West Virginia had one critical mistake on defense against Iowa State but it’s one that stood out.
After the Mountaineers missed a field goal on one end, the Cyclones used tempo and after 20-yards on two plays faced a 2nd and 3 from their own 40-yard line.
But on the ensuing play, the West Virginia defense left Jaylin Noel completely wide open for a 60-yard touchdown toss that would even the score at 7-all and erase the momentum that they had built early in the game. And it boiled down to something that just can’t happen.
“Critical error on the long explosive. You just can’t do those in those games, not even one,” coordinator Jordan Lesley said. “And good teams, which they are, make you pay.”
On the play, one side of the defense got the signal while the other missed it. Lesley had called a play to basically combat what the Cyclones went to but the missed signal allowed the score.
The tempo helped to trigger the miscue but that is something that West Virginia works on in practice every day to avoid those types of busts. The goal is to take your eyes from the play to where the defensive signal is at and they have backups upon backups to prevent issues from occurring.
“It’s very simply play the next one,” Lesley said.
And that’s the case for whatever happens the play before.
“You can’t worry about the last play whether that is a sudden change. Defensively you have to be ready at all times and no matter what the situation is and circumstances don’t matter,” Lesley said.
That is just a demonstration of how small the margins are at the highest level but you can’t change what has already happened. The focus is now on improving and avoiding that from occurring later on in the season because dwelling doesn’t really help anything.
That means using that experience to prevent it from happening again.
“I told them after the game we didn’t get to winning the last two by panicking.Here's what we did wrong, here’s what we have to fix and here’s what we have to get better at and that’s all you can do,” Lesley said. “Critical downs, critical situations and when the play is there we have to make it.”
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