West Virginia dropped their second consecutive game against a ranked opponent at home falling 45-18 to Kansas State in a contest that simply got away from them in the second half.
Trailing 17-10 entering the third quarter, the Mountaineers were outscored 28-8 and never really threatened the Wildcats after they took the opening possession down the field for a touchdown. It didn’t help matters that the offense was playing without arguably their three most important pieces in quarterback Garrett Greene, running back Jahiem White and left tackle Wyatt Milum, but it was a dominating effort.
“We’ve got a beat up locker room. Probably the most injuries I can remember in a first half, and they just took it to us in the second half,” head coach Neal Brown said.
“…I think they’re the best team in our league to this point, haven’t seen them all but that’s a good football team,” Brown added.
The Mountaineers battled back from down 17-3 after a pair of interceptions to cut the game to 17-10 but were stopped on a fourth down attempt inside the Wildcats five-yard line before halftime.
“We were going to be aggressive. That’s a good team. We knew we were going to have to score touchdowns,” Brown said.
That was really the last time that West Virginia would threaten for the remainder of the game as backup Nicco Marchiol was called upon to take over in the second half of the game.
The defense did a strong job early stuffing the run, but Wildcats quarterback Avery Johnson threw for a season-high 298 yards with three touchdowns as they were able to take advantage of the zone coverage played by the Mountaineers. It’s been an issue at times for the defense, and Kansas State was able to find the voids in the zone coverage and convert on some easy pitch and catch plays.
“We’ve been getting dinked and dunked. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board because we can’t consistently give up those,” Brown said.
The plan now is for this team to put this game to rest but the program wants to look at some of the things that both Iowa State and Kansas State were able to have success with over the past two weeks.
On the offensive side, West Virginia has to do a better job getting to the second level with the offensive line and preventing the third level from getting down into the box so quickly. That means adjusting some things schematically to give the group a better chance while they also need to win some one-on-ones.
While on defense, it comes down to improving the coverage to pair with what the unit is doing against the run.
“We’ve got some really good guys in our locker room. They’re disappointed. They realize that Kansas State really beat us in the second half. They’re not in denial about that, they’re very aware,” Brown said. “But we’ve got to get well. We’ve got to give ourselves a chance. We have to practice smart; we have to practice very intelligently this week and get well and go out on the West Coast and put together a game.”
It was another disappointing effort at home for West Virginia and Brown said that he isn’t backing down from criticism because he is in charge of the program. He isn’t defending the score and while the team is down after losing consecutive games, the head coach believes that they can turn things around.
“Do I believe we’ll have an issue getting them back up to play? No, that’s never been the case, and I don’t believe it’s the case now. We have really good character and good buy in, and we just didn’t play very well. We got beat by a better team tonight. We’ve played a really tough schedule and we’re showing the wears of that,” Brown said.
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