-Senior quarterback Skyler Howard completed 20-33 passes for 389 yards and five touchdowns. Those are some impressive numbers even considering the interception. The 389 yards are the most that Howard has even thrown outside of the historic 532 yards he put up in the Cactus Bowl. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that for the second straight week Howard completed over 60-percent of his passes. That happened a grant total of four times last season and one of those games he attempted only a total of 12 passes. Today was a 61-percent completion rate with an average of 19 yards per completion, anyway you cut it that’s impressive. There are definitely some things he can continue to improve on but I thought for the most part he was very accurate down the field but he did get away with a few passes. This doesn’t even account for the 50 yards rushing Howard had in this game.
-The Mountaineers rolled up 624 yards and converted on 10-15 third downs. For the second straight game, West Virginia ran for over 230 yards and in this game the aerial attack was on display as the unit connected on four passes over 45-yards in this game.
-The offense did go 2-3 in the red zone and would have scored a pair of touchdowns until a penalty overturned one and the unit had to settle for a field goal. Still not the best, but one was a missed field goal. How many of you were screaming “No! No! No! YES!” on that Daikiel Shorts fade?
-It was rocky there for a while in the second quarter but credit the Mountaineers for reeling off 24 straight points to seize the lead for good.
-Really liked what West Virginia did first with the hurry up quarterback sneak when Howard went to the line and checked as well as throwing the ball to Kennedy McKoy on the top of that stack formation when they had gone to the wide receiver screen so many times. The more wrinkles the better.
-One downside to this game being so contested is that West Virginia wasn’t able to get their backups work throughout the contest. Still, I did agree with head coach Dana Holgorsen that redshirt sophomore William Crest looked a lot more composed than he did last week. Granted it was a low leverage situation and he ran the football but still you want to see improvement there and I thought he did.
-For as much as I gushed over the offensive line last week, the first half of this game was almost the exact opposite. Youngstown State was winning the battle up front and it really wasn’t even close. That was disheartening especially because they were keeping their safeties back and trying to force the Mountaineers to win up front. They entered the break with 99 yards rushing an average of 4.3 per tote, but in the second half it was an entirely different story. Evident from the first drive, the Mountaineers were getting push up front and at times the backs weren’t even being touched until they were four to five yards down field. The Mountaineers ran for 136 yards in the second half and averaged 5.9 per carry. Sometimes it just takes a little wake up at the half and maybe that was it, but I really liked how West Virginia was able to run the football when they needed to in the second half.
-Two games and senior quarterback Skyler Howard has yet to be sacked. Widening the pocket was the buzz phrase all off-season and the unit has lived up to that so far.
-Speaking of the run game, thought redshirt senior Rushel Shell impressed for the second straight week. He ran hard and delivered blows on contact running through defenders and finished with 84 yards on 16 attempts, an average of 5.3 per carry. For the season Shell is averaging 5.4 per tote. In his first two seasons he had never averaged more than 4.5 per carry. It wasn’t a game that blew anybody away on paper but what he did was run just enough to bring those safeties down and allow Howard to throw the ball over top to wide receivers down the field.
-Can’t say enough about what freshman Kennedy McKoy did in his time on the field as well. He finished with 56 yards on five touches and looked a lot like the spring standout that carried that over into the fall. McKoy is going to have to play this season and for him to bounce back was big especially with junior Justin Crawford struggling after an impressive debut.
-West Virginia had three wide receivers go over 85-yards in this game with redshirt junior Shelton Gibson hauling in six passes for 171 and 2 touchdowns, senior Daikiel Shorts catching six passes for 93 yards and a touchdown and junior Ka’Raun White with five catches for 88 yards and a score. That’s the second time in the last three games West Virginia has had three wide receivers with at least 85 yards receiving but the last time it happened before that was the 70-63 game against Baylor in 2012. That’s pretty impressive considering the talent at wide receiver that West Virginia has had.
-Senior Daikiel Shorts had never recorded a 100-yard game in his career until last week and he was only seven yards away from doing it for the second straight week. Shorts has made big catch after big catch for this team to this point in the season and has been a favorite target in critical situations. On his six catches the situations were: 2nd and 8; 2nd and 5; 3rd and 10; 3rd and 10; 1st and 10; 3rd and 4 and 1st and 10. Every single one of those resulted in a first down and as you can see three were third downs.
-It’s been a rough start for sophomore wide receiver Jovon Durante. Last season he struggled with drops on the outside, this year he has had issues with holding onto the football as well. Both of Howard’s interceptions have come on catchable balls intended for Durante. He also didn’t do himself any favors in the blocking department either. Durante has a lot of talent, but it comes to on the field confidence.
