown to NINE straight games with his 13-yard touchdown run in the second quarter of last Saturday's game against Cincinnati.
8 – WVU has lost only EIGHT times in 33 games under coach Neal Brown when it rushes for at least 100 yards in a game.
7 – Last Saturday's win against Cincinnati gave the Mountaineers at least a SEVENTH win for the 53rd time in school history.
6 – West Virginia is ranked fourth in rushing this week averaging 232.9 yards per game, and if the Mountaineers can maintain that standing, it would be the sixth time since 2002 they have ranked in the nation's top 10 in rushing.
5 – The Mountaineers have rushed for at least 200 yards in FIVE out of their last seven games, including a season-high 424 against Cincinnati.
4 – Baylor has won FOUR of the five meetings against West Virginia in Waco, including a 45-20 victory two years ago in 2021.
3 – Quarterback Garrett Greene ranks THIRD in the country this week in passing yards per completion (16.04).
2 – Cornerback Beanie Bishop needs TWO pass breakups today to surpass the WVU single-season record of 21pass breakups established by Brian King in 2003.
1 – Last week, freshman running back Jahiem White became the FIRST Mountaineer running back since 2016 to rush for more than 200 yards in a game.
Tonight's game will kick off at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on FS1 (Alex Faust and Petros Papadakis).
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage begins at 4 p.m. leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
Be sure to stop back afterward for complete postgame coverage.
Players Mentioned
Rich Rodriguez | Dec. 3
Wednesday, December 03
Reid Carrico | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
Jeff Weimer | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
Rich Rodriguez | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
