MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Oklahoma State sits on the peripheral of the Top 25, an omission traceable to the Cowboys’ inability to defend a miraculous Hail Mary-lateral by Central Michigan (and some MAC refs’ inability to comprehend the rulebook).
“They had an unfortunate loss early in the year, if you can consider it a loss,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said Tuesday. “This team could very easily be sitting at 7-0.”
The Cowboys (5-2, 3-1) have won three consecutive in the Big 12 since dropping their league opener 35-24 at Baylor, a game that turned on Justice Hill’s goal-line fumble with Oklahoma State poised to take the lead in the fourth quarter.
Saturday’s game brings another 11 a.m. kickoff — the third early start in Stillwater this season — a trend displeasing to many of the league’s Central Time Zone schools. Typically-rowdy Boone Pickens Stadium hasn’t come close to reaching its 60,218 capacity: The largest crowd was 53,468 for OSU’s 49-31 win over Texas.
“Great fan base, great crowd. Doesn’t matter what time it’s going to be,” Holgorsen said. “It’s going to be homecoming. It’s going to be full, going to be fun.”
Crest’s new number
William Crest’s jersey change revealed a change in philosophy by coaches who are willing to risk the backup quarterback as a special-teams returner.
The redshirt sophomore surfaced on punt-return and kick-return units against TCU. He switched from No. 16 to No. 17 to avoid conflicting with safety Toyous Avery. (Later Saturday, Oklahoma’s kick coverage unit was penalized when Dahu Green and Curtis Bolton both lined up wearing No. 18.)
“We’ll see what he can do to play football,” Holgorsen said. “He’s that type of kid — he just wants to play. We’re trying him on a couple different special teams to see how that works out.”
Crest has appeared at quarterback on only six plays this season. One of those became a turnover against Missouri when he fumbled backward during his passing windup. In Week 2 Crest took the final four snaps during a 38-21 win over Youngstown State.
“We used him not as a deep returner but as one of out short guys,” said special teams coordinator Mark Scott. “It gives us another big, physical athlete who can move well. He’s got a lot of talent.”
At 6-foot-1, 215 pounds Crest’s build resembles the WVU linebackers, though he’s unlikely to appear on coverage units because his quarterback training didn’t included many tackling drills.
“There’s a lot of (tackling) technique work we put in from camp and on Sundays during the season,” Scott said.
“It’s the same thing with (receiver) Marcus Simms. He’s one of the most disruptive guys we have on our kickoff team but his biggest issue is getting the guy down to the ground. He can get by and get on top of him and make the guy stop his feet, but we’ve just got to continue to work different drills where he’s put in a position to make tackles.”
Targeting was ‘baffling’
Three days after Elijah Battle’s targeting ejection, Holgorsen’s reaction hasn’t softened. He called the replay official’s decision to uphold the foul “baffling to me.”
That was his same opinion of cornerback Maurice Fleming’s targeting foul at Texas Tech the previous week, a play West Virginia submitted to the conference.
“I understand how these things get looked at, and I’ve got to be pretty careful with how I respond,” he said. “We look at it through West Virginia’s angle. They look at it through the referee’s angle, right? So they’re going to justify pretty much everything they do. I don’t care — I don’t agree with it.”
Holgorsen contends coaches at WVU and around the country modified tackling drills to improve player safety, but Battle was unfairly dinged for incidental contract on a receiver who’s body position was changing.
“I sat in here at a team meeting and said ‘I can’t ask you to do anything different than you’ve done the past two weeks.'”