West Virginia won big on the road on Saturday, beating Oklahoma State 38-14. Head coach Neal Brown talked about the win in Stillwater and what stood out to him in the victory.
Nailing The Keys
Brown said if WVU was going to win the game they were going to stop the run on defense and convert in the red zone on offense, two things his team did.
"The keys were going to be who can run the football better, who can establish it, and then who can score points in the red zone, preferably touchdowns in the red zone. If you look at it, obviously we won the rushing game big, and then in the red zone, we didn't score touchdowns every time, but we were 6-for-7. The one that we didn't get was the kneel down there at the end of the game," Brown said.
Defensively, Brown and the Mountaineers held Oklahoma State to 227 yards of total offense, including only 36 total rush yards on the afternoon.
"I know Oklahoma State fans are going to talk about Ollie Gordon. That dude's a player. He's a player. For us to hold him to that yard says a lot about the will of our guys," Brown said.
Injury Updates
Injuries were prevalent for West Virginia on both sides of the ball, with a lot of guys on offense going down.
Garrett Greene went down in the first quarter before returning in the second quarter. Multiple WVU offensive lineman missed time due to injuries and there were guys on defense who got hurt as well.
Brown didn't have an update on many besides Greene, but praised backup quarterback Nicco Marchiol for how he came into the game.
"We had some injuries, I’ll give you more of an update on that. Garrett went out, we wanted to make sure he was 100 percent before we put him back in the game. Credit Nicco, I’ve said this really going back into the spring, I felt we had two quarterbacks that were capable of winning in the Big 12. I think we showed that today," Brown said.
"We had a lot of guys that got injured in the secondary. KeKe (Tarnue) Israel Boyce, we had a bunch of guys that played in the secondary because of some injuries. I’ll have an update on those on Monday, I don’t have an update right now."
At the end of his press conference, Brown said his group has to get healthy as they head into a two-game home stretch against Iowa State and Kansas State.
"We’ve got to get healthy too. We’ve got to get our guys healthy," Brown said.
Running Game Rolls
West Virginia ran for a total of 389 yards on the ground, only the second time they had eclipsed that mark since 2015.
It was led by Jahiem White who had his best game of the season, but there were four Mountaineers who rushed for at least 45 yards on Saturday.
"I think it starts with Brandon Yates. I thought he did a really nice job. It’s a lot easier to evaluate those guys being on the field when I watch it on tape. So when I get on the plan and watch it, I’ll be able to have a better answer for you on Monday," Brown said of how his offensive line played the run.
White ran for 158 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, something that Brown said was due in large part to schematics.
"It’s been as much about us getting him the ball in the right situation. So, first I take ownership of that and that’s what I told him. I just told him, listen, I take complete ownership is from a touch perspective and how we’re getting you the ball from certain parts of the field, we’ve got to do a better job. He’s not a good player, he’s a great player. If his would have been a different game, we planned to throw it to him several times too," Brown said.
"But Jahiem, going back to him, I think he’s a great player, he showed that and he was a tough tackle today. I thought CJ did a nice job. He had some tough runs but Jahiem really made people miss in space,": Brown added.
Celebrating the Win
Brown said he wants to make sure his team celebrates this win. He said it's a big deal for his team, but their focus now turns to a good Iowa State team.
"I think that this league is really hard. Each week is a new challenge, and so what you have to do is you want to celebrate it. Sometimes, we don’t take enough in this profession to really celebrate. This is a really big deal. We came into a tough venue versus a program that’s won 10 games a lot of times versus a head coach that’s going to be in the Hall of Fame at some point, and we played a complete game. So that’s a big deal, so we want to enjoy that. We want to enjoy the plane ride home, we want to watch the game tomorrow, and then when we flip it over to Iowa State, I know that’s a huge challenge, and it’s going to be completely different," Brown said.
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