WVU Football

HOW TO WATCH: WVU Football Week 9 vs. Oklahoma State

Published

2 years ago

November 6, 2021

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Two more wins. That’s all it will take for the 4-4 WVU Football team to put the program in position to play its 39th bowl game. WVU head coach Neal Brown will have to go through the No. 11 Oklahoma State Cowboys first, though. At Milan Puskar Stadium, the two conference foes will meet for the 13th time; OSU leads the series 8-4 and is also on a six-game win streak against the Mountaineers.

The Cowboys enter Morgantown riding high after a 55-3 demolishing of the Kansas Jayhawks at Boone Pickens Stadium; the week prior, an Iowa State Cyclone team issued head coach Mike Gundy’s team its sole loss: 24-21 in Ames, Ia.

Coincidentally, that same top-25 Cyclone team fell 38-31 at the hands of an unranked Mountaineer team in Week 9. That’s the wave of momentum that Brown’s team is working off of, coupled with a solid team win in Week 8, 29-17 over the TCU Horned Frogs. The 2021 Mountaineers are 2-3 in conference, compared to OK State’s 4-1 and Gundy brings WVU its fourth ranked opponent of the season. West Virginia is 2-1 when facing top-25 teams this season, and a 7-1 Oklahoma State team is another nation-leading, in-conference, hill to climb.

In terms of injury updates heading into the 3:30 p.m. kickoff, WVU will continue to miss redshirt junior tight end Mike O’Laughlin and junior cornerback Nicktroy Fortune. After a stellar showing in the Iowa State game, three receptions for 34 yards when it counted, redshirt junior T.J. Banks will fill in the tight end slot once more. The cornerback room is more complicated, as a mixture of redshirt junior Jackie Matthews and redshirt senior Scottie Young will fill in the gap that Fortune leaves.

For the Pokes, quarterback Spencer Sanders, is finally back from injury during Mountaineer game week. He’s missed the previous two WVU games due to a high ankle sprain in 2020 and a thumb injury in 2019. He also sat out the Cowboys’ 2021 season opener with COVID-19. This is the first season that Gundy will be armed with the passing quarterback at his full capacity, and it’s difficult to predict how well he’ll do against WVU defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley’s defensive schemes. It’s a defense that currently ranks No. 12 nationally in red zone defense, No. 29 in third-down defense, No. 31 in rushing defense, and No. 32 in first-down defense, and Lesley’s crew is no joke.

Today’s matchup is Military Appreciation Night. WVU quarterback Major Harris will also have his No. 9 retired on the field.