COLUMN: WVU bought again to its successful methods towards UCF

In Saturday’s win over UCF, West Virginia appeared much more just like the staff that began the yr 4-1 than the staff that collapsed every of the final two weeks.

“We had been actually near being a 6-1 staff coming into this recreation and now, we’re actually near being a 7-1 staff,” WVU coach Neal Brown mentioned. “However we’ve been resilient, we’ve been capable of bounce again when unhealthy issues occur.”

The Mountaineers bought again to working the ball, its protection held up late, particular groups had been stable and the staff as an entire prevented making any main errors.

“It was massive,” quarterback Garrett Greene mentioned. “We haven’t actually performed an entire recreation, offense protection and particular groups. I really feel like we type of performed an entire recreation (Saturday) apart from, on the offensive aspect, that two-minute drive earlier than the half.”

Greene had been Mr. All the things for the WVU offense every of the final two weeks, racking up 438 and 366 complete yards within the earlier two video games.

He lastly bought some assist Saturday as WVU’s working backs broke out of their lul. CJ Donaldson has his finest recreation in over a month, working for 121 yards and a landing. Freshmen Jaheim White had 85 yards on simply 9 carries and a rating of his personal.

For his half, Greene nonetheless had 211 complete yards, 156 passing and 55 dashing, and scored three dashing touchdowns.

WVU’s protection additionally considerably rebounded to its early-season type. Regardless of UCF selecting up yards at will, the Mountaineers held the Knights to simply 21 factors earlier than a garbage-time landing boosted it to twenty-eight. In addition they compelled 4 takeaways, one thing the Mountaineers haven’t finished nicely in any respect just lately.

“In the course of the two video games that we dropped, we all know we’ve bought to take the ball away,” mentioned cornerback Bishop, who snatched two interceptions towards the Knights. “We haven’t actually been capable of create takeaways so we type of harped on that.”

Brown described the Mountaineers as disciplined, elementary, robust and bodily and all 4 of these sides confirmed up Saturday.

WVU was whistled for simply 4 penalties, two coming very late, after committing 13 mixed within the final two weeks’ defeats.

For fundamentals, WVU blocked very nicely, solely dropping yards on two performs.

“I believe that exhibits up in time of possession as a result of we’re not doing issues to harm ourselves,” Brown mentioned.

WVU out-possessed UCF 36:06 to 23:54. Donaldson entered the sport averaging just a little greater than three yards per carry, however averaged 7.1 on Saturday and had season-long runs of 21 and 32 yards.

For toughness, look no additional than the truth that the Mountaineers performed in addition to they did regardless of coming off of two main disappointments.

“The group is de facto resilient and I instructed them this, we earned this on Tuesday and Wednesday,” Brown mentioned. “Once we introduced them again on Tuesday morning, they’d vitality.”

That is the type of staff that WVU must be the remainder of the season. Not a staff that piles up yards and factors and performs flashy, however a staff that does the little issues proper and stays out of its personal approach.

If they’ll try this, like they did on Saturday, the Mountaineers will win extra video games down the stretch than not.