MORGANTOWN — Casey Legg laid on the turf Saturday, twisting and turning while grasping his left knee like he had just been involved in a hit-and-run.
Never mind that the minimal contact from Texas Tech’s Dadrion Taylor-Demerson on Legg’s 38-yard field goal came against Legg’s right ankle.
That didn’t stop Legg from putting on a small show, a pure flopping effort that would have cost him a little bit of money in the way of a fine if he were in the NBA.
Good thing for Legg this is just college football, where flopping simply gets you a short replay while the network is breaking for commercials.
We lead off with this today, because in the grand scheme of West Virginia’s 48-10 loss against Texas Tech at Jones AT&T Stadium, Legg’s performance was the most entertaining thing the Mountaineers put out on the field.
Well, that and Sam James’ effort to make a spectacular one-handed grab while being grabbed around the neck by Keyon Blankenbaker late in the second quarter.
Except the catch was overruled by replay when the tip of the ball hit the turf as James fell to the ground.
Blankenship was still called for pass interference, but it didn’t matter, as WVU quarterback J.T. Daniels saw Taylor-Demerson come up with a diving interception seconds later in the end zone to basically end the first half.
If you want to get technical, you could argue that was the end of the game.
If you want to get pessimistic, you could argue again that was the end of the Mountaineers’ chances at putting together some type of season to remember.
“Not a whole lot to say,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said afterwards. “That was just complete domination. It’s probably as disappointed I’ve been as a football coach my entire career.”
The road is long and treacherous the rest of the way for the Mountaineers (3-4, 1-3 Big 12), minus one road game at Iowa State in a couple of weeks that will generate no interest no matter who wins.
WVU’s still got top 10-ranked TCU coming to town. It’s got a road game against Oklahoma and a road game at nationally-ranked Oklahoma State.
There is also a home game against nationally-ranked Kansas State.
Find me three more wins in there, or two, if you assume WVU will beat Iowa State. That’s what WVU will need just to become bowl eligible.
It wouldn’t be a good bowl, which at this point, is becoming the trend around the WVU football program, because it’s been 11 years since the Mountaineers played in a good one, the Orange Bowl.
WVU running back C.J. Donaldson was still in elementary school at the time.
Since then, there’s been a couple of Cactus bowls, a Pinstripe Bowl, a Liberty Bowl and a Heart of Dallas Bowl, whatever that is.
Even worse, there were two seasons without any bowl games since that evening in Miami, and this season is shaping up to be a third.
This latest disaster came against a Texas Tech defense that was punishing, stout and downright nasty.
Except you and I both know that’s not true, because the only time “Texas Tech” and “defense” get used in the same sentence is when describing how bad the Red Raiders (4-3, 2-2) historically are on that side of the ball.
Go ahead, Google it and see for yourself.
You wouldn’t have known that Saturday, as the Mountaineers turned the ball over four times and were held to just 4 of 14 on third-down conversion attempts.
“I thought we played as bad offensively as we could (in the first half),” Brown said. “We showed that we can actually play worse in the second half.
“This team has been a roller coaster. We played really well against a really good football team last week in Baylor and won a game. Then we played about as bad as we possibly can the game of football today. It’s unbelievably frustrating to say the least.”
And we can talk about the poor job the WVU defense did, but is that really a conversation you want to have again?
Texas Tech converted six fourth-down attempts, all of them coming in the first half.
The Red Raiders, who were averaging just 119 yards rushing as a team, finished with 239, as Tahj Brooks finished with 107 and two scores.
By the end, he was going through gaping holes and running through arms of WVU defenders who didn’t seem all that interested in tackling him.
Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton found a lot of open receivers at different times and added 325 yards passing and two more TDs. That’s 594 yards of offense against WVU, for those wondering.
That’s the most since Oklahoma recorded 668 in 2018.
There’s your defensive update.
So, it would seem we are down to the questions about the future of this program and the future of Brown as its head coach?
This space will not be used to call for Brown’s head, nor will it be used to say he deserves more of an opportunity.
The reason for that is simple: No one at WVU cares what I think to begin with, as it should be.
What we will say is Brown’s record at WVU is under .500 and the Mountaineers haven’t been ranked in the AP Top 25 since 2018, which seems like ages.
At this point, Brown can’t fake an injury, as Legg did, to get around that outlook, and if he tried, it probably wouldn’t be as entertaining.
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