WVU preparing for everything against Missouri offense

The first game of the season is always a game of unknowns.

That is magnified even more when coaches are forced to prepare for a new group on the opposing sidelines such as in the case of the season opener against Missouri. The Tigers offense is led by Josh Heupel, former offensive coordinator at Oklahoma and Utah State.

He was the first assistant coach picked by new Missouri head coach Barry Odom in order to inject some life into an offense that was one of the worst in college football last season. Last season the Tigers averaged only 13.6 points and 280 yards per game, good for 127th and 125th out of 128 qualifying teams.

But along with Heupel, the Tigers were active in taking in graduate transfers as well adding wide receiver Chris Black from Alabama and a name West Virginia fans are familiar with at running back in Joe Ross who returned a kickoff for a touchdown against the Mountaineers when he played for Oklahoma.

Starting quarterback Drew Lock also will be in his second year starting, which should help things as well as the time he has spent working under the tutelage of Heupel.

And while there is still some obvious mystery there, the Mountaineers and especially head coach Dana Holgorsen is quite familiar with the coordinator from his stint with the Sooners.

“He’s been an up tempo, kind of spread out kind of guy. He’s incorporated a lot of run game with it. Like I said we have to be ready for everything,” Holgorsen said.

But in the past Heupel has shown some wrinkles against West Virginia when he went to a predominantly unbalanced look when Oklahoma came to Morgantown in 2014 and had success running the football.

After that game, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson made it a priority to have a plan in place in case that was used again.

“We’ve been prepared for that,” he said.

In order to be prepared for anything that could be thrown at them, the West Virginia defensive staff has watched tape from the Missouri spring game, Oklahoma, Utah State and even Baylor to get an idea of what to expect. But still it remains a guessing game until the teams take the field.

“One back run, two back run – you can only do so much stuff with it. The wildcat package with the athletic quarterback we’ve worked a little bit of that and worked some passing game,” Gibson said.

But even with the uncertainty it comes down to executing plays and adjusting once the game is kicked off because all of the coaches have experience in these type of situations. In fact, even with a returning roster, there is always an element of surprise to the first game of the season.

“I don’t think the element of surprise is really going to give you that much of a competitive advantage. We all do this for a living. We’re all professionals I think everyone is going to figure out what the wrinkles are and all that and be able to adjust to it fairly quickly,” Holgorsen said.