Penalties were the lone sore spot for West Virginia against Youngstown State two weeks ago, with the Mountaineers getting flagged 12 times for 114 yards. With two weeks to prepare, WVU played a much cleaner game against Kansas State, drawing three flags for 35 yards.
“I think the opponent has a lot to do with that, honestly,” Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Things can look bad when you’re dominating people, so when looking at it, there were some things that we needed to clean up, but there are other things that we just said to move along from it. I thought we did a better job of that, and it’s going to be an emphasis moving forward.”
As Holgorsen also noted, flags were a massive factor in last year’s Texas Tech game. The Mountaineers had a unwieldy nine penalties for 93 yards, but the Red Raiders were an outright disaster with 16 penalties for 159 yards.
“Both of us have been penalized quite a bit in these games,” Holgorsen said. “Maybe it’s the chaotic nature of how they play. But it’s something that we keep focusing on.”
