West Virginia defeated North Carolina State 44-27 and WVSports.com provides the latest edition of our popular feature Insider Notes.
The notes are a collection of news and notes from the West Virginia coordinators as well as the players after the victory.
Here are a few of those notes:
--Offensive line coach Matt Moore said he’s talked to his group a lot about what they want to be and it comes down to grinding and being more physical than the opposition. He admitted that in his wildest dreams he didn’t see this type of performance coming from his group with the two starting guards out but he never let his players see it. He challenged them throughout the week and a lot of the credit goes to the offensive tackles because they kept the group calm and throughout and it allowed them to slide protect and cover up some of the inexperience on the inside. The personality of the defensive coordinator was to blitz so when you slide and gap protect it’s a lot easier to man protect with that and gave them some one-on-one opportunities as it left the outside guys one-on-one and the inside guys were able to be protected.
--West Virginia came into the game knowing that they were going to attempt to tempo the Wolfpack defense because they were going to blitz so much. That forced them into issues lining up and they were able to stretch them east to west at times with the pop passes and things and then run it at them. Moore realized that things were going to settle in when they were able to get the ball outside a few times but especially on the touchdown run by Kennedy McKoy on the outside zone. That is pretty much what they came back to over and over out of that formation for success on the ground.
--On the punt block, Logan Thimons said it was an adjustment by Al Pogue so he was supposed to be on the other side and he flipped sides and came free. It wasn’t a block call but he was able to get there and get onto the ball because they couldn’t cover the edge. He almost got there too fast but he waited for the ball to get on his foot and make a play while avoiding a roughing penalty.
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