The Day After: West Virginia football at TCU
The West Virginia football has now won four consecutive games after knocking off TCU 24-21 on the road in another tight contest.
The Mountaineers moved to 4-1 on the season and and WVSports.com takes a look back at what unfolded in our weekly feature The Day After.
HOT:
The second half defense. West Virginia allowed 21 points in the first half with the Horned Frogs hitting on a number of big plays but the Mountaineers came out of the break and dominated this football game. West Virginia didn't allow a single point and forced punts on four of six drives, with those other two resulting in blocked field goals. The Mountaineers have now played strong defense in the past three games and shut down productive offenses well below their season averages. West Virginia was able to consistently generate pressure and recorded five sacks in the game to go along with 9 tackles for loss but that was a major factor in the second half.
Special teams. West Virginia has continued to change games with their special teams units this season. The Mountaineers blocked a pair of field goals, allowed just one punt return yard, had 32 yards in punt returns, won the field position battle, made the game-deciding field goal and Oliver Straw averaged 46 yards per kick. The third phase of the ball has been one of the best aspects of this team to date.
Winning ugly. Call it what you want, but West Virginia is now sitting at 4-1 and 2-0 in the Big 12 Conference despite mucking up games and playing a physical brand of football. It isn't going to win any beauty contests, but it's winning and that's all that matters. West Virginia is going to run the football and play fast, hard-hitting and physical defense. This team hasn't beaten themselves and taken care of the football.
Penalties. West Virginia yet again won in this department with just 2 flags for 10 yards. Now one of those albeit, ticky-tacky on the false start prior to the field goal took points off the board, but the Mountaineers continue to simply not beat themselves.
Garrett Greene. It wasn't a perfect game at all and he missed some throws and made some mistakes, but there was no question the offense got a jolt from his return. He rushed for a team high 80 yards and 2 touchdowns while he did just enough in the passing game. Greene is a spark plug and it was much needed.
The West Virginia lines. The Mountaineers won this game up front on both sides of the ball. This was a tough, old school football game and West Virginia was the most physical and dominating unit on the lines on both sides.
NOT:
The passing game. Listen, it was better than a week ago but it still wasn't anything to write home about. West Virginia completed just 10-21 passes for 142 yards but Garrett Greene definitely seemed to have a better overall command of the offense. This team is going to need to throw the football more effectively moving forward.
The interceptions. Well, the could be interceptions. For as good as the defense played, it could have been significantly better. West Virginia dropped at least five interceptions in this game including one that definitely would have been taken back for a touchdown. This defense doesn't have a lot of things you can complain about but this is one.
The two miscues. The false start before the half, which was ticky-tacky but still was called took a field goal off the board. Then the call in the red zone after the Hudson Clement touchdown was taken off the board loomed large. West Virginia had first and goal from the five and the sequence of plays led to third and fourth and goal from the one and the offense was stuffed. In the end it didn't matter in this one but those are plays that the offense must execute in critical situations.
Early tackling. West Virginia has been one of the best tackling units in the Big 12 Conference but the Mountaineers struggled to start whiffing on several attempts and allowing TCU to create some big plays. That wasn't the case in the second as the defense put the clamps down and things completely shifted.
DEFINING MOMENTS:
1st and 10 from the TCU 35. Trailing 7-0, West Virginia had just connected on a 30-yard pass to Devin Carter. On the next play, Greene took off down the left sideline and outraced the defenders for a 35-yard touchdown run to tie things up.
3rd and 14 from the WVU 28 West Virginia was able to get pressure which forced Chandler Morris to uncork the ball deep into the end zone. There was nobody there so that resulted in a grounding penalty for a loss of seven yards. The Horned Frogs would then miss the 53-yard field goal after that lost yardage.
3rd and 2 from the WVU 34. West Virginia struggled with losing contain early in this game and this play was an example of that as Morris would go untouched for a 34-yard touchdown to give TCU the lead back.
3rd and 5 from the WVU 20. TCU drove the football deep into West Virginia territory yet again and on third down the ball was checked down to the running back but a great tackle by Beanie Bishop kept him a yard short. On the next play, the Mountaineers would stuff the run and give the football back to the offense.
3rd and 1 from the TCU 1. West Virginia capped off a 10-play drive where the offense didn't complete a pass with a one-yard run by CJ Donaldson to tie the game at 14.
