MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If West Virginia is to upset No. 12 Baylor on Thursday night, the Mountaineers will almost certainly need to win the turnover battle. The Bears have too much talent and speed on both sides of the ball for West Virginia to survive a bout of equal punches.
Though turnover margin a safe rule of thumb in any football game, it’s been particularly true for Baylor coach Matt Rhule in his tenure. In seven of his 17 career losses at Baylor, the Bears turned the ball over at least three times. That total includes last year’s 58-14 loss at West Virginia, when quarterback Charlie Brewer was benched after throwing three interceptions in his first eight pass attempts.
The trouble for this year’s Mountaineers is that they haven’t shown themselves capable of exploiting that Achilles heel. West Virginia is eighth in the Big 12 with seven takeaways. Last year, Vic Koenning’s Troy defense was third in the entire country in the same category.
“We have to get takeaways,” Koenning said. “That’s the thing that’s been frustrating.”
At least Koenning has been coaching long enough to have been through something like this before. In his and Neal Brown’s first season at Troy, the Trojans only had one takeaway through their first three games. They finished the year with 19, which put them in the middle of the pack in the Sun Belt Conference.
“We weren’t getting any, and then all of the sudden we got a whole bunch in a row,” Koenning said. “I’m hoping that happens again as the season wears down here.”
Unfortunately, Koenning doesn’t have a secret formula for flipping that switch.
“I wish. If I knew the answer to that, it’s like if I had the winning lottery tickets,” Koenning said. “I’d not be worrying about a lot of things.”
He’s just doing it the same way he did at Troy – hoping repetition finally pays off. Koenning said the Mountaineers work on forcing turnovers two times a week, and had turnover circuits every practice in spring and August camp.
“It’s got to show up on the field,” Koenning said. “It’s no different than taking correct angles on tackles. We practice the correct angles every single day. Yet we still have guys that don’t do it. It’s frustrating.
“We just have to get better every day. It’s like the old deal about stacking pennies. Exponentially, you can be wealthy if you just stack pennies together. We’ve got to stack practices and periods. Keep stacking them and getting better.”
Perhaps the best news for WVU’s fortunes is that they will have the one player capable of adding a few quarters into their stack of pennies.
Senior cornerback Keith Washington is back after missing the past two games due to injury, and he has been West Virginia’s biggest ball hawk by a wide margin. Washington leads the team with three interceptions, and could have two or three more that slipped through his grasp.