-Was surprised to see true freshman wide receiver Steven Smothers enter the game late. Had gotten the read most of camp that between the two, Smothers was behind Simms.
-Overall, I just felt it was a bad day for the Mountaineers defense. Missed tackles, not being able to get home on blitzes, poor coverage in the backend, dropped interceptions and did I say missed tackles? For as well as the unit played at times against Missouri there were still questions. I walked away with more after this game as there were opportunities for Youngstown State to have more on the final stat line but they couldn’t take advantage of wide open receivers as well as some dropped passes. Giving up 405 yards to an FCS team is never a good look and it was quite obvious why defensive coordinator Tony Gibson was so frustrated. We’re going to find out a lot more about this group here in two weeks but I walked away from this game feeling a little uneasy about some parts of it.
-Pass rush was non-existent again. I chalked that up last week to the quick game stuff that Missouri was doing but the Mountaineers were still able to hit the quarterback. Today, that just didn’t happen and the pass rush just never got there which made Gibson look at blitzing. However, the blitz didn’t get there either which left the backend open and susceptible to some big plays down the field.
-The West Virginia defense did keep one streak alive. The Mountaineers have now not allowed an opponent to complete better than 50-percent of its third down attempts in 27 straight games, an active Big 12 Conference record. The Penguins converted on 5/14 (36-percent).
-One positive is that West Virginia has now turned the ball over four times and the defense hasn’t allowed any points in those situations. The Mountaineers also had eight tackles for loss and recorded its first interception of the season as well.
-Redshirt junior kicker Mike Molina was solid again although he did push the one kick left, he hit another and did a solid job kicking off again as the return team also held up outside of the one 39-yard return. Redshirt sophomore Billy Kinney continues to impress with a 49.2 average punting the ball.
-Sophomore Gary Jennings had an 18-yard punt return. Not counting the Cactus Bowl last season when Jennings had a 21-yard return, that was the longest punt return since K.J. Dillon brought one back for 19-yards against Liberty last season. Still, I thought the punt return team still wasn’t giving enough time and Jennings did take another shot when he probably should have fair caught it.
-It wasn’t nearly as clean of a game as the opener. The aforementioned missed tackles as well as badly timed penalties loomed large in this game. The Mountaineers only had six flags for 49 yards but those penalties resulted in overturning an interception, forcing the offense to punt when they had lined up to go for it and overturning a Rushel Shell touchdown. Mistakes are going to happen but they happened at possibly some of the worst times for the offense today which compounded the issue.
-When I first looked at the schedule, I really had my doubts about this early bye week but given some of the issues on defense as well as Howard and his health I believe it comes at the perfect time to sort out some of the kinks.
-The Mountaineers rolled up 624 yards and converted on 10-15 third downs. For the second straight game, West Virginia ran for over 230 yards and in this game the aerial attack was on display as the unit connected on four passes over 45-yards in this game.
-The offense did go 2-3 in the red zone and would have scored a pair of touchdowns until a penalty overturned one and the unit had to settle for a field goal. Still not the best, but one was a missed field goal. How many of you were screaming “No! No! No! YES!” on that Daikiel Shorts fade?
-It was rocky there for a while in the second quarter but credit the Mountaineers for reeling off 24 straight points to seize the lead for good.
-Really liked what West Virginia did first with the hurry up quarterback sneak when Howard went to the line and checked as well as throwing the ball to Kennedy McKoy on the top of that stack formation when they had gone to the wide receiver screen so many times. The more wrinkles the better.
-One downside to this game being so contested is that West Virginia wasn’t able to get their backups work throughout the contest. Still, I did agree with head coach Dana Holgorsen that redshirt sophomore William Crest looked a lot more composed than he did last week. Granted it was a low leverage situation and he ran the football but still you want to see improvement there and I thought he did.
-For as much as I gushed over the offensive line last week, the first half of this game was almost the exact opposite. Youngstown State was winning the battle up front and it really wasn’t even close. That was disheartening especially because they were keeping their safeties back and trying to force the Mountaineers to win up front. They entered the break with 99 yards rushing an average of 4.3 per tote, but in the second half it was an entirely different story. Evident from the first drive, the Mountaineers were getting push up front and at times the backs weren’t even being touched until they were four to five yards down field. The Mountaineers ran for 136 yards in the second half and averaged 5.9 per carry. Sometimes it just takes a little wake up at the half and maybe that was it, but I really liked how West Virginia was able to run the football when they needed to in the second half.
-Two games and senior quarterback Skyler Howard has yet to be sacked. Widening the pocket was the buzz phrase all off-season and the unit has lived up to that so far.
