On Thursday, Oct. 10, WVU's game versus Houston came down to quite literally the last play, a completed hail mary from quarterback Donovan Smith that was tipped into the hands of the Cougars' wide receiver Stephon Johnson Jr. for the win.
Now after West Virginia fell 41-39, head coach Neal Brown and the Mountaineers have dealt with the implications of that game and the last play that made the final decision as the clock ran empty.
However, when looking at this final play from over 50-yards out, you must go back to WVU's final offensive drive. The Mountaineers were given the possession with 1:17 left on the clock where they put together a seven-play, 88-yard drive that was capped off by a go-ahead touchdown.
Quarterback Garrett Greene fired a pass across the middle to redshirt freshman Hudson Clement for the score, who broke two tackles and ran into the end zone to take the lead, but 12 seconds remained for the Cougars.
Greene also played an important part in the outcome after this play, where he removed his helmet and celebrated, which resulted in a 15-yard penalty and a new drive starting 15 yards closer to the end zone for Houston.
Head coach Neal Brown said that he told Greene following the contest that he knows better and needs to be level-headed as a quarterback.
"I told him right after the game that I knew what happened, but you have to be able to limit that and sometimes what makes him great is his achilles' heel, whether it's playing quarterback or celebrating a touchdown," Brown said. "Without him we had no chance in that game, but you can't take your helmet off."
Next, the Cougars started the drive with two timeouts and ran one play towards their own sideline and scurried out of bounds with three seconds remaining on the clock, setting up the final play, which was a tough situation for Brown to cover since there were so many possibilities.
"Your biggest concern is you don't cover everything, there's so many things that happen in our game situationally and for us it was a really odd situation," Brown said. "There were seven seconds to go. There's a lot of different things that people can do, you can throw the outcut like they did or you can also do the hook and ladder play. We do a lot of hail mary practice. We didn't execute that play but I could have had them better prepared too."
Smith hurled the ball to the end zone from the WVU 49-yard line as West Virginia safeties Anthony Wilson and Hershey McLaurin went up for the ball, tipped it up into the air and Johnson came down with it as time expired.
Defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley credited a mistimed jump for this final play going against his defense and that it shouldn't have come down to that situation playing out to decide the game.
"Bad fundamental jump, mistimed jump," Lesley said. "It was not played well, not how we worked but I'll never look at that play. It never should have come down to that."
Obviously in this situation, batting the ball down onto the turf should have been the primary focus of the defenders and going for a takeaway or being in poor position caused a miscue in the secondary. Brown and Lesley do both agree that though the secondary missed in their fundamentals, the Mountaineers should have sent more than three in pressure.
"From my perspective, it's the play before. Understanding in that situation right where we need it to be instead of being a little further back," Lesley said. "It's still the same personnel, the best jumpers are in the game. Maybe a little pressure there, but at the end of the day Jared Bartlett is spying the guy and he does exactly what I coached him to do."
"If I had to do that situation over again, I'm pretty open about it, we would've pressured and we would've made him get the ball off faster," Brown said.
One circumstance that made the game's final play difficult for Lesley was the formation that Houston ran for its right handed uarterback. Instead of lining up players on his dominant side and creating space, the Cougars decided to put the recievers on the left side.
"Most people when they line that play up, you've got a right-handed quarterback. So, most of his receivers are going to be to that side and they're going to create grass, well they put them into the boundary away from a right handed arm," Lesley said. "The guys had to see that and then adjust to it but at the point of contact you've got the same guys in the same positions they would have been normally, there's all kinds of different things in that scenario."
Many also wondered about the absence of starting tight end Kole Taylor on the final play, given that he is 6-foot-7 with a great leaping ability, but Lesley felt it wasn't necessary since the team's best athletes were already on the field.
"Hershey [McLaurin] can jump, it’s just the timing wasn’t what it needed to be. You're not going to get him in a scenario that you haven't worked and we've never worked Kole there," Lesley said. "I get, I understand the why but there's all kinds of things that people don't know but because he's 6-foot-7 I get it, but we had the guys we needed in there."
Now just a few days later, Brown understands the implications of this game but more specifically this play and what it means with him being the face of the program, but to him this is all a part of being responsible for the program as a whole and being the person to make decisions.
"For better or for worse, I'm responsible for it all. At the end of the day my name's on the program and I'm responsible for it all," Brown said. "Love is two primary things, telling people the truth and holding them accountable and as a leader you've got to set that standard. I have to make more decisions than anyone in the program so I probably make more mistakes."
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