WVU defense forced to adjust on the fly against Duffey

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Sometimes football can throw you curve balls.

That was certainly the case for coordinator Tony Gibson in the second half after an injury forced Texas Tech starter Alan Bowman from the game. In his place, sophomore Jett Duffey was inserted.

Duffey had only played sparingly in a blowout against Lamar, seeing 28 snaps so not a lot was known of what he could bring to the table. But it was clear he was a different type of quarterback and brought a different element to the offense that wasn’t there with the starter.

Prior to Duffey coming into the game, the West Virginia defense had held Bowman in check allowing him to complete only 9-20 passes for 123 yards with a touchdown and a pick.

The Red Raiders had managed to only score 10 points and struggled to consistently move the football after being one of the top offenses in the nation through four games.

But in a surprising development, it was Duffey that rallied the Red Raiders. Trailing 35-10, the elusive signal caller used both his arm and leg to cut the deficit to only eight before throwing the game sealing interception that would put the icing on the cake. But what caused the success?

“It was hard because we didn’t have any information on him. We knew he could run around but we just didn’t have a lot of information on him,” head coach Dana Holgorsen said.

The switch brought the element of the quarterback run game, something that coincidentally Gibson had glanced over during his prep work for the game. While it was only a handful of snaps, the coordinator was able to see the dynamic threat he was on the ground meaning that blitzing became more difficult.

While Bowman completed only 2-8 for 26-yards against the blitz, Duffey completed 5-9 passes for 45 yards and a touchdown, while also scrambling for yardage.

It was those scrambling situations that proved the most problematic as out of the 93 yards rushing that he was able to generate a total of 60 of them came outside of designed runs. That was especially evident on a highlight reel 27-yard scamper where he avoided a number of tackles to set Texas Tech up in the red zone in the fourth quarter of the game.

“We were tired and missed a lot of tackles,” Gibson said.

There’s truth in that as well considering the Mountaineers had to defend almost double the amount of plays in the second half on the field for 54 of the Duffey-led offense’s snaps. That led to some breakdowns in assignments which kept the Red Raiders on the field.

“Pressured the quarterback and we did that and he got out. He’s athletic and can run,” he said.

In the end, the West Virginia defense got the best of Duffey’s comeback attempt picking off a pass and returning it 52-yard for a touchdown to essentially ice the game but the experience is one that the group can learn from as it moves forward on the schedule.

Football is rarely a straight line and you have to be ready for anything at the drop of a hat. Even if that anything is a backup quarterback with limited film.

That could prove especially important against teams down the road with scambling quarterbacks most notably Kyler Murray from Oklahoma.

“We can learn a lot from this,” Gibson said.

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