MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s pass defense made significant strides and displayed noticeable improvement last Saturday when the Mountaineers held then-No. 25 Virginia in check to claim a 38-27 victory at Bank of America Stadium.
To continue on that path, WVU (3-0) will need its pass defense to up its level of play yet another notch in an effort to slow Oklahoma State’s potent attack through the air when the two teams clash at 7 p.m. Saturday inside Milan Puskar Stadium.
The Cowboys (2-1) are tied with Baylor atop the Big 12 Conference and No. 18 nationally with an average of 306.3 passing yards.
Only 14 teams have attempted more passes than Oklahoma State’s 120, and five of them have played an extra game.
First-year head coach Eric Morris is known for a tempo-based Air Raid attack that aspires for balance through a strong run game to create more favorable matchups through the air.
Twenty-one former North Texas players that played for Morris during his previous head coaching stint are now at OSU, including quarterback Drew Mestemaker.
Mestemaker garnered American Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2025 after completing 319-of-463 passes for 4,379 yards with 34 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also rushed for five scores a year ago.
As a result of past success, Mestemaker was expected to spearhead the Cowboys’ offense and has done exactly that. He is second in the Big 12 and 13th among FBS quarterbacks with 294 passing yards per game, and the redshirt sophomore has overcome a poor performance in a Week 1 loss at Tulsa with consecutive strong showings in victories over then-No. 6 Oregon and most recently, Murray State.
“Poise in the pocket. He moves around the pocket well, keeps his eyes down the field, finds the open guys,” West Virginia defensive coordinator Zac Alley said. “You don’t play a lot of quarterbacks in college football that are going to start on their first read, get their second read, get their third read and throw to their fourth read. It just doesn’t happen. But he’ll look to the field, check all three guys and come back and throw the curl to the boundary. He’s pretty impressive that way from an ability to understand what coverages he’s getting, where the ball is supposed to go and he has the poise to stay in there and throw it even if it’s a little bit later or pressure is in his face.”
Mestemaker left a lot to be desired in his OSU debut when he threw for 241 yards on 49 attempts and was intercepted twice in a 24-10 setback against the Golden Hurricane.
Over the last two games, he’s 46-for-65 with 641 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions, both of which came against the Ducks.
Yet it was also against Oregon when Mestemaker flashed dual-threat ability by rushing six times for 109 yards with a 75-yard run and another of 10 yards that went for the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter. The 75-yard scamper came on the team’s first play from scrimmage and helped set the tone in a 39-31 victory where the Cowboys finished with a 554-281 edge in total yardage.
“They don’t obviously use the quarterback run game like we do, but they can use him and they showed it in the Oregon game,” WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Their skill players are good. A lot of them came with him from North Texas. The wide receivers are really talented and they’re good up front. If you watched the Oregon game, it was not one of these like got a couple breaks and won the game. They kind of dominated the deal from start to finish.”
Albeit against an inferior FCS opponent last week, Mestemaker was nearly perfect as he completed 20-of-22 passes for 324 yards with five TDs in a 59-0 victory.
“He did a great job. His pocket presence was phenomenal,” Morris said. “He made some throws with people around him and did some really nice things out there. His eyes got through reads really fast and got the ball to the right spot almost every single time. Really happy with his operation.”
The Mountaineers, meanwhile, have allowed 367 passing yards over their last two games — 6 fewer than what Coastal Carolina totaled in Week 1.
Virginia quarterback Beau Pribula threw for 197 yards on 33 attempts, and the Cavaliers managed 14 points on 11 possessions outside of touchdowns on their first and final series.
It was a step forward for Alley’s unit, and to take another Saturday, the WVU secondary will have to duplicate the strong showing it had in Charlotte.
“We were in better places,” Alley said. “It’s when you have guys wide open like we’d had in the first two games, it’s easy to blame the corner or blame the safety. We didn’t cover him, so yeah, he’s going to get 40 yards. You kind of miss some of that. In the last game, we were a lot better as far as being on routes, being on guys and trying to shut down the passing game. They made a couple of nice throws. They had a big catch on the sideline. We were there. It just happens. I’m proud of the improvement they made and we have to keep doing that, because they might throw it 70 times this game.”