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 37-10 home demolition of ranked Kansas State and what could happen next for the Mountaineers.
--I said last week in my observations that the season wasn’t over and it’s nice that this team got to turn around and play a ranked team at home the next week. I then doubled-down and predicted West Virginia to win this game and it didn’t look like a bad call after all did it? West Virginia dominated this game on all three sides of the ball and forced a Kansas State team that doesn’t make mistakes and beat itself into several throughout the day. You can’t erase what happened in Lubbock and that game could leave a stain on the final record, but you have to bounce back in this game and it’s hard to argue that the Mountaineers did anything but in this one. Credit to this team for coming off about as bad of a week as they could have had to respond with a relatively mistake free, dominating performance over a team that had won four games in a row and was perched inside the top 25. That’s now FIVE in a row over this Kansas State team after they dominated the Mountaineers in the first four after joining the Big 12. The Mountaineers needed this one in a big way, Brown did too and it makes it a lot easier to trust the climb.
--Hats off to the West Virginia defense yet again. The Mountaineers bullied this Kansas State offense up front and held the Wildcats to 29 yards rushing in the third quarter before taking the foot off the gas. That wasn’t inflated either by sack yardage, as West Virginia only had two at the time. Outside of one play where the cornerback simply guessed wrong and thought he had help for the 35-yard touchdown, this was arguably as dominant as the unit has played from start to finish all season. The tone was set early in the game, when Kansas State took their opening possession and drove down to a first and goal at the Mountaineers two-yard line and wasn’t able to punch the ball into the end zone. They wouldn’t sniff the red zone again while the game was still within reach. The Wildcats came into the game averaging around 367 yards of total offense, but was held to 226.
--West Virginia allowed one run over 10+ yards. One. Meanwhile the Mountaineers had six.
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