Ray Anthony Vallorani
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MORGANTOWN, WV—Mistakes, mistakes, and bigger mistakes led to turnovers, turnovers, and another painful loss. From winning four straight games and possibly getting ranked two weeks ago, the West Virginia Mountaineers find themselves on a two game losing streak and sinking fast. The defense has fallen on bad times forgetting the fundamentals.
Rising Oklahoma State star Ollie Gordon II carved the Mountaineer defense for 282 yards and four touchdowns. 149 of those yards came in the second half along with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. “I’ll always stay humble. You’ve got to stay hungry,” Gordon said after the game. Gordon now has four straight 100 yard rushing performances.
“Crazy fourth quarter,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of a game like that. This one stings more than even the one last week” (referring to the 41-38 last second loss to Houston on a Hail Mary pass). “We don’t have a lot of depth at linebacker, and we had some young guys out there tonight,” he added.Â
On the bright side the offense gained 473 yards mainly on the strength of quarterback Garrett Greene’s running and passing. He completed 15 of 30 passes for 249 yards and two touchdowns and ran 16 times for 117 yards. Junior Justin Johnson Jr. contributed 72 yards on 14 carries, while Preston Fox led the WVU pass catchers with four grabs for 81 yards.
“Garrett played his tail off, and he was the reason we had a chance,” Brown said. WVU will be without the services of Hudson Clement this week. Brown said he should be ready to return next week. The Mountaineers will be challenged against UCF in Orlando this coming Saturday. Even though UCF is 0-4 in the conference, it means nothing. UCF only lost by two points at Oklahoma last Saturday 31-29.
The Mountaineers are now 4-3 overall and 2-2 in the Big 12 Conference. If the defense can’t pull it together and play like it did during the first five games then WVU will be lucky to finish at 6-6.