MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Having reveled in two of its own walk-off victories this season, West Virginia didn’t like being on the opposite side Saturday.
Jaden Oberkrom’s final-play field goal, and the home team’s final-quarter fade, left TCU a 31-30 winner and in the chase for big rewards. The Mountaineers’ ambitions were left a bit deflated, though they still could snag a piece of the Big 12 title should Kansas State, Baylor and the Frogs forge the checklist of circumstances needed to create a logjam of two-loss teams.
For now, West Virginia still owns a No. 24 AP ranking and the consolation of knowing it has stressed four of the nation’s toughest teams—small consolation though it may be. But if there’s one thing the MMSR signifies, it’s the value of self-appraisal, so let’s launch our weekly up/down/neutral evaluation of Dana Holgorsen’s team and the coaching tactics therein:
QUARTERBACK
The wind, the poor protection, TCU’s cover-2 or Clint Trickett’s ball-security issues—all were plausible reasons for West Virginia bailing on its passing game. Still, this was extreme.
The Mountaineers threw just five times on 27 plays in the second half, becoming one-dimensional in a way no one could have envisioned from a Holgorsen offense. Some of that stemmed from Trickett producing the kind of game we saw in 2013. He threw two ugly interceptions, saw TCU safety Chris Hackett drop another, lost a shotgun snap he wasn’t expecting and fumbled on another scramble.
“Clint was incredibly uncomfortable,” said Holgorsen, surmising that his senior quarterback “got spooked” by TCU’s pass rush.
Trickett finished 15-of-26 for 162 yards and attempted only one pass in the fourth quarter when West Virginia squandered a nine-point lead.
By game’s end, with WVU reluctant to drop back at all, it was hard to believe the same Trickett had completed 9-of-11 with a 23-yard touchdown in the first quarter (against the wind).
RUNNING BACKS
Coinciding with the disappearance of the passing game was another second-half mystery: What became of Rushel Shell and Wendell Smallwood?
Perhaps first-half fumbles led to the benching of the team’s top rushers, each of whom had produced two 100-yard games in the past month. Perhaps coaches were upset that neither was having much success making second-level defenders miss. Maybe the staff sensed it was Dreamius Smith’s day after the senior rambled 50 yards to set up a third-quarter touchdown.
Whatever the reasoning, Shell finished with eight first-half carries for 35 yards, and Smallwood ran 15 times for 64—with no touches after the opening series of the third quarter.
In a plug-and-play backfield, Smith (12 carries for 70 yards) and Andrew Buie (12 for 42) were productive, at least until the fourth quarter when their seven combined carries netted 1 yard.
Said Holgorsen: “I thought our running backs were extremely average.”
RECEIVERS
For a second consecutive week, Kevin White made a key catch on WVU’s opening scoring drive and did little else. This time it was a 23-yard pickup on a screen, actually one of White’s better post-catch runs of the season. But that was the extent of his explosive moments: He caught three passes on seven targets for 28 yards. On the two occasions Trickett threw deep for White on the sideline, the result was an underthrown interception (into double-coverage) and an incompletion forced by TCU’s Kevin White playing perfect man coverage.
After Trickett found Mario Alford for a 23-yard touchdown to start the game, the tiny receiver made a difficult grab on a 46-yarder that led to WVU’s final field goal. Yet Alford was quiet otherwise, making three catches for 79 yards and failing to come up with two other catchable throws.
Jordan Thompson (seven catches for 39 yards) was contained to underneath routes and Daikiel Shorts was held without a catch at all.
“They’re good at defending the pass,” said offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson, “but we should do better than that obviously.”
OFFENSIVE LINE
West Virginia felt it had a run-game matchup to exploit—which is why you run it 54 times in 80 plays, right? So at 3.6 yards-per-carry, there obviously wasn’t enough exploiting going on.
“The nature of what they were playing defensively, we thought we could run the ball a little better,” said Dawson.
Holgorsen explained it matter-of-factly: “When they put two high safeties and double-cover our wideouts and we can’t run the ball into a favorable box, we’re going to get beat.”
Pass-protection vulnerabilities surfaced for an offense that allows the third-most sacks in the Big 12. TCU dropped Trickett only twice but pressured him on eight other plays. That means he was hit, hurried or bothered on 10 of 29 dropbacks.
