WVSports.com continues with our popular feature: The 3-2-1. We'll break down three things we learned that week, two questions we have and give one prediction.
Here is the next installment of the 3-2-1 looking at the West Virginia football program, the latest on basketball, and what’s happening in recruiting.
3 things I learned:
1–West Virginia gets a big win, but the stage is set. The Mountaineers did what they needed to do in getting a 62-59 win over Cincinnati. The two teams were positioned on the bubble and finding a way to get the season sweep over the Bearcats is certainly a good bargaining chip moving forward if the two teams are stacked up against each other when it comes to potential NCAA seeding.
Things didn't go as well for West Virginia in the second game of the week as the Mountaineers built a 27-20 lead with a little over four minutes remaining in the first half and then things completely unraveled. From that point forward, West Virginia as outscored 53-24 in a convincing 73-51 loss to the Red Raiders.
Still, a win over Texas Tech would have been considered icing on the cake but the Mountaineers still have plenty of chances to bolster their resume down the stretch.
West Virginia has four games remaining starting against TCU at home, then back-to-back road games at BYU and Utah before closing at UCF. It's a golden opportunity for the Mountaineers to close the season on a high note with the program needing to win some more games in order to put themselves in the best spot.
The Mountaineers have a chance to qualify for the NCAA Tournament and the table is set for them to do so if they can take care of business. That's the focus this week and into next week with the conference tournament still out there, too.
West Virginia has to win some more games and starting with the home game against TCU the opportunities will certainly be there.
2–West Virginia's defense is going to be multiple. If Coordinator Zac Alley made one thing clear in his first press conference with the local media it's that his defense is going to be versatile and multiple on many different levels.
The Mountaineers plan to use a lot of different looks and different personnel depending on the team. That means both a three-man and four-man front while what is behind them will depend on what the opposing team is doing.
The base alignment will be three down lineman, a Nickel/SAM, MIKE and WILL linebacker, a bandit outside linebacker and two safeties and two corners but that is far from the only way that Alley can mix and match the unit.
That can sometimes shift to three safeties, three safeties and a nickel, sometimes a nickel and two safeties, and other times three linebackers on the field at the same time. The goal is to try to make things difficult on the opponent by making the defense fit they do which means it could be a different look from week to week.
That means that Alley has the potential to use its personnel in a lot of different ways in order to make things difficult for the other teams on the schedule. But it isn't just with the personnel either, Alley has the ability to mix and match what he does depending on the strength of the opponent in large part due to the flexibility the scheme provides.
