MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Offense sells tickets, but with the way the WVU offense played most of Saturday’s game against Baylor at Milan Puskar Stadium, most would likely have asked for a refund … if fans were permitted at Milan Puskar Stadium.
But the Mountaineers’ defense was well worth the price of admission for the 978 family members in attendance.
When WVU needed a big play most, it relied over and over again on the defense, culminating in a critical interception in the end zone by Tykee Smith to give WVU’s offense to finish the game in double overtime, and it did as the Mountaineers won their first Big 12 game of the year 27-21 over the Bears.
“I was really pleased with our defense overall,” coach Neal Brown said. “I thought coach (Jordan) Lesley and coach (Jahmile) Addae did a tremendous job with the game plan coming in.”
Baylor finished with 256 yards of total offense — 231 in regulation — but incredibly, the Bears had just 27 yards rushing on 33 attempts, a whopping 0.8 yards per carry. Brown does not like adding sacks to rushing totals, but I doubt he minds when his defense sacked BU quarterback Charlie Brewer six times. Total, the Mountaineers finished with 11 tackles for loss.
It can be argued the Bears’ first touchdown should not have even happened after a phantom pass interference call was made against cornerback Dreshun Miller. After, WVU’s defense did not give up a score until 1:30 was left in the fourth quarter when Brewer found Josh Fleeks open down the field for a 34-yard score.
Two overtime plays resulted in an easy Baylor touchdown and an interception, but it was the defense that prevented the Mountaineers (2-1, 1-1 Big 12) from being in panic mode three games into the season.
On the other side, WVU’s offense came out and scored a touchdown on its first drive —15 plays, 75 yards and ate up over six minutes on the clock. It looked like the Mountaineers got over their woes from the Oklahoma State loss, but the offense struggled mightily as the game wore on, especially quarterback Jarret Doege.
In the first half, Doege threw two interceptions and fumbled twice, though one was recovered by a teammate. His final stat line isn’t bad at 30 of 42 for 211 yards, but the offense struggled to sustain drives. And to be fair to Doege, the pass protection issues continued as he was hit on almost every drop back in the first half.
Leddie Brown continues to shine at running back, and the running lanes are appearing far more along the offensive line than they ever did last season. There are positives, and the offense did what it needed to do to score two touchdowns in overtime.
However, penalties, drops and getting behind the chains need to be fixed sooner rather than later.
“We figured out ways for most of the first half and first two drives of the second half to get in our own way about as good as we possibly could,” Neal Brown said. “It could be procedure penalties, it could be dropped passes, it could be falling off on blocks, it could be bad play calls — all of the above. It went about as bad as it could go.”
As good as it appears to be, WVU cannot rely on its defense every game like it did Saturday.
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