Week one of the college football regular season had its ups and downs for West Virginia.
One of those downs was the team’s inability to establish the run game during last Saturday’s 20-13 win over James Madison at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown.
Even with four top running backs returning for the Mountaineers in seniors Kennedy McKoy and Martell Pettaway and redshirt sophomore Alec Sinkfield (sophomore Leddie Brown was inactive), West Virginia administered just 34 rushing yards on 24 carries, averaging just 1.4 yards per carry. The team’s longest rush of the day came on a pair of five-yard runs from McKoy and Pettaway
West Virginia’s offensive struggled to clear any holes or space for the running backs to run through and part of the problem stemmed from miscommunication at times, but the problems up front were mostly due to a lack of physicality.
“Miscommunication is really the biggest thing, just I.D-ing guys and not letting guys run through,” left tackle Colton McKivitz said. “I really don’t think there was a ton of that. I don’t think there was a lot of free hitters. The problem was, we weren’t getting vertical movement. I think that was one of the biggest problems, they were flattening us and not letting running lanes open up.”
The run game’s performance isn’t how you want to start the season and teams in West Virginia’s place usually don’t come out on top, but at the end of the day, the Mountaineers got the win.
In fact, prior to Saturday, there had only been three times in West Virginia’s history that the Mountaineers rushed for less than 34 yards and still won. The last time came in 2012 when the team rushed for just 25 yards in a 31-21 win over Maryland. The other two times came against Cincinnati in 2011 and Virginia Tech in 1982.
The good news for the Mountaineers is that they have one game under their belt and time to fix these issues as well as the growing pains that come with the line having three new starters and one of the two returning starters in Josh Sills adjusting to the center position after being moved there from right guard during fall camp.
Some other positives are the offensive line group holding up their end when it came to pass protection and the unit being assignment sound during the win, but the main focus this week is for West Virginia’s offensive line be more physical and move defenders off the ball.
“From a total overall missed assignment standpoint for game one, we were really pretty good,” co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Matt Moore said. “We have got to understand what it takes to move people in a game situation in division one football. We didn’t understand that. That’s part of learning from game one with a young group. You gotta understand it’s going to take more than what it takes at practice versus the scout team. So that’s a huge emphasis for us this week.”
Per West Virginia’s depth chart, the starting line will remain the same this week with McKivitz at left tackle, Mike Brown at left guard, Sills at center, Chase Behrndt and John Hughes rotating in at right guard and Kelby Wickline at right tackle. James Gmiter also got snaps at left guard in place of Brown for three plays after Brown got his hand stepped on, according to Moore.
Missouri’s defensive line didn’t have a strong performance in its season-opening loss to Wyoming with the Tigers allowing nearly 300 yards on the ground.
Wyoming’s big day on the ground was mostly due to 12 and 21-personnel with multiple tight ends involved which helped create more gaps and space.
In a game that will feature a Missouri team with more talent than James Madison and will be playing with its back against the wall, it’s very critical for the Mountaineers to get their run game going and it all starts up front with the offensive line setting the tone.
“I know the running backs are pretty down and we’re trying to make sure that they weren’t getting hit on the line,” McKivitz said following the James Madison game. “But we didn’t do our jobs, so that’s going to be a big key coming into this upcoming week is playing that SEC defense is going to be coming off playing physical.”
WATCH: West Virginia Mountaineers co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Matt Moore Press Conference (9/3)
WATCH: Musings from the Mountains - Episode 18
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