MORGANTOWN — Iowa State led West Virginia 10-7 entering the fourth quarter on Saturday, a game certainly up for grabs for either side to take.
After those final 15 minutes, however, Iowa State had thoroughly thumped the Mountaineers to the tune of 31-14.
The turning point was a 15-yard roughing the kicker penalty on West Virginia’s Reese Smith that turned an Iowa State punt into a Cyclone first down. The Cyclones marched down the field and capped off the 94-yard drive with a 24-yard touchdown pass that gave them a 17-7 lead.
“The roughing the punter penalty was huge,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “It was a 10-7 game at that point. We had a chance to get the ball back around midfield. I thought he got blocked into him, but we’ll see. I can’t say until I see it.”
Iowa State went on to find the endzone two more times in the fourth quarter before WVU stemmed the bleeding with a garbage-time touchdown from the second-team offense.
“That was obviously the play of the game,” Brown said. “They scored there and took control of the game.”
A swing of momentum of that magnitude on a special teams gaff can have a ripple effect throughout the entire team.
“We had momentum going into that, the defense played great and got a stop,” wide receiver Sam James said. “That just pushed the momentum back on us. It hurt to see that, give them the ball back and have them score.”
WVU had been called on a running into the kick penalty earlier in the game, the five-yard version of the more serious offense, yet Brown said he did not want his punt block unit to hold anything back.
“We were playing so bad on offense, I thought we had as good a chance to make a play on that,” Brown said. “It was towards the third quarter and other than the last drive (of the first half), we got nothing going (on offense).”
Punchless offense
West Virginia finished the game with minuscule offensive numbers. The team put up 200 yards on 49 plays.
“We weren’t in synch together as a team or as a unit,” James said. “We just missed a lot of opportunities. We have to go back and watch the film and see what we missed to work on it and get better.”
The team gained just 11 first downs while punting nine times.
“Just not having energy and juice from not making plays,” James said of the offense’s biggest issue. “Once we make plays, we get rolling. But when we don’t, we get down and we’ve got to be able to bounce back from that stuff.”
Quarterback JT Daniels finished 8-of-22 for 81 yards with a touchdown and interception. He had a handful of poor throws, including a ball falling short in front of James and the interception where he never gave Smith a chance to catch the ball.
When asked if Daniels was affected by the windy conditions in Ames, Brown deferred the question to his signal-caller.
“You’ll have to ask him,” Brown said. “He wasn’t on top of his game today, I think that’s accurate…but you’ll have to ask him.”
Daniels was not made available to the media after the game.
Young back
Redshirt-freshman Justin Johnson started at running back in place of injured CJ Donaldson and Tony Mathis.
Johnson carried the ball 12 times for 48 yards. Brown said he would’ve liked Johnson to run more, but the offense’s struggles prevented that.
“Would it have helped if we had CJ and Tony?” Brown asked. “Yeah, it would’ve helped, but that wasn’t the reason we were bad today offensively.”
No impact
WVU’s defense played a solid game overall but failed to make any game-changing plays.
The Mountaineers did not have a takeaway against the turnover-prone Cyclones.
“It’s always frustrating, especially when, I would say, the game’s going in your hands,” defensive lineman Dante Stills said. “It’s definitely frustrating not to get a turnover. I feel that two turnovers in that game would have been huge.”
Stills finished the game with three tackles for loss and a sack.
Greene-er pastures
Brown has talked about wanting to use backup quarterback Garrett Greene on offense more. In past weeks that has materialized as manufactured touches having him play out of position at running back or wide receiver, but Greene played the entire last drive Saturday at quarterback.
He led the team on an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, completing 4-of-5 passes for 43 yards, including an eight-yard touchdown to James.
“I don’t think there were any effort issues, I thought guys competed all the way down,” Brown said. “I don’t think that was the issue today. We had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter and we just didn’t get it done. We didn’t play good enough to win, but there weren’t effort issues or anything like that.”
News and notes
Fifth-year senior Dante Stills played in his 56th game for the Mountaineers, setting a new all-time program record.
Brown said defensive backs Charles Woods, Wesley McCormick and Aubrey Burks all suffered injuries during the game. He did not elaborate on the status of any of them.
WVU is 0-3 in conference road games this season, being outscored 117-44.
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