MORGANTOWN — Before we even bother getting into the total debacle that was Texas’ 38-20 victory Saturday night against West Virginia at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, we take you back to last week.
You may remember that night in Blacksburg, Va., a big Black-Diamond domination of Virginia Tech.
WVU head coach Neal Brown, truly in the heat of the moment, came up with this jewel in his postgame press conference:
“I think the story of our downturn was probably exaggerated,” Brown said.
Following this disaster against the Longhorns (3-2, 1-1 Big 12), nothing — and we do mean absolutely nothing — can be exaggerated about how sour this 2022 football season has become for the Mountaineers (2-3, 0-2).
Two wins in five games so far, with one coming against an FCS school, the other against a hated rival.
That hated rival, well, Virginia Tech was whipped 41-10 by North Carolina on Saturday, in case you were wondering.
The Hokies are 2-3 on the season with a loss against Old Dominion, so if Brown was thinking a week ago that win was a big positive, it’s not turning out that way.
So, just how exactly did this one get out of hand? The list of mistakes and blunders is a long one.
Most of them came from the Mountaineers’ secondary, which isn’t exactly news at this point.
Hudson Card’s first touchdown pass of the game was a wide open toss to Xavier Worthy that saw WVU defensive back Wesley McCormick get spun around.
Card’s second TD pass came when freshman Jacolby Spells — a standout a week ago against the Hokies — fell down and Ja’Tavion Sanders was, again, wide open.
There was some trickery on the part of Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, and the Longhorns again scored through the air on a double pass to Sanders, who was, you guessed it, pretty open.
Is it OK to put in here that Texas probably had two more sure-to-be touchdown passes that were overthrown by Card, who finished with 303 yards passing and three touchdowns?
There was more, like a facemask when Texas was backed up near its end zone that turned into a first down.
A few plays later, there was a late hit that gave the Longhorns another first down.
Those set up Sanders’ TD reception when he got past Spells.
For added measure, there was an open-field whiff by Davis Mallinger on Texas running back Bijan Robinson and a pass interference in the end zone a few plays after that to set up a one-yard scoring run by Robinson.
The WVU offense does not escape blame here, either.
Sam James dropped a would-be first down conversion pass that forced the Mountaineers to punt.
J.T. Daniels had open field in front of him on a third-and-short, but rather than running for a few yards and slide, he dumped off a pass to Mike O’Laughlin, who got slammed and injured after dropping the pass.
Bryce Ford-Wheaton dropped another pass on a fourth-and-short try. It was a slant route that Texas defenders seemingly were waiting for all night, but it was a catchable ball.
The point: These are all basically routine plays that are practiced over and over again.
These are plays made by teams in contention, but they weren’t made by the Mountaineers on Saturday, and the Mountaineers are still at the bottom of the Big 12 standings heading into a bye week.
And just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. In the middle of the third quarter, WVU star freshman running back CJ Donaldson was knocked cold.
He was put on a stretcher and in a neck brace, as both WVU and Texas players came on the field in support.
There was no immediate word on Donaldson’s status, but the freshman did give a thumbs up as he was carted off the field, in what was truly a sobering moment.
The only real solace at this moment is WVU finds itself at the bottom of the league standings with the likes of Oklahoma, who has been equally disappointing, if not more, in what looks to be a wild season.
If you don’t agree with that, well, Kansas is at the top and Oklahoma is at the bottom, so yeah, there’s no real explanation to what’s going on in the Big 12.
But, there is a real explanation as to what’s going on with the WVU football program.
At the moment, it’s just not that good, hasn’t been since about 2016, and hasn’t been consistently good since Pat White and Geno Smith were the quarterbacks.
That was over 10 years ago, folks, in case you were wondering.
Brown is now 19-21 overall in his fourth season at WVU. There’s nothing exaggerated about that.
TWEET @bigjax3211
