West Virginia treated Thursday night as a chance at redemption.
The Mountaineers fell short in the season opener against one rival on the road, plagued by critical mistakes down the stretch to fall 38-31 to Pittsburgh.
Fast forward, three-weeks later and there was no doubt this time as West Virginia waltzed into Lane Stadium and dominated the Hokies 33-10 in a game that wasn’t even that close.
“Great win for us. It was a complete win,” head coach Neal Brown said. “Felt great about our preparation coming in. I really felt good, this is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time once we found out this was a Thursday night game on a short week.”
It’s something that the program used as an opportunity to show the nation in another primetime showcase that those mistakes didn’t define this team. While the Mountaineers were heading into a hostile environment, they were up for the challenge and won convincingly in the process.
It was a tough 1-2 start for this West Virginia football team losing a pair of games to the Panthers and then Kansas at the end, but there was never any panic within the program.
And two games later, the Mountaineers are back to even at 2-2 with the most convincing with that the program has ever had inside the confines of Lane Stadium which opened in 1965.
“I think the story of our downturn was probably exaggerated,” Brown said.
West Virginia rolled up 421 yards compared to the Hokies 228, while the Mountaineers held Virginia Tech to only 35 rushing yards in the process. The defense held the Hokies to 2-12 on third and fourth downs, while rushing for 218 yards and dominating the time of possession by 17 minutes.
The defense held the Hokies to one touchdown and didn’t give up a point in the red zone after allowing Kansas to roll up 42 points in regulation just two weeks ago.
“We’re good up front and our front six is very formidable,” Brown said.
On offense, the Mountaineers squandered some opportunities early in the game but the coaching staff always felt that they were in control of the contest. Things flipped before the half, when the program traveled 70-yards to take a 13-7 lead into the break.
After that, the Mountaineers scored on three of four possessions and the only one that didn’t end up with points is when the program ran out the clock to end the game in the red zone.
“We felt good about the plan. We got a good plan, made a couple adjustments in the run game. We made sure we moved our pieces a little more in the second half,” Brown said.
The only downside to the offensive effort was the fact that the program had to settle for four field goal instead of being able to punch the ball into the end zone. But that can be cleaned up.
“We’ve moved the ball against everybody really well it’s just those small things. Over the last two weeks we’ve done a good job cleaning it up,” quarterback JT Daniels said. “Very few of it, we have to execute a little better in the red zone but we didn’t shoot ourselves.”
The complete story won’t write itself until the end of the season, but the Mountaineers have certainly changed their fortunes in a hurry with a victory over Virginia Tech.
It’s a test that the program was equipped to handle and a chance at redemption they wouldn’t let slip through their grasps this time.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan
•Like us on Facebook
