MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Ten FBS teams have more sacks than the five West Virginia recorded last Saturday during its 31-24 season-opening win against Coastal Carolina, and half of those squads have played twice already.
Yet the way second-year Mountaineer defensive coordinator Zac Alley sees it, his unit should be the nation’s sack leader ahead of Game 2 at 1 p.m. Saturday against UT Martin.
“We forced 40 pressures, had five sacks and probably should’ve had 10 more,” Alley said. “We counted, and we touched him and missed him like 12 times in the backfield, like free runners and what not.”
Much like the contest itself for WVU, it was also a tale of two halves for the defense, despite four of the unit’s five sacks coming over the final two quarters.
The Mountaineers were downright dominant across the first two periods. Of Coastal Carolina’s six series in the first half, four ended with a punt, one on a turnover on downs in the red zone and another with a lost fumble.
The Chanticleers went to halftime trailing 24-0, with 34 rushing yards on 10 attempts and 114 total yards on 26 plays.
“Positives were we saw what we could be. Played the first half very well,” Alley said. “Had some adversity and were able to overcome it in critical moments.”
In the second half, however, Coastal moved the ball at will after punting on its first series of the third quarter.
Starting with a penalty-aided 99-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter, the Chanticleers scored 24 points over their final six possessions, with a lost fumble on the first play of the fourth quarter and the team’s sixth and final punt of the game the only non-scoring series.
“We showed what we could do if we play to a standard and there was some complacency in the second half,” Alley said. “We came out and just stopped doing our job. That’s what got us there in the first place was doing our job well consistently and not beating West Virginia. We beat West Virginia in the second half on defense. We let guys run free, didn’t communicate or do our job and that leads to explosive plays. If you cut the explosives down, you’re going to dominate everybody. That’s what you want to do. You want to win every play the same way.
“To me, we play to a standard. We don’t play to a team and we didn’t play to the standard the entire game. That’s the challenge this week and every week moving forward is every single play is the play to win the game, and if you don’t treat it like that, then you’ll make mistakes that cost you the game.”
An inability to contain Deuce Bailey, the Chanticleers’ mobile quarterback, proved problematic for much of the second half. That’s when the redshirt freshman threw for 293 of his 373 yards and all three touchdowns, often escaping pressure and extending plays that led to significant gains.
Of Bailey’s 12 second-half completions, none went for fewer than 11 yards. Nine were good for at least 15 yards and five produced gains of at least 27 yards, including four in the fourth quarter when the Chanticleers all but abandoned their ground game.
“If I yelled contain one more time, my head would’ve exploded,” WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “I think I was yelling it for three quarters. Some of it was the kid making a great play and some of it was our angles or lack of awareness that this guy is pretty fast and you have to get a little bit wider. You can’t let a guy that dangerous extend plays and break contain that much.
“So we obviously have to learn our lesson from that standpoint, because we’re going to play some mobile quarterbacks and they’ll make you look silly like he did at times in that game.”
Bailey certainly showed himself well, but the Mountaineers hardly helped their cause in the third and fourth frames.
That, according to Alley, is when they too often lost contain.
“It’s something we did a pretty decent job of in the first half,” Alley said. “Created flushes, got to him, and in the second half, just didn’t run to the upfield shoulder of the quarterback. Let him scramble around, get open and throw the ball, and the last play [a 33-yard pass on fourth-and-10], we had three unblocked defenders in the backfield. Nobody touches him, and we don’t keep him on the inside shoulder. We cut the other two guys off and he scrambles around and throws a 40-yarder, because it’s hard to stay in coverage for 7 seconds when they’re running across the field.”
The first chance at fixes comes Saturday when the Mountaineers oppose the Skyhawks.
Julian Calvez was the lone quarterback UT Martin (1-1) featured in a season-opening loss to Central Arkansas, but last Saturday, in a 42-7 win against Chicago State, Tate Surber was the Skyhawks’ featured signal-caller. Surber completed 16-of-23 passes for 222 yards and had one rush for 3 yards. Calvez, meanwhile, attempted 24 passes in the opener, three in the second game and rushed 13 times for 57 yards altogether.
“They’re pretty similar,” Alley said. “The first guy probably wants to run more and the second guy wants to stand in there and throw it a little bit more, but I don’t see them as vastly different. If one is in versus the other, how they’re going to run the offense and what they’re going to do, they’re fairly similar body types. At least [No.] 8 [Surber] throws the ball a little bit better than [No.] 4 [Calvez] does, but I wouldn’t say it’s just apples to oranges.”