MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia coach Neal Brown said after last Saturday’s 34-27 loss at Texas Tech he would have to go back and look at the film to see what attributed to the Mountaineers’ case of the drops.
Total, WVU was credited with seven drops in the game, all by wide receivers and many in critical situations that would have either converted first downs or at least put the Mountaineers in better down and distance scenarios. On the season through five games, there have been 17 drops, an average of at least three per game.
On Tuesday, Brown, a former wide receiver himself, said there really isn’t much to it as far as fixing drops is concerned. Catching more balls in practice and working on technique is the best approach he knows to take.
“A lot of drops are due to hand placement, not necessarily hand-eye coordination,” Brown said. “A lot of them are because you leave your feet and you don’t ever want to leave your feet. You have to run through the ball and you want to be soft with your hands. We’re going to continue to coach the technique — we’re not going to change how we call the game or how we approach it.
“We’re just going to catch more balls, that’s the way that I know to get better at it, so that’s what we’ll do. We’ll continue to believe in the guys and we’ll put guys out there in position to make plays.”
Bryce Ford-Wheaton, Sean Ryan, Ali Jennings, Reese Smith and Winston Wright all had drops last week, while Sam James and T.J. Simmons each fumbled the last two weeks, respectively. Like most statistics in football, though, drops are subjective in how they are tallied. According to ESPN, WVU had seven drops against the Red Raiders. According to Pro Football Focus, which is one of the top stat-keeping organizations in football, the Mountaineers had just three.
For Brown, his tally laid somewhere in the middle.
“On Saturday, I had us between five and six,” he said. “What we talk about is catch percentage — we want to be at 90%. That’s a realistic goal at about 90%, catch nine out of 10. That’s the way we approach practice and that’s our expectation. We probably didn’t hit that on Saturday.”
Out of quarterback Jarret Doege’s 32 completions, 22 were still hauled in by wide receivers, despite the seven miscues. Overall, Brown still thinks the receiving corps had its best game of the season against the Red Raiders, but what people remember are the bad things.
Continuing to do the small things, like blocking and running the correct routes, cannot get lost in figuring out how to catch the ball consistently.
“Chad Scott, our running backs coach, has a good saying and it stands true, ‘You’re only remembered for your bad days,’ ” Brown said. “Our receiver group, as a whole, probably played its best game overall as far as perimeter blocking, route running and all those things, but you remember the bad plays more than you remember the good plays. Is it fair? I don’t know, it is what it is and it’s reality.
“It’s not something we’ll harp on, all we’re gonna do is work. We’re going to continue to throw the ball — Doege is throwing the ball well and we’re protecting better the last two games. We’ve thrown for over 700 yards, but we’ve probably left about 100-150 out there.”
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