What I Think After WVU Wastes A Golden Opportunity

Austin Kendall

Kendall isn’t the only problem with the offense but he is the root cause of the problems with the offense. I’ve rewatched both the Baylor game and the Oklahoma Sooners game and one thing stands out to me: both teams played their safeties at 10 yards from the line of scrimmage and rarely backpedaled because they have zero fear of getting beat deep. This lack of a deep passing game is the reason we can’t run the ball and why we have no real passing offense. Baylor ran a 3-3-5 and had so many people in the passing lanes that there was no where to go with the ball, because they have no fear of getting beat deep.

A New Quarterback

It’s time. NO more sugarcoating or playing nice with Kendall. It’s time to find out what the other quarterbacks can do. Alternate between Trey Lowe and Jarret Doege and see who takes the reins. If they don’t, see what Jack Allison can do. Something has to change. Now is the perfect time to make that change. You have a couple extra days to prepare for Texas Tech, who is the worst defense in the league. If you don’t make a change now, you waste one of your four guaranteed remaining games. A bowl game is not guaranteed.

If you wait one more game, your new quarterback has to start against Kansas State and their good pass defense in his first game. That is a recipe for disaster. Even worse is if you lose to Texas Tech because you refused to make a change, now you have to win three straight and the minute you lose one more game you could lose the team.

This Defense

It is a real shame this defense is saddled with this offense. We are quickly reaching the point where you can say that having a good offense and bad defense wins more games than a bad offense and good defense. In 2012 the Mountaineers won 7 games with one of the worst defenses in the league. This offense is ranked 112th in the nation. We were 79th in 2013. That extra offense could be the defense between 3 wins and 6 wins this year. The lack of offense has meant that the defense eventually wears out. It didn’t quite happen against Baylor but we’ve seen it the last few weeks. If the offense doesn’t improve you can expect to see more of it.

The Stills brothers have balled out and their performance against Baylor is phenomenal. Baylor coming into the game had allowed only 13 sacks all year in their first 7 games, allowed 8 against the Mountaineers, including 5 to the Stills brothers. The defensive brothers set the tone early with sacks and their relentless pressure was the only reason Thursday was as close as it was. Thank God we have them for at least one more year.

Receiver Drops

All of the chatter online is about how Austin Kendall can’t do it on his own and its not his fault when the offensive line doesn’t block, when there is no run game and the receivers keep dropping the ball. That is somewhat true. There were several drops by the receivers, including a atrocious one by Sam James early in the game that would have extended the drive. Yes, it was awful. It hit James right in the hands.

What are you going to do? Do we sit James and not let him work through the issues of being a young receiver? Who else can we start? It looks like James’ issues are completely mental so maybe we need to give him a break but at the same time, he has been our most consistent playmaker.

Winston Wright

Just enjoy this kickoff return!