West Virginia's defense played arguably their most complete game of the season on Saturday, something that is now giving them a lot of confidence heading into a big two-game stretch at home.
"I think it was great. We had some guys go down, but we had some other guys step up. So you love to see that, but you hate to see guys go down, especially some really key guys. But to be able to see guys step up like that, that just makes more trust for those other guys. When you know someone goes down, when you have trust for your teammate, it just makes everything go a lot smoother," West Virginia linebacker Josiah Trotter said after the win.
West Virginia's defense held Oklahoma State to 36 yards on the ground and 227 total yards of offense. This comes after they put up almost 500 yards against Kansas State.
"Especially a team like this, even though the season may not be going for them like they would like it to, but they were able to put up points against some really good teams and get to do a really good job. And for us to come out like that for a full 60 minutes and play the way we did, that's a lot of confidence, especially going into next week's game with a really good team," Trotter said.
West Virginia got to OSU quarterback Alan Bowman twice on Saturday after he was only sacked once through five games to start the season. They also recorded five tackles for loss and gave up only six big plays all day.
"I’m proud of our staff. We go through hard times, and they got beat up. I told them, I’ve been there before in my career, you’ve just got to put your head down and go to work. If you work, your guys are going to feed off of you and the belief and how you coach them, they’re going to follow, and that’s what’s happened over the last couple of weeks," WVU head coach Neal Brown said.
Now WVU will turn their attention to an Iowa State team who just beat Baylor, 43-21 this weekend.
"I don't know if they're (Iowa State) winning right now or if they won already, but this gives you a lot of confidence, not only as a defense but for the offense to also trust us, know that we're gonna go out there and get stops," Trotter said.
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