MORGANTOWN — Linebacker JoVanni Stewart’s ears perked up when he heard how many yards West Virginia’s defense allowed to TCU on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium.
“Ooo,” he smiled, “I didn’t know that. I’m sure Gibby’s gonna be really happy with us tomorrow.”
Stewart knew the Mountaineers were living in the backfield most of the day, but he was stunned to hear that the Horned Frogs amassed minus-7 yards on the ground. TCU came in averaging 153 rushing yards per game and running back Darius Anderson was ninth in the Big 12 in yards. He was held to 19 yards on 11 carries.
The rest of the team was held to minus-26 yards on 13 carries.
“That’s a great day at the office,” said linebacker David Long, who finished with four tackles for loss and three sacks. “It’s something we’re capable of when we go out there, play ball and have fun doing it.”
As a team, West Virginia had eight tackles for loss and the constant pressure on quarterback Mike Collins forced the Horned Frogs to play behind the sticks most of the game, going 2 of 15 on third down attempts.
On whether Collins felt pressured throughout, Long said, “I sensed it when he was throwing the ball a little low to the receivers across the middle. That it was collapsing on him.”
TCU coach Gary Patterson said 3-man fronts have given his offense fits all season, but nothing like that.
“To be honest with you, we’ve struggled with the 3-3 (front) teams,” he said. “West Virginia changes their coverages which put Mike in tough spots. We have to execute better, that’s pretty much all it comes down to.”
The last time West Virginia held an opponent to negative yards rushing was in 2010 against Maryland (minus-10).
After a porous performance last week against Texas where West Virginia gave up 520 total yards and 41 points, the defense was challenged in practice and it delivered.
“They were motivated all week,” coach Dana Holgorsen said. “We’ve been playing good defense. I’ve said this a hundred time, Tony Gibson has arguably done as good a job as any defensive coordinator in college football. We’ve got high standards for playing good defense here. Last week, we probably didn’t play like we could have.
“Texas played well offensively, but we were pretty motivated to come back and play better. Obviously, we did.”
Defensive end Reese Donahue said the game plan was simple — stay disciplined and believe in what the coaching staff is telling them.
“Play hard and play fast and we’ll win this game — that’s what we heard all week,” he said. “We struggled last week, so it was a big emphasis not to relax and we did a pretty good job throughout the week to get better. We did that and we lived up to coach Gibby’s challenge.”
