West Virginia said that changes were coming on the defensive side of the ball against Kansas and that did occur.
But perhaps even more than the Mountaineers bargained for given the circumstances.
After a week where the Mountaineers faced plenty of criticism on the defensive side of the ball after a late collapse against Pittsburgh, the defense made several critical plays down the stretch to help West Virginia complete their own double-digit rally in the fourth quarter against the Jayhawks.
The unit first was able to get off the field in a three-and-out situation to get the football back with 2:22 remaining on the clock trailing just 28-25. Then after another touchdown by the offense with 26 seconds left, the West Virginia defense was able to record a strip sack to end the game on the final possession.
“Really to come out the last two drives of the game and answer the bell,” head coach Neal Brown said. “It wasn’t always pretty but we created two takeaways and made them drive the length of the field.”
West Virginia started two different cornerbacks in the secondary with TJ Crandall and Jacolby Spells getting their turn although multiple players would step in at that spot in the game. Meanwhile, the defense elected to put a focus on their coverage and keeping things in front of them.
As part of those changes, coordinator Jordan Lesley moved to the box from the field, while Tre Bell came down to field level. It was a decision made by Lesley and it paid dividends.
“What it does is it takes the emotion out of the game and you can see. We missed some tackles today, but we were in some really good spots,” Brown said. “So, we did that, we really simplified the coverages, and they probably got a beat on us late, but we kept the ball in front.”
As part of that commitment to coverage, the Mountaineers had lighter boxes which led to Kansas rushing for 247 yards, but the Jayhawks only had three passes over 15+ yards in the game.
After both Aubrey Burks and Crandall left the game due to injuries, the Mountaineers were forced to make further adjustments. The Mountaineers planned to come into the game playing nickel but with Burks out due to an upper-body injury and Rodney Gallagher not practicing on defense, it forced the Mountaineers to run more of a true 4-2-5 which forced cornerback Ayden Garnes into the run game.
“We were playing with three true corners in the game,” Brown said.
And now the focus is to build on this performance moving forward.
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