MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia knew it was going to have to play a near perfect game to win on the road at No. 5 Oklahoma, but after a 52-14 loss, coach Neal Brown made it clear that was far from what his team ended up doing.
“For this to be a competitive game, we needed to play clean, which we didn’t. We needed to be able to run the ball, which we couldn’t. We had to force some turnovers, which we didn’t. We had to minimize their explosive plays, and we didn’t do it. All of the things that we needed to do to make this a four-quarter, competitive football game to put us in position at the end, we just weren’t able to do it.”
The Mountaineers defense was tasked with the most difficult job of the day, going up against the top-ranked Sooners offense. Like Brown mentioned, WVU tried to limit explosive plays, but OU finished with nine plays over 20 yards.
Quarterback Jalen Hurts was just as efficient against WVU as Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, eventual Heisman Trophy winners, the last two seasons. In the last two years combined, Mayfield, Murray and Hurts have combined for a 82% completion percentage (50 for 61), 15.1 yards per attempt (916 yards), nine touchdowns to one interception, and Murray/Hurts have combined for another 189 yards and three rushing touchdowns against the Mountaineers.
Hurts’ third touchdown toss Saturday was to a Lee Morris for 46 yards, thrown over the head of WVU freshman safety Tykee Smith. Smith, however, wasn’t the one who blew the coverage. After the misplay, defensive coordinator Vic Koenning and Brown wanted to send a message.
“We should have had a rolled up coverage over there, but one of the safeties didn’t look to the sideline to get the coverage call,” Koenning said. “I don’t know how you can play a play without knowing what the daggone coverage is, but that’s on me to correct. He didn’t see anymore action after that.”
WVU cornerback Keith Washington missed his second-straight start with a muscle injury, and Hakeem Bailey missed the first half because of a targeting ejection the week before. VanDarius Cowan is out for the season at “bandit” linebacker after hurting his knee against Iowa State.
These forced juggling in the secondary and linebacker corps — Josh Norwood moved from safety to cornerback, which resulted in Kerry Martin earning his first start at free safety in Norwood’s spot. Dylan Tonkery moved to bandit from “Mike” linebacker, and Chandler moved from “Cat” to Mike.
Exree Loe got the start at Cat to replace Chandler, but Chandler appeared to injure his knee on punt coverage in the first half, and starting bandit Quondarius Qualls got banged up, which again threw the linebackers into a tizzy.
“I thought they did a good job in practice, but once they got into this environment, it obviously wasn’t the same,” Koenning said. “I don’t think Lincoln Riley or Jalen Hurts really cared. It’s not the best thing in the world — you’d like to have some continuity and have guys that have a feel for what they’re doing, but we just have to keep repping them and do the best we can.”
