MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Losers of four in a row in October, West Virginia had to go 3-1 in November to become bowl eligible with six wins, and looking at the slate this month, Saturday’s game at home against 3-5 Texas Tech seemed like the clear “must have” for the Mountaineers.
After the first 19 minutes of the game, WVU stared a 35-10 deficit in the face and dug itself into a hole it couldn’t climb itself out of. Losing 38-17, this is the Mountaineers’ first five-game losing streak since the first season in the Big 12 in 2012. Ironically, that streak started at Texas Tech, which was coached by offensive coordinator Neal Brown.
The 2012 Red Raiders also had Seth Doege, who threw for 499 yards and six touchdowns to beat WVU, as their starting quarterback. Seth is the older brother of Jarret Doege, who finished the game Saturday for West Virginia against Texas Tech at QB.
With all of this poetry in motion, Brown even went Shakespearean after the game, promising fans the program will turn around, and hopefully this was rock bottom for the Mountaineers under his regime. He felt like this was the right time to have his passionate speech, because as Brown has been known to say, “You all watched that.”
“I think if you watched it, it pretty much sums it up.”
When looking at the final stats, West Virginia ended up outgaining the Red Raiders 549-481, but there lies the problem. Texas Tech didn’t score a second-half touchdown — most of its yards came on its first five possessions, which all resulted in touchdowns.
“We got off to an extremely poor start defensively,” Brown said. “We settled down an did some things better, but we’ve got to be ready to go defensively and we weren’t. We didn’t get any pressure on the quarterback all day.”
Last week at Baylor, the Mountaineers finished with nine sacks, their most in a game since 2011. Against Texas Tech, they didn’t record one.
Darius Stills made it a point against Baylor to tell a nationally televised audience that the Bears’ offensive line was soft. There was no such declaration against Texas Tech.
Senior defensive end Reuben Jones chose his wording carefully, but knows the Red Raiders may have had one of the best offensive lines he’s faced this season.
“That was a decent O-line, but that’s not how, as a defense, you’re supposed to go into a game. You’re supposed to go into a game thinking you’re going to dominate. It doesn’t matter who the offensive line is, we have to worry about doing that.”
Following one its best performances against Baylor with one of its worst against Texas Tech, Brown doesn’t believe there was an emotional hangover. The wear and tear of a college football season is starting to show its effect.
“I’m worried every week, but at the same time, we don’t have very many guys,” Brown said. “We can’t practice for very long. This wasn’t a deal where guys checked out and they didn’t practice all week. We had decent practices — I shouldn’t say they were great, but they weren’t poor. This isn’t one of those deals where you came back and you look at practice and going into it, you know you’re going to play poorly. This wasn’t it. I think it’s fragile, and I think part of that’s because you’re playing so many young people. They’re sometimes getting exposed, and sometimes, things aren’t going their way and it’s the first time in front of a big stage that’s ever happened.”
Kansas State network announced
Next Saturday’s game at Kansas State will be televised on ESPN, WVU announced Sunday. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m.
The Wildcats (6-3, 3-3) are coming off a 27-24 loss at Texas.
