MORGANTOWN — Jordan Lesley has an issue with what WVU’s defense played like against Penn State on Saturday, but he doesn’t have an issue with how the Mountaineers played.
“We talk about effort, aggression and toughness and I didn’t see a lack of any of those things,” Lesley said. “That aggression can sometimes bite you. Good football teams, when you make those mistakes, they find them.”
WVU’s defense made plenty of mistakes en route to a 34-12 loss to the Nittany Lions, but WVU’s fourth-year defensive coordinator thinks the way those mistakes were made isn’t cause for alarm.
“The intent of the player is all good,” Lesley said. “They’re trying to make a player to help their team. To me, that sums up the positive and the negative.”
One play Lesley pointed to was Penn State’s first touchdown, a 50-yard pass to receiver Harrison Wallace. Lesley said safety Kekoura Tarnue got beaten on a post route because he was trying to make a play on an outside route that he correctly read.
“Those are mistakes that are very fixable,” he said. “I just hate that we have to fix them in that kind of atmosphere against that kind of team in week one.”
Mistakes leading to big plays were the theme of WVU’s defense on Saturday. The Mountaineers didn’t get beat on every single play — they competed quite well through parts of the game — but Penn State capitalized time and again on one or two mistakes for big plays or touchdowns.
“We weren’t consistent enough,” said safety Jaheem Joseph, who made his WGVU debut after transferring from Northwestern. “We had spurts in the game when we executed and we had spurts when we didn’t and it showed in a lot of explosive plays.”
The Nittany Lions had 10 plays of more than 15 yards, including all five of their touchdowns.
“We didn’t play well enough to win the game,” Lesley said plainly. “We didn’t do the things against a good opponent that you have to do. No matter the environment or everything that’s surrounding (the game), you have to go and do your job in the manner in which you’re taught to do it.”
A big issue on Saturday was that WVU’s defense couldn’t offset the mistakes with any big plays of its own. The Mountaineers didn’t record a sack and Penn State’s one turnover was the result of a botched snap. PSU quarterback Drew Allar worked in a clean pocket for nearly the entire game and racked up 216 yards and three touchdowns on just 11 competitions.
“We played with good effort, but we’ve got to play better up front,” defensive tackle Fatorma Mulbah said. “It starts with us owning it, we didn’t play good as a defensive line. We’ve got to affect the quarterback more, we didn’t do that.”
WVU led the Big 12 in sacks in 2023.
The biggest source of encouragement for Lesley was that he didn’t see any give-up from the defense throughout the game.
“Everybody complained about them scoring that last touchdown (in 2023), but it’s our job to stop them and I thought we just kind of gave into it, Lesley said. “There was zero of that on Saturday and that’s how I know we have a chance. We’ve got to make the corrections, we’ve got to play better within our job no matter what the situation is, but I’m not discouraged at all about this group.”
WVU hosts FCS opponent Albany this week (6 p.m., ESPN+).
