MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With a struggling defense late in the game for West Virginia and Kansas quarterback Carter Stanley starting to get into a rhythm, the Mountaineers needed something to slow the K.U. momentum.
Cornerback Keith Washington not only did that, he brought it to a screeching halt.
With the Jayhawks driving and down six point sin the fourth quarter, Washington leaped and tipped a pass headed for a wide open Kansas receiver. Not only did he tip it, but he was able to corral the ball as he fell to the turf for Stanley’s only interception of the game.
WVU went on to score on an 11-play drive that took 5:38 off the fourth quarter clock and gave the Mountaineers a 29-17 lead.
“It was a Cover 2 scheme and I saw the over route coming, so I made the quarterback think that there was no safety help over the top, so I trusted my teammates and I went out there and made a play,” Washington said. “I thought I might have misjudged it a little bit, but I got up there and made the play.”
Late punt decision
On West Virginia’s last offensive possession, coach Neal Brown tried to run the clock down as much as he could as Kansas burned timeouts. On third-and-7 from the K.U. 34, running back Kennedy McKoy was stopped for no gain, but the clock was able to run to under 40 seconds.
That left Brown with a decision to make, leading 29-24 — punt, go for it or kick a field goal to make it an 8-point game.
“I was going to go for it if we got it to fourth and less than three yards,” Brown said. “It ended up being fourth-and-7, so I didn’t feel good about it. The other thing was, the ball was at about the 35, and that’s [punter Josh Growden’s] specialty — pooch punts. We didn’t do a very good job covering that punt, but I was thinking Josh could get us inside the 10, and now they gotta go 90-plus yards for a touchdown. If it got within three, I was gonna run it because we had ran it well all game, but since it wasn’t, I was going to let Josh do his specialty.”
Growden’s punt eventually bounced inside the 5-yard line and into the end zone for a touchback with 32 seconds to go.
Safety struggles
Stanley’s 75-yard bomb in the third quarter to Andrew Parchment was the first second-half touchdown West Virginia had allowed all season, and while it was easy to pinpoint the trailing Hakeem Bailey as the culprit, defensive coordinator Vic Koenning wasn’t thrilled with the positioning of his safeties.
“I’ve got to do a better job of coaching both safeties because both of them did not do what they have been coached to do,” he said. “On that 75-yard play, you can start losing games in a hurry if they throw 75 yards a clip. That was all because of my two safeties not doing what they’re supposed to do.”
Those two safeties were senior Josh Norwood and freshman Tykee Smith, but Koenning said he had a conversation with both after that play and the adjustment seemed to work the remainder of the game.
“We made an adjustment on the sideline to hopefully help those two be more successful,” Koenning said. “They next two times they tried that, they had to throw it out in the flat, so we’ll take that.”
