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Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? When you lose it doesn’t feel that way. But tonight WVU got its MOJO back in a big way. We may have lost, but we played a great game and Tavon Austin is the gift that keeps on giving. What a treat to see him play. Tonight we witnessed the greatest single game, individual performance in West Virginia football history.
With the loss we fall to 5-5 and 8-5 sounds like a great season in Morgantown. And if we can keep our intensity as high as it was tonight, there is no reason we don’t win the last three games.
HIGHS ON FIELD
TAVON. I'm just going to soak in the final three games of his career. I remember feeling a little like this during Pat White’s senior year, but Tavon’s performance tonight was EPIC. All-time great. So glad he was able to do it on a national stage.
- 344 Yards Rushing (Breaking WVU'S Kay-Jay Harris record of 337-yards vs. East Carolina in 2004)
- 84 Yards Receiving
- 146 Yards on Kick Return
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574 All Purpose Rushing (Just missing the NCAA single-game all-purpose yards record of 578).
STEDMAN – Another game over 200 yards receiving. Except for the drop on the final drive, he was the STUD-man we've come to know.
4th & GOAL TD. Last week after our offense failed to convert at 4th & goal inside the five, ESPN cameras caught Holgy mouthing the words, "Soft ass mother-f$^@#@s." Thank God we converted one this week or our coach may have had an aneurism.
RUN DEFENSE! Our run defense looks great. Lots of underclassmen getting playing experience.
LOWS ON FIELD
Our Secondary - They continue to give up key 3rd and long conversions at terrible times. I realize that has a lot to do with pass rush, but OU went 4 for 4 on 3rd down conversions to start the game, and the second to last OU touchdown on 3rd & 7 was so badly defended I have to believe the guys didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing.
Here’s a thought that I’ve heard little talk about: perhaps the reason we are seeing such a poor performance out of our secondary this year is not that we were necessarily playing substandard Big East offenses in the past. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that we’ve been playing with 5 defensive backs for the past decade and that has artificially skewed our past statistics.
Special Teams continues to kill us. Missed extra point and horrible coverage on the last kick-off cost us the game. Sure, there were other things we could look to, but get those two things correct and the game ends differently.
HIGH OFF FIELD
Our fans were awesome! LOUD, LOUD, LOUD.
LOWS OFF FIELD
Coach Holgorsen gets heard dropping the F-bomb on national television…again. Eventually he's going to get called into Principal Luck's office.