MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Iowa State’s domination of West Virginia Saturday afternoon at Jack Trice Stadium didn’t feature exotic offensive formations or fast tempo from the Cyclones. But No. 12 ISU averaged 7.2 yards per play and scored touchdowns on each of their three first half possessions in a 42-6 rout of the Mountaineers.
The six Cyclone touchdown drives covered 80, 44, 76, 73, 78 and 73 yards as they methodically and surgically carved up the top defense in the Big 12.
“Until we make routine plays, we are never going to be as good as we need to be,” said WVU head coach Neal Brown. “You look at Iowa State, how many extraordinary plays did they make today? A couple, but here’s what they do — they pay attention to details. They do what they are coached to do. And they make routine plays. The ball is thrown to them, they catch it. If a guy is open, they connect on the throw. They win their one-on-one battles. A guy in the open field and they make the tackle.”
“They are a great team,” said WVU center Chase Behrndt. “They aren’t ranked number nine for no reason. They really played their butts off. They had to have game planned us well and they have good coaches and good players. We just couldn’t find a way.”
After playing on five consecutive Saturdays, the Mountaineers endured a 20-day delay necessitated by the postponement of the Oklahoma game last week.
“We did not play very well at all in the first half. We didn’t have a lot of energy. This is the first time we have had much adversity. We had some calls that didn’t go our way,” Brown said.
“Did it hurt us not playing in three weeks? Absolutely. Was that the reason we got our tail kicked today? By no chance. We were missing some guys. Is that the reason we played poorly? No.”
“I really don’t feel like it impacted us much. This whole season has been a cluster. We have been bouncing around and Coach Brown even admitted that he doesn’t know everything that is going to happen,” said Behrndt.
“It sucks that the (Oklahoma) game was postponed but you have to move on and focus on the next week.”
This was West Virginia’s second-most lopsided loss in the Neal Brown era and their only loss this season by more than fourteen points.
“I am upset and disappointed in how we played. I am not discouraged and this is not going to set us back from a program standpoint. It has brought to light some things that we already know and we have a lot of work to do.”
The Mountaineers did welcome back a pair of injured defensive players into the lineup. Linebacker VanDarius Cowan took the field for the first time since WVU’s conference opener at Oklahoma State. Defensive lineman Taijh Alston played for the first time since suffering an ACL injury in the second week of the 2019 season.
“It has been over a year since Taijh went down and since he has been here he has really only had one-and-half games until today,” said WVU defensive lineman Jeffery Pooler. “So that was definitely fun for Taijh. And the same thing with VanDarius. We have played about three games together and he has been here three years due to injuries. So it was nice having those guys back out there.”