Drops continue to plague West Virginia offense

Drops continue to be an issue for West Virginia.

It’s nothing new for those that have watched the program over the past few years, but after seemingly making some strides in that department the issue plagued the offense in a 38-20 loss to Texas.

It’s been a common thread in games where the offense has struggled over the past few years and that was no different here as the Mountaineers couldn’t get out of their own way.

By head coach Neal Brown’s count, the program dropped at least seven passes, at least half of those in critical situations such as a pair of third down and fourth down conversion attempts.

That’s an issue in any game, but especially one where you allow 11 big plays on defense and need to try to match.

“It was an issue. I get to the point where I’m tired of talking about it. it’s been an issue on and off again and its huge,” Brown said.

But what is the cause?

Well, for Brown it’s apparent that it isn’t a timing issue but more comes down to fundamental errors when it comes to hand placement as opposed to hand-eye coordination.

The Mountaineers have been caught at times with their hands down so when they come out of their breaks they have to bring their hands up to meet where the ball is being thrown instead of already having them there. That makes the process of catching more difficult.

Brown often talks to his team about trying to catch 90-percent plus on balls thrown to them to allow some wiggle room, but that is made much more difficult by not doing the little things.

“A big thing when you’re catching the ball is you want to catch it right in front of your face,” Brown said. “When you catch it here this is an easy track.”

There haven’t been any issues with placement from quarterback JT Daniels, but the Mountaineers just have to continue to correct the mistakes and go through repetitions. There is no magic button to help fix the issues so it’s going to take plenty of work to accomplish that.

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