Injury Riddled Mountaineers Can’t Hang on Late

Matchup
1st Downs	26	12
3rd down efficiency	6-14	6-13
4th down efficiency	3-3	0-0
Total Yards	372	190
Passing	229	149
Comp-Att	19-30	19-25
Yards per pass	7.6	6.0
Interceptions thrown	1	1
Rushing	143	41
Rushing Attempts	43	28
Yards per rush	3.3	1.5
Penalties	4-30	6-53
Turnovers	1	3
Fumbles lost	0	2
Interceptions thrown	1	1
Possession	36:11	23:49

Morgantown, WV – There was some optimism surrounding the West Virginia Mountaineer Football program heading into the game against Iowa State Saturday. The Mountaineers were possibly a couple of plays away from upsetting the No. 11 Texas Longhorns last week and the mood around the fan base over the week was upbeat, especially after finding out leading receiver Sam James was going to be available.

As game time approached, the mood begins to shift as it was evident that starting corner Keith Washington was going to be out along with running back Martell Pettaway.

“He (Keith Washington) wasn’t able to practice all week. Hurt it midway through the fourth quarter last week versus Texas”, explained head coach Neal Brown. Also adding that it was a muscle injury and he couldn’t run for full speed.

As for Pettaway, Neal said that the plan for him is to take a redshirt.

“He hasn’t had the type of year that he wants to have or we that we want him to have,” stated Brown. Some of that is limited opportunities, some of that is that he hasn’t been as productive as he or we would like him. He’s in a unique situation because he only played three games his freshman year. He and coach Scott and I have been having ongoing discussions and if everybody stays healthy, we plan to redshirt him.”

On West Virginia’s opening drive, quarterback Austin Kendall dropped back to pass and as he drew back to throw on third and two, he was hit in the arm and the ball was knocked out. Fortunately, the ball was recovered by tight end Mike O’Laughlin. However, Austin Kendall’s arm hung motionless as he walked off the field. Austin didn’t come back to the field until the second half and that was with his arm in a sling.

“The good thing is it’s not an arm or shoulder injury,” said Brown. “It’s more in his chest area, so we’ll know more after 24 hours or so where he’s at.”

That gave an opportunity to Jack Allison. The last time he made an appearance he threw an interception late in the Missouri game and was immediately pulled from the game. Although Jack put together a better outing on Saturday evening than we have seen from him.

Allison was efficient and engineered a 14-play 76-yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 14 right before half going 6-7 through the air for 77 yards as TJ Simmons hauled in three of the passes for 51 yards and the touchdown.

“Offensively, we just struggled,” stated Brown. “They beat us in some one-on-one situations upfront. We struggled to get the run game going versus some decent box numbers. It’s tough to ask of Jack (Allison). I thought the drive before the half was really productive by him, but it’s tough to go in and play when you’ve had limited reps. It’s tough to ask of him, but I thought he did some good things.”

West Virginia was completely shut out in the second half and was held to just 44 yards of total offense. A large part had to do with the Iowa State defense. The other reason was Allison was limited to what the coaching staff felt he was able to do. Though Allison was efficient hitting 75% (18-24) of his passes, he only threw for 140 yards on the day.

“We were doing some things different,” explained Brown. “You kind of get into a catch-22 where when you get into a game plan week and you have to do some things to give yourself some opportunities against somebody who’s pretty good on defense. You have to do some different things. When you do different things, you want to make sure that your starting quarterback is getting a ton of those reps. Jack didn’t get a lot of reps so we kind of had to right there in the middle of the first quarter kind of change and basically went to some plays that we thought he was comfortable with. I think it’s tough when a backup quarterback has to come in and play in a game. I think it’s a tough ask for them. A lot of times, it’s hard to really get a feel for how they played because in college football, you don’t get as many reps just from a time standpoint. I thought he was prepared to play, and I thought he did under the circumstances did an okay job.”

This was another game the defense played good enough to win. However, they’re still losing some key moments. Iowa State was 3-3 on fourth downs on the day and penalties at crucial moments continued the Cyclones momentum.

“I thought defensively, we struggled on third down,” stated Brown. “That’s probably the biggest negative. We struggled getting off the field. They converted all three of the fourth downs and a lot of third downs. We had some penalties that hurt us on that side of the ball, too. One PI, one hands to the face there that hurt us on one drive in particular. But I thought defensively we gave them some issues schematically. They were one of the top offenses in the country and I thought we did a pretty good job of holding them in check – 372 yards. They ran the ball better late, but they struggled early. Some of that’s fatigue. We couldn’t get much going offensively in the second half. That’s probably an understatement.”

Freshmen got a lot of playing time on the defensive side of the ball. Nicktroy Fortune started in place for the injured Keith Washington. Tae Mayo came in for the other corner Hakeem Bailey in the third quarter – who was ejected for targeting. They showed their youth at times, but they also displayed their playmaking abilities.

Arguably the biggest play of the day came from spear safety Tykee Smith on a pick-six. ISU quarterback Brock Purdy set up a screen to the right side but went off the hands of running back Kene Nwangwu into the arms of Smith and he raced 19-yards into the endzone.

“I thought our guys played hard, said Brown. “I thought they played physical. We just ran out of gas. Defensively, if you looked out there much in the second half you saw two true freshmen playing corner. You saw true freshmen rotating in a lot at safety and you saw a true freshman playing spear. We had a true freshman playing nose a lot. I thought we battled.”