My Fiver on Iowa State's win over WVU in Morgantown on Saturday night>>>
1. Turning Point. Is it possible to have a turning point in a game (and quite possibly a season) with 14 minutes left in the 2nd QTR? WVU came out and dominated the first quarter, ending with a 7-0 lead, which was not indicative of how much WVU dominated. Left with a 3rd & 3 from ISU's 18 yard line, Garrett Greene hit Rodney Gallagher with a first down pass to ISU's 5. Reviewed and reversed - it was the right call, pass a tad high but Gallagher should've secured it. Out trots the FG Unit. There's 4 points off the board. Relative chip shot for Michael Hayes. Then, the most WVU thing ever happens - wide left. My good buddy
@eers2014 texted our group "Turning Point". He and I have watched a ton of WVU football over our 48 years, much like the lot of you. And I just knew he was right. I typed "A bit early and hyperbolic for that text..." into my phone, but deleted it before I hit "send". I had that same dreadful feeling, and it could be leftover trauma from seeing another former WVU kicker miss a couple chip shot FGs on that exact same goalpost in the middle of the night so many years ago...but after that play the meltdown and nightmare began.
2. Going Backwards. A staple of Neal Brown's offense from 2019-2022 was the ability to go backwards. Whether it was by sack, by TFL, by penalty, or by Zach Frazier snapping the ball over Jarred Doege's head for a 21-yard loss at Oklahoma ('21), or snapping it over Garrett Greene's head for a 30-yard loss vs. Oklahoma State ('21), we had mastered the art of throwing it in reverse. However, since Garrett Greene took over near the end of '22, WVU has found a way to move the ball forwards consistently. Sacks are few, and TFLs are almost negated. Even the snap over the QB head has been eliminated. But, for this very important game under the lights at Mountaineer field, Neal Brown's Air Reverse offense made its comeback. 7 times in the first half, WVU ran plays where we went backwards - not counting penalties. Our 1st play of the 2nd half was a two-yard loss by Jahiem White. Two more times over the course of the 2nd half WVU would go backwards, both times because Brandon Yates could not get the snap right. That's 9 negative yardage plays, 2 Interceptions and a missed FG for the folks keeping score at home. For two teams who are essentially equal, those are mistakes which cannot be overcome unless the other team takes the same sort of mental vacation we did...and Matt Campbell ensured that ISU didn't. They just played chalk, basic football while we beat ourselves with mistakes.
3. If you keep turning over your corners each year and not developing them, you are going to have a multitude of defensive backfield breakdowns like has haunted WVU all season. At some point, WVU needs to recruit and develop homegrown talent at corner - with 3 or 4 defensive backfield starters playing together for 2 or more seasons. We can't keep plucking DBs from other schools in the offseason, mix and match, and then hope that they all learn our system and communicate well under fire. Beanie Bishop was an outlier. You look at the Kent State DBs, Dontez Fagan, the others...you're asking for trouble by going this route. That breakdown in coverage which led to Iowa State's first touchdown was insanely bad.
4.
@hooks made a succinct post on here following the game - "Our football program has been passed by Iowa State". It's as painful as it is a true statement. When we entered the Big 12, Kansas and Iowa State were the Rutgers & Temple of the conference. We could almost always chalk up the fact that we have 2 victories on the schedule. Well, Kansas is improving and Iowa State has passed us by. That is absolutely, positively unacceptable. Under no circumstances should WVU be looking up at Iowa State, but here we are. I've watched Iowa State beat us in Kansas City for a Big 12 Title, and now I see Iowa State back in the top 10 in football, dispatching WVU in 5 out of the last 6 games on the field. WVU has a storied history in major collegiate football, the program with the most victories never to win it all. However, it's just that: "history".
5. Slow Horses. My favorite show at the moment is "Slow Horses" on Apple+. It's fantastic - a show about British M15 agents who fvck up along the way, and are sent to work at a place called "Slough House" - where M15 agents who are no longer good enough to be on the front lines go to bide their time, trying to stay relevant through different capers. These relegated M15 agents are ruefully called the "Slow Horses" by the other relevant, active M15 agents. Well, welcome to the Slow Horses Era of WVU football, as we've been relegated since losing that game in Stillwater back in 2018. When WVU is given a chance, to impress on the Big Stage, to win something meaningful, we fall flat - time and again. We have a chance to get to 4-1 in the 2020 COVID season in Lubbock, only to give up a scoop & score to lose by a touchdown. We have #4 Oklahoma on the ropes in Norman in '21, going in for the kill, and the aforementioned snap to hell occurs, sealing our fate and throwing away our chance to start 3-1. Pitt 2022. Houston 2023. Penn State 2024. I could go on.
The mechanics of the coaching change are being bandied about on here by
@Vernon and others, some of whom are staying silent on this Forum understandably. But, this is a really, really big deal. $10 million is a TON of money in this day and age. You look at Oregon - they are where they are because they are funded. WVU badly needs funds. Our flagship university doesn't need people withholding money out of spite, and paying Neal Brown $10M to go away is going to hurt, plain and simple. We made a good hire by 2019 standards, and we made one big mistake. The hire struck out - we failed. Timing could not be worse. The tectonic plates of major NCAA college football are shifting - with the separation of the "haves" and "have nots" coming our way and we are currently sorting files at the Slough House.
We need to nail this hire, and if we do not, the frustration you see now will turn to something worse: apathy. We're not there yet - people are pissed off, which is good. That means they're engaged. But, when people go silent and find better things to do...that's when you're in trouble. I'll leave you with Mick Jagger's masterfully put together theme song to "Slow Horses", which I found astonishingly relevant as I listened to it Saturday night after our loss:
"SLOW HORSES"
"Surrounded by losers
Misfits and boozers
Hanging by your fingernails
You made one mistake
You got burned at the stake
You're finished, you're foolish, you failed
There's always a hope
On this slippery slope
Somewhere a ghost of a chance
To get back in that game
And burn off your shame
And dance with the big boys again"
