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Check out these top performers, led by Karl Joseph's four forced turnovers! pic.twitter.com/gtDvznYTwy
— WVU Football (@WVUfootball) September 6, 2015
- Jovon Durante is going to be a very special player for the Mountaineers for the next three years. Durante racked up 121 yards on 3 receptions and a touchdown in his college debut. Shelton Gibson finally emerged as well, pulling 3 passes down for 130 yards and a touchdown.
- Our red zone offense and 3rd down woes continue. West Virginia made five trips to the red zone in the first half, but only came away with field goals on three of those trips. The Mountaineers were 3/10 on third down for the game.
- Skyler Howard is sporadic. I'm not sure if it was his nerves, but Howard's throws were all over the place in the first half. He seemed to have settled down in the second half, but let's hope this isn't a recurring theme this season. Howard was pulled early in the fourth quarter and finished 16/25 for 359 yards and 2 touchdowns.
- Karl Joseph is a bad, bad man. Joseph had three interceptions in the 3rd quarter, which makes him the first player to have three interceptions in a game since 1994 when Vann Washington did it against Louisiana Tech. Oh, and he also had a fumble recovery in the first half.
- Tony Gibson's defense pitched a shutout, which the Mountaineers had not done to an FBS team since 2005 when they shut out Cincinnati.
- We appear to have a run game. West Virginia added 188 yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground with Rushel Shell, Wendell Smallwood, Donte Thomas-Williams, and backup QB William Crest.
- The Mountaineers are +5 in the turnover battle. Granted, most of that is from Karl Joseph being a vacuum in the secondary and stealing everything. Dravon Askew-Henry also added to that stat with an interception in the first half.
Overall, I'd say the team executed almost flawlessly. I'll go ahead and write off Howard's inconsistency as a bad case of nerves to start the season, because he did perform a lot better in the second half. Things should get even messier (in a good way) next week when the Mountaineers play Liberty.