MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s football team stepped off the playing surface at Milan Puskar Stadium last Saturday with better morale thanks to a 45-42 victory against Cincinnati that allowed the Mountaineers to break into the win column in Big 12 Conference play.
It’s only natural for the vibes to improve as a result of a win, particularly when it’s the first one in almost a month, but there wasn’t much the WVU defense offered to feel better about a unit that’s struggled for the majority of this season and had next to no success against league foes.
The Mountaineers did come up with a timely stop down the stretch, forcing a three-and-out when the game was tied at 42 and allowing the offense to regain possession for what would become an 82-yard drive that led to Jack Cassidy’s 35-yard field goal on the final play.
Excluding four possessions that ended with a punt, UC gained at least 51 yards on each of its other eight series, while seven went for at least 65 yards and six resulted in a touchdown.
The Bearcats averaged a season-high 8.9 yards per play — a figure that surpassed their mark of 8.6 amassed in a 62-10 victory against Western Carolina of the FCS.
“You win the game, you feel better, because you’ve won the game,” West Virginia defensive coordinator Zac Alley said. “But we gave up six touchdowns doing that. I don’t describe us as being good enough yet. I won’t think that at all. I’m obviously disappointed in where and how we’ve been playing. We have to be better, because we obviously know the offense can get it done. We have to be able to do it on our side, too.”
Two weeks and one matchup prior to playing in Morgantown, Cincinnati sputtered offensively and was held to 227 total yards and less than 4 per play in a 34-7 loss at Arizona.
Yet against the Mountaineers, quarterback JC French completed all but eight of 30 passes and threw for a career-high 389 yards with three touchdowns. WVU also failed to come up with an answer for Bearcats’ tailback Cole Tabb. He rushed for 118 yards and two TDs on 15 carries and hauled in four passes for 51 yards and an additional score. Tabb’s performance sparked a 233-yard rushing effort from UC.
“Without stopping the run first, you have no chance of stopping the pass game,” Alley said. ”That’s the No. 1 focus and we’re trying to get that identity back.”
The Mountaineers are allowing an average of 483.9 yards — the second-worst mark among 138 FBS teams and ahead of only Colorado State. That’s an average of almost 50 yards more per game surrendered than the next-closest Big 12 team. In four Big 12 contests, WVU has allowed 2,290 yards on 8.6 yards per play — both marks that are last in the league.
Conference opponents have rushed for 10 touchdowns, passed for 12 and average almost 358 passing yards to go with more than 214 on the ground.
“You have to have something you can hang your hat on, like if nothing else, we can go to this,” WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “They may score, but it’s not going to be all the chunk plays. That’s probably the reason we’re searching a little bit. We’re trying to find exactly what our guys can do and who we can do it with. I told our defensive staff [Tuesday] morning, we have good enough players. We may not be overloaded at certain positions with guys, but we have better players than what we’re showing, and we have better coaches than what we’re showing.
“Zac Alley and those guys have been in some big games, made big calls and done well, so it’s a little perplexing how poorly we’ve struggled, but we can’t stick our heads in the sand like everything is all good. It’s not.”
The Mountaineers continue to tweak personnel and in their latest outing, Andrew Powdrell was used exclusively at cornerback instead of safety, where he had played the first half of the regular season.
Linebacker Jason Hall played sparingly, but at critical points, while safeties Kameron Reddic and Jacob Bradford both saw a major uptick in their snap counts and were in on 51 defensive plays altogether.
“It’s good to perform in practice, but when there’s high stress, high anxiety and you’re in the moment in front of 65,000 people, that’s when you have to perform,” Alley said. “You evaluate how they’ve played in the games more than you do in fall camp. That’s how you make those decisions a lot of times of saying it might have been good here, but the lights are on and they’re bright, and we’re deer in the headlights and can’t have that.
“Just trying to give opportunities to improve. You can’t consistently be bad and think that’s OK. We’re trying other guys out to see what they can do and give opportunities to guys that maybe haven’t developed as fast, but have potential.”
The next chance to display improvement comes at noon Saturday when the Mountaineers oppose TCU, which has struggled offensively.
The Horned Frogs (3-3, 1-2) are averaging 16.1 points in five matchups against FBS competition. They’ve scored 50 points in four games against power conference opponents and 40 in three Big 12 contests.
So it’ll be a struggling unit against a struggling unit, though TCU head coach Sonny Dykes says the Mountaineer defense is capable of far better performances.
“They’re searching a little bit defensively, but you turn the tape on, they’re athletic up front,” Dykes said. “I love the linebackers. The guys can run and hit. They play very aggressively. It’s a physical defensive team. The corners are athletic. The safeties will hit you. It’s a tough, kind of blue-collar defense.
“They’ve given up some big plays which have contributed to their stats, and they’re having to play a lot of snaps just because the offense is going so fast. It’s a little bit different and more like it used to be in terms of the number of plays run per game, which obviously has an impact on the defensive stats. Their defense is considerably better than the numbers and I like the way they play. They play physical and tough, and they’re going to be, I’m sure, incredibly aggressive against us.”
Where the Horned Frogs have thrived is defensively, with that unit surrendering Big 12 bests of 12.2 points and 264.2 yards per game.
None of TCU’s first six opponents have surpassed 21 points and only one (Central Florida) exceeded 15.
“Certainly they’re risk-averse as far as they don’t want to give turnovers up and they’re not going to put themselves in bad positions,” Alley said. “Overall, that’s kind of the philosophy of who they are. They’re going to get advantageous plays and get into things they feel like keep them out of third-and-longs and bad situations.”