4th and 3 from the WVU 36. West Virginia held the Horned Frogs on third down yet again, but before half the program elected to roll the dice and throw the ball into a zone coverage where the Dylan Wright took it to the house for a touchdown to put TCU ahead
1st and 10 from the TCU 35. The West Virginia offense would move things into field goal range in short order and made the kick. But a false start pushed things back five yards and that attempt was no good.
4th and 6 from the TCU 29. Trailing 21-14, Brown elected to roll the dice and pass on points and the ball was batted down to stall an early drive in the third quarter.
4th and 5 from the TCU 39. After a stop, West Virginia got the football back and again rolled the dice on fourth down. This time Greene would connect with Hudson Clement for 12-yards to keep the drive alive. Five plays later, Greene would head into the end zone to tie the game at 21-all.
3rd and 4th and goal from TCU 1. West Virginia had two opportunities to punch the ball into the end zone to take the lead and were stonewalled. That led to a turnover on downs and all the momentum back to the Horned Frogs.
4th and 9 from the TCU 31. West Virginia would take the lead on a 48-yard field goal from Michael Hayes after the Horned Frogs had to punt deep from their own end.
4th and 1 from the WVU 28. Mike Lockhart was able to get his paw up and block the TCU field goal attempt to keep the score at 24-21.
4th and 8 from the WVU 37. For the second time in the fourth quarter, West Virginia was able to block a potential game tying TCU field goal but this time it preserved the win.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS:
0 - Second half points allowed by the West Virginia defense after giving up 21 in first.
1 - Punt return yardage allowed by West Virginia through five games.
2 – Explosive plays allowed by West Virginia in the second half. The Mountaineers permitted 9 in the first half.
3 - Consecutive wins by Neal Brown in Fort Worth. The Mountaineers have now won five of the past six games against the Horned Frogs in total.
3.9 - Average yards allowed by West Virginia on first down. The Horned Frogs were 6-16 on third down and had to travel an average of 8.1 yards.
4 - Wins in a row by West Virginia. The first time that the Mountaineers have won three in a row since winning five to start the 2018 season.
5 - Sacks recorded by West Virginia. The Mountaineers also had 9 tackles for loss.
10 - Passes completed by West Virginia in this game. Over the past three contests, all wins, the Mountaineers have completed just 28 passes.
14 - West Virginia points in the red zone. TCU did not score any points in the red zone.
35 – Longest run for West Virginia against an FBS opponent.
40 – Points allowed by the West Virginia defense in the past three games.
55 - Distance the potential game-tying TCU field goal was attempted.
137 - Punt return yardage by Preston Fox this season, the most since Tavon Austin had 165 during the 2012 season.
166 - Receiving yards from tight end Kole Taylor in five games. The Mountaineers had only 153 total yards at the position last season.
201 - Rushing yardage by West Virginia. The Mountaineers are now 22-5 under Brown when rushing for at least 100 yards.
2002 - The game against Boston College that season was the last time that West Virginia blocked a pair of kicks in the same game.
2018 - Last time West Virginia started 2-0 in the Big 12 Conference.
GAME BALL:
The defense. This might need to be a section that we just award over to the defense weekly at this point as the unit held an explosive TCU attack that came into the game ranked No. 11 in total offense and No. 23 in scoring offense to just 21 points and 433 yards. The Mountaineers were especially impressive after halftime permitting 0 points and allowing just 121 yards. The defense held the Horned Frogs to 0-6 on third downs in the second half and out of the six possessions it resulted in four punts and two blocked field goals. The talk coming into this game was that West Virginia was going to need to score more points than they had over the first four games of the year if they wanted to come out with a win but the defense once again held their own.
West Virginia lost some key players on that side of the ball due to injury, but it was a total team effort and resulted in the Mountaineers now moving to 4-1 on the season.
BIGGEST QUESTION/CONCERN MOVING FORWARD:
What's the team health look like? Outside a few injuries and what happened with Garrett Greene for two games, this team had been able to stay relatively healthy over the course of four very physical football games. The fifth one saw a number of players on both sides of the ball leave with Aubrey Burks and Tray Lathan both being carted off in scary situations and others such as Wyatt Milum and Tomas Rimac also getting hurt.
At one point in the second half, West Virginia lost a series of players on defense to cramps and some other injuries which makes the upcoming bye week critical for this team to get back to full health before the matchup against Houston.
West Virginia has played a highly physical brand of football and it's taken its toll with the bye week on deck. Still, at 4-1 the Mountaineers have been one of the biggest surprises in all of college football and how the team rebounds is going to be critical.
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