COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — During basketball season last spring, the WVU men’s team had a stretch where it struggled to win Big 12 games on the road. The Mountaineers football team looks like it has fallen down a similar path.
With the 17-13 loss at Texas on Saturday, WVU is now 0-3 away from Milan Puskar Stadium, while the Mountaineers are 4-0 in the friendly confines. This time, though, it’s difficult to say WVU didn’t have every opportunity to walk out of Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium with a win, but it didn’t take advantage of any of them in the second half.
Of five trips to the red zone for the Mountaineers offense, they came up with one touchdown — on their first possession of the game. After, they didn’t reach the red zone again in the first half, but in the second, settled for two field goals in the third quarter.
The major woes occurred in the fourth quarter with two trips inside the 20-yard line late. Trailing 17-13, the Mountaineers came up empty both times on failed 4th-down attempts — each time on 4th and 1 when coach Neal Brown called a run-pass option and quarterback Jarret Doege elected to throw to the end zone.
“Today was on me. It came down to two fourth-quarter fourth downs in the red zone,” Brown said. “I want people to understand, I don’t regret going for it because there’s all kinds of data that says it’s the right thing to do going for it. In this league, you better score touchdowns down there to win, and it’s proven week in and week out.”
Hindsight is 20-20, and in the end, kicking two field goals in each spot would have been enough to earn the win, but Brown has proven in his two years at WVU to be analytics driven.
The first attempt midway through the fourth quarter was a toss up between field goal and going for it, and in the end, the final result was also a toss up. Doege tossed the ball up into the end zone, but tight end Mike O’Laughlin couldn’t hang on as he was hit.
With the decision to go for it earlier, the later 4th-down try was a no-brainer with just under five minutes to go. Brown used back-to-back timeouts, so the Mountaineers didn’t have any remaining. Giving the ball back to Texas after a field goal would have likely resulted in a 17-16 win for the Longhorns.
In the end, Texas was able to run out the clock anyway, and the Mountaineers were once again asking, “What if?”
The Longhorns bottled up WVU’s rushing attack most of the day as WVU averaged just 1.7 yards per attempt (43 yards on 26 carries). Star running back Leddie Brown was also held in check — 47 yards on 15 carries.
The play calls were run-pass options, but with the way Texas’ defense performed, especially the line, Doege decided it was best to drop back and pass.
“Most of our runs have some type of pass-option attached to them,” Neal Brown said. “On the (first) 4th down, we ran kind of a naked play and we felt good about it. We got them in the coverage we wanted, but we just didn’t connect. I probably would have called that regardless.”
On the second 4th down, “It was a run-pass again, I thought we may have had enough for the run, but you never know.”
For the game, WVU was 6 of 16 on 3rd down and 0 of 3 on 4th down, and while the Mountaineers moved the ball well with 360 yards of total offense, the execution when it mattered most just didn’t happen.
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