On Monday, WVU head coach Neal Brown made a passing comment about how he wishes his Mountaineers could have played Penn State right after the conclusion of last season, so his team could keep its offensive momentum going.
Little did he know at the time just how right he was.
The Mountaineer offense never came close to resembling its explosive self from 2023 during an 34-12 loss to the Nittany Lions in the 2024 season opener Saturday afternoon.
WVU’s high-flying offense reached 30 points in seven of its final eight games in 2023, but only managed 12 with one offensive touchdown on Saturday.
“My expectations for this group is very high and we didn’t come close to meeting those expectations (Saturday),” Brown said.
WVU managed just 246 yards of offense, 161 passing and 85 rushing.
“To say I’m disappointed in how we played would be an understatement,” Brown said. “We played really poorly. It was on a big stage, we were aware of that, and we played very poorly.”
Both offenses started on rocky footing Saturday — trading fumbles at one point in the first quarter — but Penn State was able to adapt and find success in a way that West Virginia failed to do.
WVU’s offense was at its best last season when the Mountaineers were able to run the ball and then take play-action shots off of it. Against Penn State, they weren’t able to run the ball — WVU averaged just 2.3 yards per carry — and so they didn’t take many deep shots. Quarterback Garrett Greene averaged 8.7 yards per pass attempt last season but only 5.75 yards per attempt on Saturday. He finished 15-of-28 for 161 yards.
I felt like Greene was handcuff for most of the game. He ran 10 times for just five yards.
“They were running a cover-one spy where they did a great job of containing me and my running ability,” Greene said of Penn State’s defense. “I should be able to beat teams with my arm.”
By containing Greene’s scrambling, Penn State not only took away his dynamic running ability, but they also limited perhaps his best trait as a quarterback, his decision making.
Whether it was making a read in an RPO, a read option or just standing in the pocket, Greene made the correct decision more often than not last season. Taking away one of those options for most of the game forced Greene, and WVU’s offense, to be fatally one-dimensional.
“I love the kid and he’ll bounce back, but he didn’t play good enough,” Brown said. “Nobody’s more disappointed than him. I believe in the kid, I believe in his preparation, but he just didn’t perform well enough today.”
WVU’s star running backs were also inconsistent. CJ Donaldson ran 12 times for 42 and a touchdown, but there were plenty or short gains and or negative plays intermixed with a handful of chunk plays.
Jahiem White ran eight times for 33 yards, but exited the game with an injury in the second quarter and gained no yards on three carries in the second half.
“Our best players just didn’t play very well,” Brown said. “We have a veteran group. There should not have been this anxiety, there shouldn’t have been this lack of execution and there just was. We were anxious, we never got comfortable and we didn’t execute.”
Penn State was experimenting on offense early on in the game. Backup quarterback Beau Pribula came in several times in packages to run quarterback power in the first half. It wasn’t all that effective, however, as Pribula converted one third down on a speed option, but failed on a two-point conversion and nearly fumbled the ball away on another keeper.
Seeing it not working, Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki stopped calling it. Instead, the Nittany Lions started leaning more heavily on Allar’s arm.
Outside of a couple of inaccurate throws, Allar played about as well as he ever has. He put up 199 yards and three touchdowns on just eight completed passes in the first half.
West Virginia was never able to make a similar adjustment to find success. A six-play, 70-yard drive in the second half was the lone bright spot as it produced the team’s only touchdown in the contest.
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance,” Brown lamented. “We didn’t necessarily beat us, we didn’t give ourselves a chance.”
West Virginia had similar offensive issues in last year’s meeting with Penn State as well. The team rebounded from that to score 56 points the following week against FCS Duquesne. The Mountaineers host FCS Albany next Saturday at 6 p.m.
“We’re not going to hit the panic button,” Greene said. “We know we didn’t execute well, I know I didn’t play good enough to beat a team like that so we’ll be back to work getting ready for Albany.”
