MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The old adage goes, “Numbers don’t lie,” but with the West Virginia passing game, it certainly doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Mountaineers (2-1, 1-1 Big 12) rank 26th nationally (out of 76 FBS teams currently playing) and fourth in the Big 12 in passing yards per game at 263.7 through three games. They’re also 16th nationally in completion percentage at 65.8%.
“If you look at the pure statistics of it, we don’t look like a team that is struggling to throw the football,” coach Neal Brown said. “When you get into it and look deeper, though, our yards per attempt isn’t very good, which tells you we’re not very explosive.”
WVU is averaging 6.9 yards per attempt — 50th nationally and eighth in the Big 12 — and at the root of the problem is a failure to get the ball downfield on long pass plays.
Under Brown, WVU measures explosive plays by those that are 20 yards or longer. Through three games, the Mountaineers have 11 such plays — eight passes and three rushes — an average of just 3.64 per game. Six of the eight pass plays came in the season-opener against FCS opponent and overmatched Eastern Kentucky.
“We had some opportunities against Oklahoma State, and we only hit some of them,” Brown said. “I didn’t do a good enough job in the Baylor game of getting them called. I’ve got to do a better job — that’s on me. We probably had less than three opportunities against Baylor, and myself as a play-caller, I have to do a better job with that. In the second half, when I got a feel how that game was going, I didn’t want to put us in that position.”
While quarterback Jarret Doege was able to lead the team to a 2-1 ending to the 2019 season, he did struggle with the deep throw, completing just 7 of 20 passes of 20-plus yards. It’s continuing to be an issue this season, as well: Doege is 3 of 16 on such attempts downfield and the only three completions were against EKU, so he is 0 of 10 in the two conference games against Oklahoma State and Baylor.
“We worked a lot on that in the off week,” Brown said. “I think that will define how we’re going to be as an offense, because we’ve shown the ability to run the football decently to above average. But, we’ve got to stretch the field and our receivers and quarterback have to be able to make some plays.”
Doege has been under duress frequently the last two games with the young tackles getting acclimated with major college football, especially left tackles Junior Uzebu and Brandon Yates. Doege has been sacked seven times and has been hit numerous times otherwise under pressure.
With less time to throw, deep routes do not have as much time to develop, and if the Mountaineers are unable to stretch the field deep, offensive coordinator Gerad Parker would like to see expanded success in the screen and slant game.
“We have to continue to grow our screen game,” Parker said. “It’s one of those things where certain defenses give you tough looks to throw screens into, our own defense being one of them. You go through a full fall camp and you don’t get a chance to use the screen pass as much as you may like. Then you get into the season and you are facing pass rushes and you can get guys in space so you want to throw screens more.”
The Mountaineers will host Kansas (0-3, 0-2 Big 12) at noon Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium, and the Jayhawks have had relative success preventing explosive plays through three games, despite their record. KU is tied for 18th nationally, having allowed eight plays of 20-plus yards.
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