After falling to 3-4 in a season that held so much promise and had so much expectation, I was concerned about them traveling across the country to have a showdown in the desert in Tucson with the Arizona Wildcats. The Eastern teams do not often fare well when they fly out west for games. This of course will be the norm now that Arizona and Arizona State and both in the Big 12 WVU will be going to Tucson or Tempe every other year. How ever the Mountaineers surprised me and played a reasonable good football game for 3 and a half quarters before the coaches tried to run out the clock with a 31-13 lead and nearly blew the game forcing the Mountaineer offense to make two clutch 1st down plays at the end of the game to keep from giving the ball back to the Wildcat offense which had score on 3 straight 2nd half possessions.

This game saw WVU take the opening kickoff and travel 48 yards on 12 plays before the drive stalled at the Wildcat 9 yard line and they took a 3-0 lead on a 45 yard Michael Hayes field goal. On the ensuing possession the Wildcats senior tailback Quali Conley fumbled at the WVU 19-yard line and the Mountaineer offense would mount their best drive of the night going 81 yards on 10 plays before taking a 10-0 lead on a 14-yard TD run by holder Leighton Bechdel on a fake field goal. I was stunned to see that kind of imagination by the Mountaineer coaching staff.

The Wildcats would come back on the ensuing possession with a 14 play 75 yard TD drive of their own cutting the lead to 10-7 on a Quali Conley 1 yard run. Not to be outdone the Mountaineer offense would come right back on their next possession driving 75 yards on 8 plays and take a 17-7 lead on 3 yard TD pass to hometown hero Hudson Clement from Nicco Marchiol. That was all the scoring in the first half.

The Wildcats would get the ball to start the 2nd half and punt after only 3 plays. The EERs would take the punt at the Wildcat 38 and 8 plays later C.J. Donaldson would go 20 yards for a WVU touchdown and at the 7:59 mark of the 3rd quarter it was 24-7 EERS and things were looking pretty good.

After both teams traded punts, the Wildcats would get back on the scoreboard again driving 65 yards on 6 plays ending with a Noah Fifita pass to Sam Olson for 23 yds for a TD and with 1:18 to go in the 3rd quarter the Wildcats cut the Mountaineer lead to 24-13. On the ensuing possession the WVU offense would add another touchdown driving 75 yards on just 5 plays and take a 31-13 lead on a beautiful 54-yard strike from Nicco Marchiol to Traylon Ray for the score. At this point I figured this game was over and WVU may actually even run away from the Wildcats and win by 4 touchdowns or more. However….

On their next possession the Wildcats went 75 yards on 13 plays to close the gap to 31-19 on a Noah Fifita pass to Tetairoa McMillan for 34 yds for a TD. On their next possession the Mountaineers offense would go 3 and out after a holding penalty negated a 12 yard Jahim White run. After taking the punt the Wildcats offense would once again drive 71 yards on 6 plays ending with a Noah Fifita run for 3 yds for a TD and 4:34 to go in the game this was all of a sudden a 5 point WVU lead at 31-26 and I was almost certain they would have to give the ball back to the Wildcat offense which had scored touchdowns their last 3 possessions of the 2nd half and lose this game after having built a 31-13 lead in the 4th quarter.

The EERs would take the ensuing kickoff needing 2 first downs to be able to run out the clock. On the 3rd play of the series Jahim White went 3 yards off tackle for a first down with just 3:04 to go in the game. Arizona had 2 time outs and the 2 minute warning to work with in a effort to save time for their offense to work some last second magic. After the Wildcats used their final time out with 2:08 to go Marchiol would find Jaylon Anderson who had just entered the game for the first time on a 9 yard out pass for a 1st down and that was the game as WVU was able to go to victory formation and run out the clock.

It was a tedious victory but WVU did travel all the way too Tuson Arizona to get a much needed road victory to move to 4-4 on the season. With a road trip to Cincinnati and back to back home games with Baylor and Central Florida before ending the regular season in Lubbock against Texas Tech. WVU could certainly win 3 of these games and maybe all 4 to finish 8-4 and go to a decent bowl game. It would still be a disappointing season they way they lost at home to the quality teams they played earlier. Its true that WVU faced the toughest stretch of any team in the Big 12 or any Power 4 Conference for that matter. Their 4 defeats were to teams with a combined 27-1 record at the time. Penn St was 7-0, Pitt was 7-0, Iowa State was 7-0 and the Kansas State Wildcats were 6-1. Tough stretch for sure but WVU was supposed to be really good as well, especially on offense and they simply didnt hold up their end getting pushed around on Mountaineer Field by 3 of those schools. It was simply unacceptable.. So the Mountaineers will travel to Nipart Stadium to face the Cincinnati Bearcats on November 9th. Hopefully it will be a good game and WVU will get most of their injured players back for that contest.

In a recent development WVU has fired their Defensive Coordinator Jordan Lesley. This is clearly because of how the defensive secondary has play all season. In the last 3 games the WVU defense has surrendered 99 points, much of which came via deep passes downfield with Mountaineer defenders completely out of position. Is Jordan a scape goat for Head Coach Neal Brown? Perhaps but at least they addressed the clear need for change in the defense. Apparently Linebackers and Special Teams coach Jeff Koonz will replace Lesley as the Defensive Coordinator. Koonz served as Defensive Cooordinator at Cincinnati in 2016. No announcement has been made about who will back fill the coaching vacancy at Special Teams and Linebacker. Koonz will have two weeks to make some adjustments before the team travels to Cincinnati to take on the Bearcats at Nipart Stadium. Hopefull coach Koonz can make a difference.