MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Don’t expect a reprise of that Texas attack that hung 47 points on West Virginia last season.
The Mountaineers’ defense has unleashed considerable bedlam under Tony Gibson, while the Longhorns’ offense is performing as though it’s being run by Democratic strategists.
To be fair to the burnt orange, offenses that lose their starting quarterback, center and left tackle in Week 1 don’t typically light it up. And Texas isn’t.
Scroll to the bottom of the FBS stats and you’ll find Texas ranked 101st in scoring, 99th in total offense, 108th in third-down conversions and 105th in red-zone offense. Hardly the numbers assistant head coach for offense Shawn Watson aspired to when he followed Charlie Strong from Louisville.
Tyrone Swoopes looks better in uniform than any quarterback around, but the first-year starter faced developmental expedition while taking over for the perpetually concussed David Ash. Texas has been held to seven points or less in three of Swoopes’ eight starts, including the program’s first shutout in a decade.
Not that it has been all clunky for the former four-star recruit: Swoopes compiled back-to-back games of 300 yards passing and 50 yards rushing against Oklahoma and Iowa State (which is one more time than Vince Young ever did it). Yet his inaccuracy has killed several big plays, he occasionally takes ill-timed sacks and his turnovers have been expensive. There was the fumbled snap at the Baylor goal line and the backwards throw into his end zone that Texas Tech recovered for a touchdown.
Even after Swoopes fired a season-long 68-yard strike to John Harris last week in Lubbock, the Longhorns still rank 95th in passing yards per completion.
“He’s building,” said Watson, who experienced similar struggles with a young Teddy Bridgewater at Louisville. “With quarterbacks, it’s always a process, and some days it feels like you’re starting all over. Other days, it feels like you’re gaining on it.
“I’ve done this for right at about 20 years, and it is part of what you go through with a first-year player and a guy who is learning the position.”
That learning curve should be softened by Swoopes’ ability to hand off to Malcolm Brown and Johnathan Gray, but offensive line attrition has curbed the running game at times. Texas ranks 82nd nationally in rushing offense and didn’t have a 100-yard back until Brown ran for 116 last week at Texas Tech.
In that game, Watson deployed a more heavy sets that featured fullbacks and tight ends. Considering how those type of alignments from Oklahoma, Alabama, Oklahoma State and TCU gave West Virginia trouble, Gibson expects more of it this week.
“That’s a tough matchup for us,” he said.
Then again, West Virginia’s defense, rather stunningly, has developed into a tough matchup for even the nation’s top offenses. Gibson recounted a conversation with this week’s Fox Sports broadcasters, who told him they were looking forward to another WVU game “because they love watching our defense play.”
Though West Virginia’s overall metrics—60th in scoring defense and 62nd in total defense—are middle-of-the-pack in the FBS, it has faced four of the nation’s most dangerous offenses. The Mountaineers held Baylor, TCU, Alabama and Oklahoma—teams that sit among the top 18 in scoring and yardage—to combined outputs that were 10 points and 70 yards below their season norms.
TCU edged WVU 31-30 last week while gaining only 389 yards, about 160 shy of its average.
“That was the most physical, the fastest and the most effort that we’ve played with all year long. It was something,” Gibson said. “Out of 79 snaps, about 78 of them were pretty good.
“I’m more proud of those guys as I have been all year long. Their whole mental makeup and how they came into work (after the loss), I couldn’t be happier.”