Three Guarantees For West Virginia Against Kansas State

1. Will Grier will re-insert himself into the national conversation

It is amazing that a week off can make people forget that Will Grier has been awesome. In the long run, the lost game between NC State and West Virginia isn’t going to matter but in the short term it does appear that national pundits seem to be “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”. Grier dropped to third in the Heisman rankings and suddenly Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa are hot commodities. As our own Jordan Pinto calls him, Billy F’n Grier will reinsert himself this week.

The Kansas State Wildcats have a decent pass defense and a horrid run defense. Some of that comes from a FCS squad, the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Texas San Antonio. The Bulldogs and UTSA are not good passing squads while the West Virginia Mountaineers, by comparison are a top five squad. Look for Grier to come back strong this week.

2. The pass defense could be in for a big week

The strategy against K-State has been the same since joining the Big 12. If you allow the Wildcats to hang around, they will frustrate you with their slow, methodic tempo and sound defense, daring your offense to score on a long field each time out. This strategy against 18-21 year old kids often works because those kids are prone to errors. The Wildcats have slowly regressed since their height when West Virginia joined the Big 12, which will play into the ‘Eers hands. If Grier is able to hit a few passes early, the Snydercats aren’t built to go fast-paced, up-tempo passing to come back from a large deficit. That will play into defensive coordinator Tony Gibson’s hand of rushing the passer. This will be a week where sacks, tackle for losses and interceptions get a boost in the stat columns.

3. The stadium will look amazing

To be perfectly honest, when the idea of “striping” the stadium first came out, I thought that it would be awful. I figured fans would not know what to wear, would wear the wrong colors because they only had a blue shirt or a gold shirt and were sitting in a different section. The very first time the team did this in 2012, the stadium was great. Each subsequent iteration of this promotion has gone splendidly. I love seeing the shots of the stadium when it is striped.

WarBlogle.com