Holgorsen pleased with defense, coaching staff

The Mountaineers put on a show in Charlotte after a low scoring first half.

West Virginia scored on three straight drives right out of the half, but the defense made some key plays to keep Tennessee out of the end zone.

In the post game press conference Holgorsen was extremely pleased with the defensive performance,

“It was good. I wasn’t happy with our critical downs in the first half. We had a hard time- there were two possessions where we had a hard time getting on the field , and they drove down the field and scored twice. We played good defense, just critical downs weren’t what we wanted them to be. I was really happy with the way the d-line played. I think you saw that. I think we have different people there this year. Having some older guys brings some presence back to that side of the ball.”

When asked about how the team handled the lengthy weather delay he responded, “Watched football games, ate two bananas, had a couple cold beverages and then obviously made a whole bunch of adjustments. There’s only so much you can do. It was about an hour, I believe. Those things are usually 12 minutes, so we can’t just sit there and talk to the players because you need to let them relax and get away from it a little bit as well.”

“It took us probably two quarters to settle down and make adjustments and we did a really good job of that in the 2nd half. Really happy with the way the coaching staff approached it.” Holgorsen continued.

With tonight’s victory, West Virginia has won its last 15 games when leading at the half. Despitel the slow start, the necessary adjustments were made at the half which led to the offense clicking on all cylinders.