Each week WVSports.com Managing Editor Keenan Cummings provides a look at some of the things that stood out to him during the course of the game and on the stat sheet.
These observations are a snap shot of what unfolded in the West Virginia 38-31 win over Iowa State and what could happen next for the Mountaineers.
--West Virginia was sitting at 2-4 with a road game against TCU and a home matchup against an Iowa State team that was playing its best football of the season. Well, football is a funny sport sometimes and two weeks later the Mountaineers find themselves at 4-4 with renewed life about the rest of the season. I said even during the losing streak that there was a lot of season left and the bye week was going to be critical to see where Neal Brown was at in regard to holding this team together. Well, it’s safe to say that he’s done that and more. This team has played its best two football games in back-to-back weeks and made plays on both the offensive and defensive sides to come out of this one with a win. This has the potential to be a season-shifting win as the Mountaineers now have evened up their record with four games remaining. You get Oklahoma State at home next week and that becomes a gigantic game. It seems somewhat hyperbolic to say this but there aren’t many teams that needed these past two weeks as much as West Virginia did and this team delivered.
--This was the first time that West Virginia has cracked 30 points against an FBS team since almost a year ago to the day against Kansas State and this was against a very good defense. The 38 points that West Virginia scored today was more than the (34) that they scored against Iowa State over the last three years combined. The Mountaineers rolled up the most yards (492) and points (38) against Iowa State since Oklahoma had 499 in 2019 and Kansas State scored 38 in 2018. This wasn’t by accident, that’s a very good defensive program and the Mountaineers carved them up and hit them in the mouth time and time again. This coaching staff has taken a lot of flak on the offensive side this season, but two weeks in a row they’ve had an excellent plan going into the game and it’s been executed.
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