West Virginia head coach Neal Brown’s trust in his defense never wavered.
Despite struggling to the tune of allowing just under 33 points per game last season and outside concerns, the fifth-year head coach didn’t flinch in his confidence in his defensive coaching staff.
That trust was forged over time as he had spent a lot of time working together with his staff and while there were personnel issues that occurred last season, the Mountaineers felt that they had corrected it.
“Took a lot of heat in the off-season they did, we did. But I knew we had a plan. But we’ve played good defense whether it was at Troy or here. We’ve played good defense and we know what it looks like. We know how to get guys prepared,” Brown said.
The Mountaineers went back to the drawing board and changed quite a bit this off-season. The coaching staff moved away from their match coverage that they had used in the past. That coverage, made popular by Nick Saban, essentially is a zone look but becomes man when pass catchers come into their areas. This off-season West Virginia switched to either true man looks or spot drop zone coverage.
The goal was to reduce communication in the backend and sure up the foundations of zone coverage.
“It gets more eyes to the quarterback,” Brown said.
There were some issues in the opener against Penn State with the Nittany Lions catching them in rub routes and situations where they showed their coverage, but the coaching staff cleaned that up during the bye week although they didn’t show it until the Pittsburgh game.
The Mountaineers had to do a better job getting their hands on wide receivers and getting their eyes in the right spot, which has certainly been the case over the past two games.
West Virginia also changed the structure to the front and the results have been quite different the past two weeks. After holding Pittsburgh to just 6 points and 211 yards, the defense responded holding Texas Tech to 13 points and 321 yards in consecutive home wins.
“We started from scratch on all of that,” Brown said.
The response against the Red Raiders was a satisfying one for the Mountaineers after they allowed 48 points and 594 yards while going 15-27 on third and fourth down. That number was 7-26 in those situations and the defense allowed just five passes over 15-yards and three runs over 10 yards.
That was on the mind of the defense all week and was something that the coaching staff wouldn’t let them forget. That helped to serve as some extra motivation.
“It’s a prideful group. Prideful defensive staff, prideful defensive players, most of the same guys played,” Brown said. “Same guys, we added a couple pieces. We’re just playing better we’re doing a better job schematically and playing better. Not surprised we played well on defense; we answered the challenge.”
Conveniently it was the defense that sealed the game keeping the Red Raiders out of the end zone on their final possession with a stop at the 11-yard line on fourth down.
“By any means get a win and doing everything we’ve got to do to get a win. Knowing situations like this, we’re built for it. That’s what our coaches tell us all the time,” safety Aubrey Burks said.
The motto of the defense has been "E.A.T.," which stands for effort, aggressive and together. The unit has been much more aligned and physical than at any point last season through three games and that comes from effort in the off-season.
"I feel like we’re growing up. We worked really hard this off-season and focused on fundamentals and getting back to us. Trying to perfect the basic things," senior linebacker Lee Kpogba said. "I would just say a lot of things as far as communication between the backend and up front. I’d say we’re tackling better than last year. We are playing harder and we are more hungry this year."
The Mountaineers will still have plenty of battles to come over the next eight games on the schedule including a major challenge against TCU this weekend , but the defense certainly has made strides in a short period of time.
That trust was warranted at least for now.
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