MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez made it known in his postgame press conference last Saturday following a 41-24 home loss to Oklahoma State, the Mountaineers’ plan, by and large, failed against the Cowboys.
OSU scored 28 points with three touchdowns over a stretch of five second-half series and totaled 609 yards to run away from the Mountaineers (3-1) and hand them their first setback of the season.
It marked the 10th-highest yardage total surrendered in program history, the most WVU has allowed in 16 games under defensive coordinator Zac Alley and the most recorded by a Mountaineer opponent since Oklahoma’s 644 in November 2023.
“We weren’t prepared the way we needed to be,” Alley said. “The plan wasn’t very good. Didn’t put our guys in position to win, so back to the drawing board on that. In all areas, we probably need to get better.”
It was a different outcome than what had transpired one week earlier when the WVU defense held its own in a 38-27 win over then-No-25 Virginia.
It was also a far different challenge than what the Mountaineers faced seven days earlier, and they didn’t do nearly enough to disrupt Cowboys’ quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who threw for 389 yards and three touchdowns while benefiting from a strong ground game and tailback Caleb Hawkins’ 180 yards on 31 carries.
“Giving up 600 yards makes me feel like we weren’t ready,” Alley said. “Probably a mistake and oversight on my end, but tried to do something different to affect the quarterback, because he’s a good player.”
As WVU tries to move forward, the Mountaineers do so awaiting a far different challenge at noon Saturday when they face Iowa State at Jack Trice Stadium.
The Cyclones (2-2) don’t possess the firepower of Oklahoma State and have totaled 30 points across competitive losses to Iowa and Utah, while scoring 93 in victories against Southeast Missouri State and Bowling Green.
Iowa State’s average of 345.3 yards ranks last among 16 teams in the Big 12 Conference, while the Cowboys are first at 548.3.
But similar to Oklahoma State, the Cyclones possess an experienced quarterback who enjoyed success at a Group of Six program as Jaylen Raynor played extensively at Arkansas State for three seasons before deciding to give it a go at a higher level.
He’s completed 50-of-92 passes for 639 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions over his first four games at ISU, while rushing 31 times for 137 yards and three scores. In last week’s 31-17 loss to the 15th-ranked Utes, Raynor was intercepted twice and attempted more than twice the number of passes (40) he had in any of the first three games when he threw a total of 52.
Alley sees similarities in Raynor’s skill set to that of Coastal Carolina quarterback Deuce Bailey, who had a strong showing in Morgantown back on September 5 during the Chanticleers’ 31-24 loss to the Mountaineers.
“He’s probably a little bit more in the pocket presence-wise. He’ll stand in there and deliver the ball,” Alley said. “He’s not a scramble-first guy. He wants to throw it first and then has the ability to scramble, which is maybe a little bit different. In the first game [against Bailey], it was like if it isn’t there, take off running. He’ll go through a progression, and if one is not there, he’ll look at two and if it’s not there, he may start to run at that point. They’re slightly different just from how they process through the system, but once they get moving, they’re pretty similar.”
Much of the challenge during plays will center around containing Raynor, but the test leading up to snaps is likely to be even more significant for the Mountaineers. West Virginia will need to be prepared for plenty of change in personnel from Iowa State, which aspires to do anything and everything it can to change the pre-snap picture for a defense.
“They do a good job of mixing it up. On the season, they’ve had like 278 snaps. Of that, the same 11 people have been on the field three times,” Alley said. “You have a lot of variation in who’s out there on the field every single snap. There are some things you can pick up on, but they don’t always even play the same guys in the same five spots on the offensive line.”
In reality, it’s 238 offensive snaps, but point taken.
Iowa State offensive coordinator Tyler Roehl was the Detroit Lions’ tight ends coach in 2025 after spending the previous year as assistant head coach/running backs coach with the Cyclones working under Campbell. Before that, Roehl had a decade-long tenure at North Dakota State, during which time Rogers was at South Dakota State.
An accomplished running back at North Dakota State from 2004-08, Roehl suggested there’s more for the Cyclones to tap into in the near future.
“There are moments of positives, but collectively, there’s a determined work ethic and urgency to correct everything,” Roehl said. “Excited about the potential. There’s still things that we’ve had, we’ve repped and I’ve not gotten to call it yet, so excited to continue to unlock the one or two schemes that we have not utilized yet just based off the situation.”
While Alley often prefers employing exotic blitz packages, West Virginia’s base ones will come into play often in Ames in an effort to help simplify things when the Cyclones hope to create mass confusion.
“The base things are probably the easiest. You’re going to have to match up numbers. They’ll mass sub like eight people, three of them offensive linemen coming out and they’ll put five offensive linemen in the game, and take a receiver out and a tight end out. They give you crazy things. I’m sure we’ll mess up a personnel from the booth one time, so it’s like, ‘here’s our four oh crap calls that we know we can play to anything.’ They say 11 [personnel] and oh crap it’s 12, what are you going to? There are some of those things where alright, we can play this. It may not be perfect, but you’ll be OK.”
For his part, Rodriguez is eager to see the response from a unit that enters off its worst showing this season.
“This week is a different challenge, because they’ll do so many different things formationally on offense, schematically on offense and with personnel on offense,” Rodriguez said. “We better be ready to go.”