MORGANTOWN — WVU head coach Neal Brown and offensive coordinator Gerad Parker each had a sarcastic laugh when asked about the Mountaineers’ second-half struggles on offense so far this season.
“If you do or anybody else does, you can holler at me off to the side,” Parker joked when asked if he’s figured out a solution. “We’ll get better in the second half, I promise you.”
Through four games, the Mountaineers have scored 93 points in the first half to just 37 in the second. Against FBS opponents — taking away Long Island — the difference is even more drastic at 55 in the first and just nine in the second.
Against Maryland, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma, the Mountaineers (2-2, 0-1 Big 12) have mustered just three field goals, one in each game, in the third and fourth quarters.
Compared that to the first half, where WVU has scored a touchdown on its first drive every game, to get out to a fast start. Even the first drive of the second half has been successful, though they only ended up with field goals against VT and OU.
Brown and staff usually have a scripted drive to start each half and they’ve had a lot of success, but where things go awry are with in-game play-calling.
Last Saturday against the Sooners, scripted drives — the first series of the first and second halves — resulted in 30 plays for 143 yards and 10 points.
In the other seven drives, the Mountaineers had 45 plays for 123 yards and three points.
Another part of the problem at OU was WVU only had three second-half drives. It’s hard to score when you don’t have the ball, but on the final offensive possession, the Mountaineers were driving and already in field goal range before a bad snap lost 21 yards and forced a punt.
As for a solution, Brown has a few ideas, hoping to see improvement this weekend against Texas Tech at Milan Puskar Stadium.
“I think you have to do a few things. You have to save some things,” Brown said. “You maybe carry a little bit more into a game and save it for the second half. That’s a piece of it. There’s some other things you can do as far as adjusting on some plays. We tried that against Oklahoma and to some success.
“We ran a lot of the same plays because they were giving us the same plays. But we adjusted and gave them different looks at it. I think that is something we can continue to do. But we have to get better. That’s the truth of it. We have to score more in the second half.”
The Red Raiders (3-1, 0-1) are giving up 377.5 yards (75th nationally) and 33.5 points (114th) per game, and are coming off a dreadful performance last week at Texas, where they gave up 70 points to the Longhorns.
With an opportunity to get on-track this week, Parker believes it’s just a matter of doing what is already expected.
“We could go out screaming and hollering, ‘Hey, we need to be better in the second half,’ ” he said. “It’s like the adage, ‘Hey, son, please throw strikes.’ Well, dad, I haven’t been out here trying to throw balls.”
“We’ve got to get better. It’s the staff’s responsibility, it’s my responsibility, to make sure we do. If we just get lost in the work of it all, we’ll be just fine.”
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