WVU Coaches Explain Run Heavy Attack
Eric Maier
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Is the running game here to stay or is West Virginia still a pass first team.
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West Virginia’s quarterbacks combined to throw only 27 passes Saturday, which is fewer than Geno Smith threw four times last season … in a half.
The temporary grounding of West Virginia’s Air Raid attack was designed partly to deflect pressure from WVU’s unsettled quarterbacks, partly to utilize the new subsidy of running backs, and partly because William & Mary frequently dropped eight defenders into coverage.
“We’ve got to run the ball when they’re playing off like that,” said offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson after West Virginia turned in an SEC-like run-pass ratio of 44-27. “We weren’t going to sit there and throw the ball 70 times when they had an eight-man coverage every time.
“They were really taking the top off the coverage, playing sort of an umbrella coverage.”