On September 25 WVU football was 3-0 on the season. We had just come off of a ranked win against Virginia, and were getting votes in the AP Poll. The next game was a night game in Morgantown, with a gold rush theme. It felt like we might actually be ready to take a step back into the national spotlight again. That was just 15 days ago, but it feels more like a different lifetime. That gold rush game didn’t go well for the Mountaineers and was the first of 3 straight losses to Oklahoma State, Iowa
State, and Arizona. The fan base is frustrated at the borderline comical lack of defense we have played in that stretch and Rich Rodriguez clearly is as well. It feels like something has to give on that side of the ball, so while we wait to see what that change will look like, let’s get into some good and bad news as well look ahead to the 2nd half of the season.
The Bad News
Here are some stats from our last 3 games: 502.33 yards per game, 32.33 points per game, 309.33 rushing yards per game, and 25.33 first downs per game. We all know how bad our defense has been all year, but those numbers are the averages for our offense over the last 3 games, all of which were losses. Losing one game when you rush for over 300 yards and gain over 500 total yards off offense is tough to do. We have done it 3 times in a row! That is how bad our defense has been. The worst part? It’s hard to believe that Zac Alley can fix it. The defense has been bad all year. We all had our concerns after giving up 24 points to Coastal Carolina in the 2nd half of our week one game. Have we seen any improvement since then? Virginia was fools gold, that offense has not looked good since playing us. Against Arizona Zac Alley moved to the booth to call plays. Arizona put up 52 points on us and could have scored a lot more. It feels like everyone, including Rich Rodriguez has lost faith in Alley, but who is next in line? We may very well find out.
I’m not sure that Nick Saban himself could salvage our defense at this point, and that is probably the most depressing part. It would appear that the defensive staff completely missed on talent evaluation in the offseason. For a defense to play this poorly it’s not just scheme or players, it has to be both, and anyone with eyes can see that is in fact the case. Getting a new defensive coordinator mid season is not going to fix that.
The Good News
We are only half way through the season. I guess that could qualify as bad news depending on how you look at it, but we are going to go with glass half full today. The reason for optimism? Our offense is really good. It’s the best our offense has looked since 2018, maybe even longer. The special teams have been on point as well, outside of a few shanked punts. That’s 2 of the 3 phases of the game that we are doing well in.
Of the 3 teams we have lost to, 2 of them are top tier Big 12 teams. Arizona and Oklahoma State are both good teams. It wouldn’t surprise me if both are ranked this week. Arizona’s only loss was to a top 10 BYU team. Both of them also have elite offenses. The next 2 games we play, Cincinnati and at TCU, are both very winnable games. Arizona played Cincinnati the week prior to us and beat them 34-7. If we win both, bowl eligibility and even an 8 win season remains on the board.
If we can win 2 in a row going into the bye week, we might even set the stage to make some noise against the heavy weights of Utah, Texas Tech, and Houston in the 2nd half of our schedule. Texas Tech and Houston have both looked beatable. Utah looks really sharp, but their defense is giving up points.
Back to Reality
We have to improve on defense to have any shot at even 1 more win on the schedule. I don’t know how that happens, given that the defense has been bad all year and we haven’t seen improvement yet. Maybe a different play caller would give a spark? Maybe not. Given where we are now though it seems more and more likely we are going to find out.
