WVSports: West Virginia Mountaineers Football & Basketball Recruiting - West Virginia struggles as they drop season opener to No. 8 Penn State
WVU loses SCORE to PSU in season opener
West Virginia struggles as they drop season opener to No. 8 Penn State
- Thread starter wesleyshoemaker
- Start date
There's a fine line between struggling and sucking....and this team blew right past that line.
It's 1 game. Do this after 3 games and it's called sucking.
No problem. They were #8 and played like it. We aren't and played liked it. Continue to improve and do well in the conference after winning these next two games.
I think we will win 7-8 games this year. Its sucks to lose to PSU but Bobby Bowden and Don Nehlen were a combined 2-16 against PSU while at Wvu and both these coaches were hall of famers. The success of this team will be judged on how we perform against Kansas, K state, Okie State, and the rest of the middle tier of the Big 12. We have the talent to compete with these teams PSU just gets better players than we do. We would kill to get the players they get on most years.
Garrett is what he is - a 50% passer. Our receivers aren't going to outrun anybody we play this year so we'll have to sustain drives with 20 yard chunk plays instead of the 60 yarders other more elite teams can do.
This is the deepest DB backfield PSU has had in years. Our WR core isn't the best part of our team, but it will not face another group of DB's like it saw today all year.
True. But his stats proved what has consistently held true for him.
Hope he's able to take the next step over the rest of the season. But, until he does, he is what his stats say he is, sadly. But, he more than makes up for it with his running abilities, which are elite. Just wish his consistency was more so.
Yes, his stats are what they are but face it PSU is vastly more talented than we are. All the teams remaining will be more on our level. Some maybe slightly better some slightly worse. I still think we win 7-8 games and have a decent season.
While I get your point to a degree, I also think you might be over complimentary of Penn State. The difference is, Nehlen and Bowden could at least compete with these top teams. Same with Rodriguez. While I agree Penn State is a good team, they steamrolled us. And it’s not just them. It’s literally every team that’s ranked that we play. We got caught up in beating North Carolina in the bowl last year, but they were down close to 20 players who opted to sit out. Including their QB who was elite.
Nehlen and Bowden rarely competed with the top teams while at Wvu. Nehlen went 2 - 11 against PSU and nine of the losses were by double digits. Wvu got crushed by Miami in year 6 of Nehlen 58-14 at home. Nehlen did beat PSU twice, but they weren't very good PSU teams. The win against Oklahoma in 82 was nice as was the 93 win against Miami but neither Oklahoma nor Miami was at their best those years. Bowden was blown out in every game he faced PSU as Wvu coach. The teams Rod Assembled delivered us the wins against Georgia and Oklahoma, but the schedule was extremely easy back then. PSU may not be a tier 1 blue blood, but they are definitely a tier 2. The talent they have is much better than any of the teams we will face in the Big 12. Most seem to think Utah is the team to beat in the Big 12 this year and PSU blew them out in the rose bowl two years ago. I can understand people being upset but wait and let the season play out. If we get handled by some of the teams in the Big 12 the way we were today, then it's time to have this conversation. I don't see that happening. I think will be competitive with everyone we play from here on out.
Penn State is also (per today’s broadcast) 1-16 against top 5 and like 5-21 against the top 10 under Franklin. We should at least compete with them. You definitely have a point with waiting to see how we do against the Big 12, however, the last 5 years shows we haven’t beaten anyone ranked. That is until a depleted UNC squad. That was the difference I was referring to with Bowden , Nehlen, and Rod.
PSU has struggled against the Ohio States and Michigan's but not the Wvu type teams. If a coach went 5-21 at wvu against the top 10 it would probably look pretty good when placed in a historical perspective. Look at PSU's recruiting classes and compare that with the rest of the big 12. PSU had 8 players drafted into the NFL last year and they open the season as the 8th ranked team. That should tell you something about the talent level on that roster compared to what an average Big 12 team has.
I basically posted this in last year’s game thread with them and we were a hair from a 10 win season. They are just a bad matchup for us. Our strengths they can match us, our weaknesses they can dominate us. We know we are not a CFP team, atleast not in the traditional definition of what that has always meant, our goal is to win a lot of conference games and if the stars align compete for the conference title in the new wide open conference.
I guess this is the point that should be made. PSU is great against anyone not named Michigan and Ohio State. So then, PSU would be a 2nd tier team based upon that stat, which makes us at best a 3rd tier team? That is disheartening. In my honest opinion, we should not have lost by 20+ points at home today. We were completely overmatched. And our game plan looked less than stellar.
It feels like we haven’t won a “big” game since the Orange Bowl. Yea we had a few decent teams sprinkled in over the years, but we never win the big nationally televised hyped up game. If you haven’t been disheartened by now your expectations are off.
“Tiers” are a subjective term, but if I had to label us, we are a run of the mill middling power conference program. We almost never compete for conference championships, we almost never lose to the worst teams in our conference, on our best day we could sneak up on a team like PSU, but it isn’t gonna happen in an opener or major national spotlight type of game.
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