DEFENSIVE LINE
With defensive ends Brandon Golson and Dontrill Hyman appearing for only a couple snaps, this essentially was a four-man rotation of Shaq Riddick, Kyle Rose, Noble Nwachukwu and Christian Brown.
TCU’s totals entering Saturday were exemplary—50 points and 573 yards—but this unit helped make the Frogs look ordinary (389 yards and 31 points). The Frogs scored two touchdowns off turnovers inside the WVU 30 and were held scoreless after three other turnovers at the Mountaineers’ 21, 23 and 43.
“I get paid to coach defense and our players get scholarships to play defense no matter where the ball’s at, so you can’t blame that,” said defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. “We held them to (389) yards, but we gave up some stuff we shouldn’t have gave up, too.”
LINEBACKERS
West Virginia wasn’t happy about allowing 5.3 yards per rush, but TCU has been gashing defenses recently. Running backs B.J. Catalon (20 carries for 105 yards) and Aaron Green (11 for 63) were tough to tackle, and Trevone Boykin showed his slipperiness by gaining 49 yards on nine carries. Few quarterbacks outside of Flutie and Manziel could’ve looked better in turning a busted flea-flicker into a 21-yard scramble.
Nick Kwiatkoski made seven stops, while Wes Tonkery finished with six. Tonkery also disrupted a TCU fourth-down pass by grabbing Catalon as the runner tried to slip out of the backfield.
Edward Muldrow made West Virginia’s only sack and registered a Boykin knockdown on a blind-side blitz. If there was a mild criticism to be made in a game where the defense repeatedly out-performed its field position, it was that WVU didn’t generate many negative plays (two TFLs).
SECONDARY
Two mistakes detracted from an otherwise stellar day on which the Mountaineers held Boykin to 166 yards passing—about half his season average. K.J. Dillon made an interception on the edge of the red zone, and Terrell Chestnut added a second-half strip-and-score working against TCU receiver Josh Doctson.
Daryl Worley and Chestnut played superb in man coverage, while Dillon and Karl Joseph took turns delivering hammering hits.
Now, about the mistakes. They were costly, and perhaps they’re being overemphasized today because West Virginia ultimately lost. First, Dravon Henry took a poor approach angle on the screen pass Deante’ Gray turned into a 47-yard score. Then on the game’s final drive, Joseph didn’t see the cover-3 call and was sucked up toward the flat, allowing Kolby Listenbee to run free on a 40-yard catch. That play led to Jaden Oberkrom’s game-winning kick.
“You’ve got to be able to finish in this league,” Gibson said.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Mike Molinari’s pooch kickoffs didn’t allow Catalon a chance at a single return, and West Virginia even recovered one that bounced free at the TCU 30.
With three more field goals, Josh Lambert ran his streak to eight consecutive and bettered his season mark to 21-of-26.
Nick O’Toole’s punts either soared or dipped based on the wind. During the first and fourth quarters he averaged 39 yards per attempt, as opposed to 54 yards in the middle periods. O’Toole also suffered his first touchback of the season after pinning 20 punts inside the 20.
COACHING
The game (and potentially a Big 12 title) was right there, at least until an offensive coma fed into TCU’s fourth-quarter comeback. Still, the defensive game plan was terrific, and it’s hard to knock Holgorsen and Co. for losing on a last-play field goal to a top-10 team. (Top seven if you go by the playoff rankings.) I’m going neutral on this one. Because neutral-minus doesn’t exist.
The flat-line play-calling in the late stages was painful to watch, but Holgorsen was understandably in survival mode after seeing his offense take its best stab at a seven-turnover performance. Here’s the thing about survival mode, though: With offense being Holgorsen’s forte, couldn’t he find something more creative, functional or unexpected than the nine plays West Virginia used to close the game?
There’s another game-management issue that warrants a demerit: Once TCU penetrated the 30-yard line with 1:19 left, Gary Patterson was banking on an end-game field goal to win it. Holgorsen could’ve tried to salvage some time for his own offense to counter but opted against using any of his three timeouts until the 4-second mark, when he tried to ice Oberkrom.
With Alford having returned two kicks for TDs this season and Lambert sporting a 4-for-4 field-goal mark from 50-plus, why not reserve a few seconds in case of a miracle finish? After all, this series with TCU seems to be built on them.