Holgorsen's Take: Oklahoma
SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest in Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen’s disappointment was evident following the team’s regular season finale against Oklahoma.
A back-and-forth battle saw the Mountaineers fall to the Sooners by a score of 59-56, officially ending the team’s Big 12 title hopes.
“(It’s) disappointing for our seniors,” Holgorsen said. “(We) fought hard, fought hard and came up a little bit short.”
Friday night saw very little defense be played as the two teams racked up over 1,300 yards of total offense and 115 points. Oklahoma’s offense hung 59 points on West Virginia for the second straight season and entered the game as the nation’s top-ranked offense.
The Sooners lived up to that ranking with dominant performances from quarterback Kyler Murray and wide receiver Marquise Brown. Murray threw for 364 yards and three touchdowns to go along with 114 rushing yards and a touchdown. Brown caught 11 receptions for 243 yards and two touchdowns.
“(Murray) and (Brown) are the quickest kids I’ve ever seen, ever,” Holgorsen said. “They’re special players, special talents. I didn’t think (Oklahoma) could top, offensively, what they did last year, but they’re pretty good.”
Friday night also saw West Virginia miss a couple of opportunities and there were a few questionable calls from the referees.
A helmet-to-helmet hit on wide receiver Marcus Simms that could have potentially been called targeting wasn’t and the Mountaineers had two touchdowns taken off the board.
Wide receiver David Sills was called for an illegal pick on what would’ve been an eight-yard touchdown pass from Grier to Gary Jennings in the second quarter and a long run from Kennedy McKoy that could've been a touchdown in the fourth quarter was called back as wideout T.J. Simmons was flagged for blocking out of bounds.
“I don’t understand, in a game like this, how you take (points) off the board. I don’t get it. Like I said, I don’t understand it, (I) don’t get it and I never will,” Holgorsen said.
“They said they reviewed targeting and it wasn’t targeting. (Simms) got his bell rung pretty good. I didn’t see it,” he later added.
The final score from the game will tell you that absolutely no defense was played between Oklahoma and West Virginia, but it was in fact that side of the ball that made the biggest difference. Two fumbles from West Virginia quarterback Will Grier resulted in two scoop-and-scores for the Sooners.
“It’s a shame that we played so good on offense and gave them 14 points, but (I) was proud of the way the guys battled,” Holgorsen said.
The loss also marked the final game Grier and a number of seniors will play at Milan Puskar Stadium. Despite not achieving their goal of making to the Big 12 title game, Holgorsen remains proud of the senior class.
“We didn’t make our goal; not going to the Big 12 Championship is a damn shame,” Holgorsen said. “A lot of the seniors played their tails off and have left their mark on this program. We’ll be better moving forward because they were a part of it.”
Enter the contest by clicking on the following link and choosing to subscribe to the channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=VideoGlide
