MORGANTOWN — West Virginia was expectantly dominant in all aspects but one in its 49-14 win over FCS opponent Albany on Saturday.
WVU’s offense scored touchdown after touchdown with ease and the front seven on defense stuffed the Great Danes’ running game, but the Mountaineer secondary did not perform nearly as well.
Albany quarterback Myles Burkett completed half of his passes, 17-of-37, but threw for 306 yards, averaging 17 yards per completion.
“We’ve got to play the ball down the field better, I think that’s evident,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “Sometimes the stats sheet doesn’t tell the story, but sometimes it does. 300 yards passing is (the story).”
The Mountaineer defense also struggled to get off the field efficiently as Albany converted 7-of-16 third downs. All seven conversions came through the air.
The Great Danes converted three third downs of over 15 yards, completing passes of 20 yards on third-and-16, 19 yards on third-and-16 and 49 yards on third-and-17.
“We’ve got to do a better job of playing the ball in the air,” Brown said. “We had two times where we didn’t make the play down the field because we didn’t have eyes back. We’ve got to do a better job of just playing the ball in the air.”
WVU fared better on fourth down as Albany only converted 2-of-5.
The Mountaineers had similar issues last week against Penn State as quarterback Drew Allar completed 11 passes for 216 yards and the Nittany Lions were 5-of-11 on third down.
“I didn’t think we played real fast back there,” Brown said. “We’ve got to figure out why that is.”
3 Plays Away
Brown said WVU’s offense was perfect on 55 of their 58 plays.
“Offensively, we really only had three bad plays in the game,” Brown said. “The rest of them we kind of showed the beginning of what we’re capable of being.”
Of the three negative plays in question, two came on the same drive, leading to WVU’s only punt and the other was a fumble by running back Jahiem White.
Quarterback Garrett Greene had a ball slip out of his hand on a pass, but he was able to recover for a small loss. Two plays later, he threw behind a receiver on third down, leading to a punt.
White’s fumble came on the tail end of a 39-yard run in the second quarter.
“Jahiem learned a hard lesson, you’ve got to hold the ball the right way,” Brown said. “He had it out the whole run, and it was an explosive run, but they got it out.”
White finished with 100 yards on 10 carries including a 10-yard touchdown.
“Just flush it. It’s gone, you can’t get it back,” junior running back CJ Donaldson said was his advice to White. “The only thing you can do is have a next-play mentality.
“It’s just like a quarterback throwing an interception, it’s going to happen. You’ve just got to have a next-play mentality and that’s where we focus on being mentally tough.”
Corner Kickoffs
West Virginia deployed a new strategy on kickoffs on Saturday, aiming to get the ball into the left-hand corner.
Placekicker Michael Hayes wasn’t perfect on kickoff, kicking the ball out of bounds for an offsides penalty and coming close on two others.
“We’re trying to kick it there,” Brown said. “We’re not trying to kick it out of bounds, but there’s an advantage of kicking it into the corner. We’re aiming for the numbers, but I think he was trying to overplay the wind.”
Albany returned four kicks for 78 yards but generally had poor starting field position, only starting beyond its own 30 three times and never starting further than the 36-yard line.
Injuries
Defensive lineman Edward Vesterinen had to be helped off the field in the first half and did not return to the game. Brown said Vesterinen got an MRI Saturday and is expected to miss multiple weeks.
Defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley took a big hit on the WVU sideline. He had to turn over play-calling duties to co-defensive coordinator ShaDon Brown near the end of the fourth quarter.
