MORGANTOWN — There are really just two ways to interpret the statistics judging West Virginia’s secondary through its first five games this season, and neither of them are particularly positive.
A glance at the numbers will either have you confused or the eye test tells you the numbers are flat-out lying.
WVU head coach Neal Brown can’t afford to go any other way other than what his own eyes are telling him, and following the Mountaineers’ 38-20 loss to Texas last week, he knows changes and improvements are needed.
“We’ve got to do a better job of getting lined up in our pass-coverage fundamentals,” Brown said. “We’ve got to improve. Our personnel, we’ve got to figure out who are our best guys and we have to play our best guys. That’s something we’ll work on before we get ready for Baylor.”
For a moment, let’s take a look at the numbers.
Compared to the other nine Big 12 teams, there are four schools giving up more passing yards than West Virginia’s 230.8 yards per game.
There are only three schools — Iowa State, Texas Tech and TCU — who have allowed fewer completed passes than the Mountaineers, who have given up 82 over five games. TCU has allowed 78, but that’s misleading, because the Horned Frogs have played just four games.
Five Big 12 schools have already allowed more than 100 completions.
You already knew the WVU secondary was a work in progress from the beginning, because three would-be starters transferred out in the summer, and then Charles Woods tore up his ankle and had surgery following the opening game against Pitt.
Considering all of that, the numbers don’t exactly look all that bad for the Mountaineers (2-3, 0-2 Big 12), which is where the confusing part comes into play, because the eye test tells a different story.
Texas threw for 336 yards and four touchdowns against WVU, with one of those scores coming from a receiver throwing a pass. The Longhorns completed 79% of their attempts.
And, as Brown admits, many of those completions weren’t exactly contested.
“The secondary piece is we just weren’t good enough,” he said. “Xavier Worthy (Texas receiver) is a really good player, but most of the plays he was making weren’t contested plays. That’s where the issue is.”
There is another angle to WVU’s secondary, in that the Mountaineers have tried to play more man-to-man coverage this season.
Outside of the Kansas game — Brown said the Jayhawks’ offense with athletic quarterback Jalon Daniels forced more zone coverage — WVU has tried to play a bunch of younger players man-to-man on receivers.
“If Charles was playing, we would probably play (man-to-man) more, but when we’ve played it, it hasn’t been as productive as we would like,” Brown said. “The last two weeks, we would have liked to have played more man, because it allows you to bring more pressure. When we’ve done that, we’ve been burned a little bit.”
As far as Woods’ return, Brown said he still has hope the senior can make it back eventually, although it sounded like it probably wouldn’t be against Baylor next week.
And so the option facing WVU coaches is throwing younger guys into the mix and letting them learn on the fly, which can be dangerous.
WVU did make some changes in the second half against Texas, getting cornerbacks Andrew Wilson-Lamp and Mumu Bin-Wahad more playing time.
Both are freshmen and are getting mixed in with Jacolby Spells, who is another freshman, and Rashad Ajayi, a transfer from Colorado State in his first season at WVU.
“I think we’ve got to be able to change it up, but at the same time, we’ve got to play a coverage that we get lined up the fastest in and gives us the most chance to be successful,” Brown said. “I would like that to be man coverage, but if that’s not the case, we can’t force it, either.”
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