MORGANTOWN — Despite returning so many of the components that made Oklahoma State’s offense one of college football’s best last season – and one that gashed West Virginia University for nearly 500 yards in Morgantown last year – the Mountaineer defense made sure there was no sequel in WVU’s 38-14 win over the Cowboys on Saturday.
West Virginia (3-2, 2-0 Big 12) throttled Oklahoma State’s offense in Stillwater. The Cowboys (3-3, 0-3 Big 12) had returned leading passer Alan Bowman, leading rusher Ollie Gordon II, leading receiver Brennan Presley and their entire starting offensive line from 2023. All that added up to just 227 yards of total offense for OSU on Saturday against the Mountaineers.
And none of Oklahoma State’s three top skill players could get anything going. Gordon, who ran for 282 yards and four touchdowns against WVU last year, was held to just 50 yards on 13 carries Saturday before leaving the game in the third quarter with an injury. The Cowboys could muster just 36 rushing yards in total.
Linebacker Josiah Trotter said a huge part of WVU’s success was making sure Gordon couldn’t pick up speed.
“We couldn’t let him get going, especially downhill,” Trotter said. “They use a lot of pistol sets and they want him to get running downhill, especially with a big back like him. The biggest thing was getting him going sideways, stopping him in his tracks. We didn’t let him get going, creating any momentum.”
Bowman completed just 10 of 19 passes for 116 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. He also was sacked twice – he had been sacked just once total in the previous five games – before he was benched for Garret Rangel. Presley could manage just 48 yards on three catches.
Saturday was by far WVU’s best defensive performance of the season. WVU head coach Neal Brown said it was something the defense had been working toward since Penn State racked up 457 yards in the season opener.
The key to the change, Brown said, was making things simple.
“It’s been a process since the Pitt game of simplifying and figuring out who we are and what we can do well, and then how can we do those things but still disguise coverages, move our front to confuse the (offense), and that’s what we’ve done.”
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said another ingredient in the Cowboys’ offensive woes was their poor defensive performance. OSU’s defense couldn’t get off the field, allowing West Virginia to hold onto the ball for more than 42 minutes in the game. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State had just one drive that lasted more than seven plays.
“Now, we didn’t play any good on offense, but we didn’t have the ball,” he said. (T)he combination of only having the ball 17 minutes and then not playing good, then you’re not going to run up very many yards.
“We need to fit better (on defense) would be my guess,” he continued. “We need to tackle better. We’ve got to get off the field on third downs. Then we didn’t rush the ball as effectively as we needed to – we’re at three-point-something a carry – we need to be over four yards a carry. And then we couldn’t convert. We were 3 of 10 on third down. So those will kind of end up adding up.”
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There was a concerning moment in the first quarter when quarterback Garrett Greene landed awkwardly on a tackle and came up favoring his throwing shoulder. But Brown and the Mountaineers were comforted by the performance of Greene’s backup, Nicco Marchiol.
Three plays after Marchiol entered the game, on his first pass attempt, he threw a 10-yard touchdown strike to Traylon Ray that gave the Mountaineers a 10-0 lead. Greene would return to the game in the second quarter.
The two combined to complete 10 of 16 passes on the day for 169 yards and Marchiol’s touchdown. They also combined to rush for 132 yards and a Greene touchdown on 17 carries.
Brown said Marchiol has grown as a college quarterback to a point where, if he enters the game, Brown doesn’t have to call the game differently than if Greene was playing.”
“Credit Nicco,” Brown said. “I’ve said this going back to the spring, that I felt like we had two quarterbacks that were capable of winning in the Big 12. I think we showed that today.
“As soon as Garrett went down, I knew he was going to be out for a little bit,” Brown added. “So I said (to Marchiol), hey, the same thing I told you on Thursday is how we’re going to handle this. We’re going to call the game just like Garrett was in.”
Greene said he has seen that growth in Marchiol as well.
“We meet a lot and talk a lot,” Greene said. “So the confidence that I have in him, that the O-line and the running backs have in him is that he’s going to be a phenomenal player here. I’m happy he came in and did well.”
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Brown mentioned the difficulty of playing in Boone Pickens Stadium, in part because the crowd noise stays in the stadium bowl. Yet much of the crowd noise Saturday came from OSU fans’ boos as they disagreed with the playcalling and keeping Bowman in the game as long as he was.
As loud as those boos might have been, Gundy said he wasn’t paying attention.
“My job is to pay attention to the game and not pay attention to the crowd,” Gundy said. “My job is to not talk to the fans. My job is to coach the team. That’s what my job is. Everybody that pays and comes to a game has a right to display whatever action they feel comfortable. I don’t have an issue with that.”
— Story by Derek Redd
