The West Virginia Mountaineers were forced to play a short-week game on Friday night at 10:30PM Eastern, two time zones away in a stadium that sits 4,600 feet above sea level, and the game ended in a predictable fashion — BYU won 38-24 and never trailed, leading 14-0 after one quarter and 28-10 at the half. The Mountaineers, and perhaps their fans, came away with maybe the second-best result in the game — hope. Did West Virginia find a future quarterback for this season and next season? Is the offense
maybe not as putrid as it seems to be? Maybe the defense has the potential to be serviceable this year and good next? Let’s talk.
Quarterback
West Virginia entered the game down its starting quarterback for the first four games and down its starting quarterbacks from the first five games. Now-former QB1 Nicco Marchiol announced he was taking a medical redshirt, and the announcement all but guarantees that Nicco is now done as a Mountaineer since it is expected he will enter the transfer portal when it opens at the end of the season.
Nicco ends his Mountaineer tenure with 1,462 passing yards, 10 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions, along with 4 rushing touchdowns and 341 rushing yards. He also ends his tenure 2-0 in the Backyard Brawl with wins in 2023 and the come-from-behind thriller in 2025.
Jaylen Henderson may also be done, but his status is questionable since he’s classified as a senior and would need a medical redshirt and approval to play again next year. What the Mountaineers did was start redshirt freshman Khalil Watkins in the game and called 23 quarterback runs. Watkins, to his credit, didn’t shy away from the calls and gained 89 yards on the ground — the third-highest amount by a Mountaineer this year. Watkins showed good patience and decisiveness in making the plays, though he always looked a step slower than BYU. Gains that could have gone for more were quickly swallowed up by the BYU linebackers and defensive backs, resulting in short gains. Watkins’ longest run of the night was 11 yards.
For me, the bigger takeaway in the game is West Virginia ran 65 plays — 47 runs and 18 passes — held the ball for 27 minutes, and after the first two drives of the game, West Virginia did not go three-and-out the rest of the game. The offense under the previous quarterbacks had three three-and-outs against Robert Morris, six against Ohio, three against Pitt, five against Kansas, and one against Utah. In total, they have 20 drives that went three plays and a punt in 80 drives on the season — 25% of their drives have ended in three plays and a punt — but the last two games that number has dropped dramatically to three drives. Progress.
Wilkins wasn’t perfect, as his passing line was seven completions on 15 attempts for 81 yards, though it should be noted that he had a huge gain wiped away when Cam Vaughn juggled the catch and tipped it to a BYU defender. He also had a few plays taken away against Utah last week. He isn’t a good passer — yet — but the blocks are there to build off of in order to get to serviceable, and serviceable may be all that is needed.
Scotty Fox also saw time and made a play when the lights were brightest, scrambling on an option when a defender fell down before yielding back to Watkins during the game. He also came in during garbage time and dropped a dime of a touchdown throw to Vaughn. It’s hard for me to get excited about Fox given the limited time he played and the egregious errors he has made previously — his two interceptions were some of the worst this season — but he has a spark and could challenge Watkins or start if Watkins is hurt.
Defense
The hope we had of an aggressive defense potentially capable of keeping us in games has evaporated over the last three weeks, and by now the defense isn’t quantifiable as “good,” ranking 100th in scoring defense, 85th in rushing defense, 88th in passing defense, and 95th in total defense. But the defense does rank 10th in the conference in rush defense and third in turnovers gained. That turnover number isn’t something to sneeze at, since they’ve generated 10 turnovers in six games. Last year the Mountaineers generated 11 turnovers, 16 in 2023, 10 in 2022, 13 in 2021, 13 in 2020, and 14 in 2019. They are causing more havoc now than they have in the past six years.
BYU running back LJ Martin rushed 21 times for 90 yards — a 4.3 average — but did not break 100. He had a long of 32 yards, which really helps his average; 20 for 58 and a 2.9 average is much more pedestrian.
BYU as a team rushed 41 times for 167 yards and a 4.1 average — not exactly the explosive runs that might have been the case — and without that long run of 32 yards, the average on the other 40 was only 3.3 yards. Small glimmers of hope are all that you are going to have this season, but glimmers are what we are looking for.
Glimmers of Hope
Let’s be real, while it is still mathematically possible to make a bowl game, the likelihood is slim-to-none and slim left the building two games ago. West Virginia’s schedule does them no favors, as they still play Texas Tech and UCF — the No. 1 and No. 5 scoring defenses in the conference — and play Texas Tech, Cincinnati, and TCU — the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 5 scoring offenses in the conference. If you are looking for a win, Colorado may be the only one on the docket you can even think about as a win.
Yet, we are looking for glimmers of hope here. TCU is currently giving up 21 points a game, good for 11th in the conference. Could West Virginia make some plays and maybe keep that a one-score game? Houston is only two spots above WVU at 13th in scoring offense with 27 points per game — is that a game WVU could maybe get a turnover or two and keep it close in the fourth quarter?
The offense looked better — not great, not good, but better. It looked like you could tell what the plays were meant to do if the players were better. The defense continues to play hard; even if they get out of alignment and find themselves chasing players downfield, they are creating plays.
We expect this team to fight for the next six games, and we expect the team to not quit. Hard conversations need to be had with seniors, and we need to see younger players gaining experience, but we also need to see movement forward. In Rich’s first year, West Virginia lost games 34-10, 35-0, and 45-3. Their last three losses were 24-13, 17-14, and 23-17. Glimmers of hope that said maybe it wasn’t going to be bad next year. We’re looking for something similar here. Can we start the “losing small” portion so we can win small next year?
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