During 2023 and so far in 2024, West Virginia's offense has had lots of success running the two-minute drill, so when West Virginia put a pair of late drives together to beat Kansas, it came as no surprise to the Mountaineer offense.
Take Kole Taylor. Taylor caught the first of two touchdown passes from Garrett Greene and scored a two-point conversion as WVU roared back against Kansas in the closing minutes of the game. Taylor wanted to be in that situation. He wanted to be on the field with the game on the line rather than on the sideline watching.
"I was watching the Virginia Tech-Miami game this weekend, and Virginia Tech had the ball with two minutes to go. I was thinking in my head I would way rather be Virginia Tech going and having an opportunity, even though they're down, going and having an opportunity to go win that game rather than be Miami, be ahead, and let the offense decide what you do," Taylor said.
Taylor said Greene is the linchpin to the successful two-minute drill. While it makes sense due to him playing the quarterback position, Taylor said Greene's mindset is what makes him stand out.
"He’s a winner. He knows we’re going to go out there and get it done. He says every time before we go out there, we’re the best two-minute offense in the country. So, it’s full confidence from him, and it kind of just builds everyone else up around him," Taylor said.
Greene did it on the ground and through the air against Kansas as WVU compiled a pair of drives where they ran their quick two-minute offense as they trailed by two scores with 5:39 to play in the ballgame.
"Garrett does a great job. He’s not afraid to use his legs in the two-minute and understands the situation really well. And then I think it’s just confidence," Taylor said.
Taylor also added a key part to WVU's success in those situations is the amount they practice it as a team. Taylor said when the Mountaineers got the ball back with over two minutes to play and down three on their final drive, they felt comfortable due to the situations they had been put in during practice.
"It’s just confidence, and it’s we rep those situations a lot. Like even Kansas, we had two-plus minutes, two, three-plus minutes, and we’ve done situations in practice with, you know, 1:12 left, one timeout, we got to score a touchdown. We do harder situations in practice than we actually get in the games, so we’re really prepared for it," Taylor said.
The confidence that Greene had has carried over to players like Taylor. Taylor embraces the big moments, saying he wants to be the guy who makes that game-winning play for his team.
"I think you got to have a sense of composure to be able to do that, especially in these stressful situations when you know you got to go win the ballgame. Personally, I love it. I go out there, I’m ready to go. I want to make the big play, I want to be the guy that makes the big play to help boost this offense. It’s just a sense of composure, being able to get the call, get lined up quick, execute your job, and then kind of do it full speed. It’s composure, it’s practice, it’s reps, and it’s something that we’ve done a lot of," Taylor said.
Ideally, for West Virginia, they would not have had to run their two-minute offense against Kansas or ever, as Taylor said, they want to be able to put teams away. However, after reaching into their bag of tricks late in the game, the two-minute offense resulted in touchdowns on two straight drives after WVU had gone scoreless the previous three.
Offensive coordinator Chad Scott wants his group to take the same mindset they have in that two-minute situation, along with the confidence players like Greene and Taylor have, and apply it to the remainder of the game.
"We might need to play the whole game in the two-minute mentality because for whatever it is when we go in that mentality, which we went into that mentality last weekend at the game at 5 minutes 39 seconds. Something about that mentality, those guys go in, they feel like we’re going to go down and score," Scott said.
Having to use it or not, the Mountaineers are confident in their late-game abilities on offense. Taylor trusts himself and trusts his team to get it done.
"It’s a sense of confidence. I know when we go out there, and we have a chance to win the game, that we’re going to get that done, and that’s kind of where our mindset is. And moving forward, we want to have a chance. That’s all you can ask for is a chance to get the ball at the end of the game and try to win the game," Taylor said.
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