MORGANTOWN — Every college football team wants to stay as mistake-free as possible, but West Virginia University’s 28-16 loss Saturday to No. 11 Iowa State showed just how many mistakes the Mountaineers can afford to make in order to reach the goals they have for this season.
That’s pretty much zero.
There are teams in the country that have the ability to overcome an error or two or even three and still eke out a win. They can throw up a clunker and come out on top. WVU isn’t one of those teams and that was evident versus the Cyclones.
At one point, that game looked winnable for West Virginia. Then the gaffes started cropping up and the gap between WVU and ISU began to widen.
It began with a five-play span to start the second quarter. It looked like WVU converted a third and 3 at the ISU 18 when Rodney Gallagher corralled a high throw from Garrett Greene. The officials ruled otherwise on a video review. Michael Hayes missed a 36-yard field goal on the next play.
“We should never miss that field goal,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said, “but we did.”
It took Iowa State just three plays to make the Mountaineers pay. Cyclones quarterback Rocco Becht found a wide-open Jaylin Noel for a 60-yard touchdown that tied the game at 7-7. Brown said a miscommunication on the defensive play call – half the unit got one call and the other half got another – allowed Noel to sprint down the middle of the field unabated.
In those five plays, the Mountaineers went from possibly taking a two-score lead and knocking the Cyclones on their heels to falling back to even. It was the last time Saturday night they would be even with ISU.
Iowa State pulled away as West Virginia squandered several opportunities through crippling errors. A 17-play, 91-yard ISU touchdown drive could have been halted multiple times, but WVU couldn’t keep the Cyclones from converting three third downs, including a third and 10 at the ISU 31.
WVU could have regained the lead in the third quarter, but Greene threw an interception to Jamison Patton at the ISU 21. Brown said he thought there was pass interference on the play that should be called “not nine out of 10, but 10 out of 10” times. That led to Iowa State’s third touchdown, which might have been a field goal, except that Ayden Garnes was called for defensive holding in the end zone after Becht threw the ball away on third and goal.
Brown questioned the validity of that call, wondering if the ball should have been ruled uncatchable, but said the game wasn’t decided on the refs’ whistles.
“The officials didn’t lose the game by any means,” he said. “We lost the game.”
There was no question of officiating on Greene’s second interception. Both Brown and Greene said it was a bad decision by Greene. It also led to Iowa State’s fourth touchdown and shut the door on any of WVU’s comeback hopes.
The message should be clear to the Mountaineers. If they want to win, they’ll have to play as close to perfect as possible. They played a nearly perfect game against Oklahoma State and cruised to a victory. Yet the Mountaineers likely won’t face a team as flawed as the Cowboys the rest of the season.
The rest of WVU’s slate contains teams like Kansas State, which entered this weekend’s game against Colorado ranked No. 18 in the country. The Mountaineers won’t have the wiggle room to commit many errors, especially not the amount they racked up against Iowa State.
“We just have to go out there and play ball,” linebacker Josiah Trotter said.
If the Mountaineers want to stay competitive to finish the year, they need to play a nearly spotless brand of football. Saturday’s game showed that errors for this team can be fatal.
— Story by Derek Redd