-Speaking of the run game, thought redshirt senior Rushel Shell impressed for the second straight week. He ran hard and delivered blows on contact running through defenders and finished with 84 yards on 16 attempts, an average of 5.3 per carry. For the season Shell is averaging 5.4 per tote. In his first two seasons he had never averaged more than 4.5 per carry. It wasn’t a game that blew anybody away on paper but what he did was run just enough to bring those safeties down and allow Howard to throw the ball over top to wide receivers down the field.
-Can’t say enough about what freshman Kennedy McKoy did in his time on the field as well. He finished with 56 yards on five touches and looked a lot like the spring standout that carried that over into the fall. McKoy is going to have to play this season and for him to bounce back was big especially with junior Justin Crawford struggling after an impressive debut.
-West Virginia had three wide receivers go over 85-yards in this game with redshirt junior Shelton Gibson hauling in six passes for 171 and 2 touchdowns, senior Daikiel Shorts catching six passes for 93 yards and a touchdown and junior Ka’Raun White with five catches for 88 yards and a score. That’s the second time in the last three games West Virginia has had three wide receivers with at least 85 yards receiving but the last time it happened before that was the 70-63 game against Baylor in 2012. That’s pretty impressive considering the talent at wide receiver that West Virginia has had.
-Senior Daikiel Shorts had never recorded a 100-yard game in his career until last week and he was only seven yards away from doing it for the second straight week. Shorts has made big catch after big catch for this team to this point in the season and has been a favorite target in critical situations. On his six catches the situations were: 2nd and 8; 2nd and 5; 3rd and 10; 3rd and 10; 1st and 10; 3rd and 4 and 1st and 10. Every single one of those resulted in a first down and as you can see three were third downs.
-It’s been a rough start for sophomore wide receiver Jovon Durante. Last season he struggled with drops on the outside, this year he has had issues with holding onto the football as well. Both of Howard’s interceptions have come on catchable balls intended for Durante. He also didn’t do himself any favors in the blocking department either. Durante has a lot of talent, but it comes to on the field confidence.
-Was surprised to see true freshman wide receiver Steven Smothers enter the game late. Had gotten the read most of camp that between the two, Smothers was behind Simms.
-Overall, I just felt it was a bad day for the Mountaineers defense. Missed tackles, not being able to get home on blitzes, poor coverage in the backend, dropped interceptions and did I say missed tackles? For as well as the unit played at times against Missouri there were still questions. I walked away with more after this game as there were opportunities for Youngstown State to have more on the final stat line but they couldn’t take advantage of wide open receivers as well as some dropped passes. Giving up 405 yards to an FCS team is never a good look and it was quite obvious why defensive coordinator Tony Gibson was so frustrated. We’re going to find out a lot more about this group here in two weeks but I walked away from this game feeling a little uneasy about some parts of it.
-Pass rush was non-existent again. I chalked that up last week to the quick game stuff that Missouri was doing but the Mountaineers were still able to hit the quarterback. Today, that just didn’t happen and the pass rush just never got there which made Gibson look at blitzing. However, the blitz didn’t get there either which left the backend open and susceptible to some big plays down the field.
-The West Virginia defense did keep one streak alive. The Mountaineers have now not allowed an opponent to complete better than 50-percent of its third down attempts in 27 straight games, an active Big 12 Conference record. The Penguins converted on 5/14 (36-percent).
-One positive is that West Virginia has now turned the ball over four times and the defense hasn’t allowed any points in those situations. The Mountaineers also had eight tackles for loss and recorded its first interception of the season as well.
-Redshirt junior kicker Mike Molina was solid again although he did push the one kick left, he hit another and did a solid job kicking off again as the return team also held up outside of the one 39-yard return. Redshirt sophomore Billy Kinney continues to impress with a 49.2 average punting the ball.
-Sophomore Gary Jennings had an 18-yard punt return. Not counting the Cactus Bowl last season when Jennings had a 21-yard return, that was the longest punt return since K.J. Dillon brought one back for 19-yards against Liberty last season. Still, I thought the punt return team still wasn’t giving enough time and Jennings did take another shot when he probably should have fair caught it.
-It wasn’t nearly as clean of a game as the opener. The aforementioned missed tackles as well as badly timed penalties loomed large in this game. The Mountaineers only had six flags for 49 yards but those penalties resulted in overturning an interception, forcing the offense to punt when they had lined up to go for it and overturning a Rushel Shell touchdown. Mistakes are going to happen but they happened at possibly some of the worst times for the offense today which compounded the issue.
-When I first looked at the schedule, I really had my doubts about this early bye week but given some of the issues on defense as well as Howard and his health I believe it comes at the perfect time to sort out some of the kinks.
