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 Liberty Bowl win over Army and what could happen next for the Mountaineers.
--Hard to believe but this is only the second win for West Virginia in a bowl game since joining the Big 12 Conference. This one wasn’t easy given some opt outs and other players out of the game but gives this team a lot of credit for bouncing back when a lot of people had given up. Major credit to the heart of this team to battle back and gut this one out after an embarrassing showing in the regular season finale against Iowa State. This provides some real momentum heading into the off-season and I’ve said all along that hitting six wins in this injury shortened campaign would be considered a massive success. Yes, we can sit here and nitpick that it should have been more (because it should have) but finishing with a winning season and heading into the off-season with some momentum is huge for this team. I think next year you have to expect more out of this club and that will be the best team Brown has had since being here. Credit for getting this win though because this wasn’t easy and they gutted it out.
--The one thing that redshirt junior quarterback Jarret Doege had done all year was take care of the football. It allowed him to be the quarterback of this team despite some of his limitations. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case today as he had two disastrous turnovers including one of the most baffling fumbles I’ve ever seen since I’ve watched the sport. I’m not here to pile it on, people have bad games, it happens. But credit to head coach Neal Brown for making the change at halftime to redshirt senior Austin Kendall and credit to him for staying ready. This is no way that this experience has turned out how he would have thought when he first decided to transfer to West Virginia, but he came out completely cold off the bench and rallied this team. It wasn’t perfect but he engineered two scoring drives that were the difference in the game. He completed 8-17 passes for 121 yards and 2 scores. Those numbers aren’t going to get you in the Hall of Fame, but they did win the Mountaineers a bowl game. You can’t say enough about the resiliency that he displayed in this one.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre
•Like us on Facebook
