Well Mountaineers as tough as this defeat was it started out like it could really get away from West Virginia very quickly. However after the Buffaloes jumped out to a 14-0 lead 5 minutes into the 1st quarter West Virginia settled down and this turned into a very tight game that the Mountaineers ultimately found a way to lose 17-14 in overtime.

I feel there were several disturbing things about the Mountaineer offensive play calling and execution in this contest but we may have seen the young West Virginia defense come together as a unit. After Buffaloes sophomore quarterback Cody Hawkins connected with Josh Smith on a 38 yd touchdown in their opening drive the Mountaineer offense turned the ball over on their 3rd play from scrimmage when freshman Bradley Starks didn't secure the football after catching a screen pass from Pat White and Colorado took over at the West Virginia 28 yd line and 5 plays later Hawkins hits junior tight end Patrick Devenny with a 13 yd TD pass and just like that it's 14-0 and the Colorado crowd is going nuts, the Buffaloes are a "mile high" and at that point it was hard not to think, man this could get away from us so easily and turn into an ugly rout on national teleivison.

However.....The West Virginia defense was able to get past that very difficult first 5 minutes and settle down and start making some plays and following their assignments and the Buffaloes were held off the scoreboard for the rest of regulation. The defense got a big boost with the return of star linebacker Reed Williams who had missed the first two games of the season recovering from off season shoulder surgery but lost a key player when sophomore linebacker J.T. Thomas was "Knocked Out" in the games 3rd play when he made helmet to helmet contact with Colorado tight end Maurice Cantrell. At first it appeared it could be a very serious injury such as a broken shoulder or at least a dislocation but it looks as though he will be fine as he was on the sidelines with the team in the 2nd half.

For the balance of the game the Mountaineer defense was aggressive and under control getting good pressure on Colorado quarterback Cody Hawkins most of the night, they also had good lateral movement and quick pursuit to the football all night long. To me this was the most important aspect in a game that we let slip away. For this defense with so many new starters to "come of age" in a road game far from home against a very solid football team was a very good sign. Does this mean the defense will be "lights out" the rest of the season? of course not, even in this contest they still allowed 365 yards of total offense. That being said I believe it does mean that the new defensive starters are understanding what they are supposed to be doing and that is the most important realization for any young player.

The special teams were very special throughout this game as well. We had all heard about the Buffaloes Josh Smith who already had 6 returns of more than 40 yards and a touchdown but the West Virginia special teams contained the Colorado speedster to just 15 yds on 4 punt returns and 66 yards on 3 kickoff returns. On the other side WVU had 102 yards on just 4 returns. Pat McAfee averaged 44.3 yards per punt with just a 3.8 yd average return and all 3 of his kickoffs were into the endzone. In all an outstanding performance.

The worst part of this difficult loss was the inconsistent offensive play calling and execution as well as the untimely penalties. In this game West Virginia racked up 91 yds on 7 penalties with at least 4 of those penalties coming a critical times. the worst of the game came during a 2nd quarter interception return by Reed William. Williams picked off the pass at the Mountaineer 40 yard line and returned it to the Colorado 26 but a personal foul penalty against WVU walked off at the point of the foul moved the football all the way back to the West Virginia 36 yard line, a 38 yard swing in field position.

Offensively West Virginia did what they generally did in the Rich Rodriguez era, they ran the football. In fact they ran for 311 yards which was always how wins were measured in the Rodriguez years, what was the statistic something like 58-2 in games when we rush for at least 300 yards. The problem is that even in the Rodriguez era the Mountaineers could at least throw the football a little bit to support the run. I find it strange that after watching Pat White complete 25 of 33 passes for 208 yds and 5 TDs against Villanova in just a couple games we have now become so terrified of throwing the football that we are even a more one dimensional offense than we ever were under Rodriguez!!!

It is great to see pat White run for 145 yds and a pair of TDs and for Noel Devine to rush for 133 yds in the same game but to complete just 10 passes for 43 yards is a joke. This football team will have no chance of beating Auburn, South Florida or even Louisville if that does not improve dramatically in the next few weeks. West Virginia has 3 very winnable football games in a row beginning with Marshall next Saturday followed by Rutgers on October 4th and Syracuse on October 11th, all at Mountaineer field. That's three football games to get the kinks worked out of this offense before hosting Auburn on October 23rd.

There is no reason this football team, with a senior leader at quarterback like Pat White, cannot throw for at least 120 yards a game and keep the defenses honest. It was amazing to me that the only times we attempted to throw downfield were the hail mary at the end of regulation time and the halfback option pass that Bradley Starks could not get to a wide open Jock Sanders. I guess all the talk about improving the offense was just talk. If this veteran coaching staff is going to suddenly become frightened of the pass because we had a bad game throwing against East Carolina then it will be a Long season.

Another clear concern is short yardage offense. It would appear we miss Owen Schmitt much more than we do Steve Slaton. Owen was of course always a threat that defenses could not overlook and his blocking was always very important to springing Pat White of one of our tailbacks for big gains. We do not have an Owen Schmitt or even a cheap clone of Owen Schmitt on this football team. They need to find someone with some size to put in the backfield that can be a threat to pick up the tough yards. West Virginia was just 3 of 13 on 3rd down conversions in this game and just 12 of 34 on the season. at least half of those conversion attempts in the Colorado game were from 4 yards or less which were pretty much automatic pickups for Mountaineer teams the past few seasons. At times the offensive play calling has been suspect at best during these 3rd down conversion attempts but as I stated earlier we do have a few games against teams with considerably less talent in which to correct some of these glaring concerns.

It was a shame the way this game ended and that after playing such a strong game Pat McAfee would miss the short field goal but there is no way to tell how the game would have turned out even if he had made the kick. It could have been 2 or 3 overtimes, who knows but the bottom line is we had plenty of time to get in position to win the game in regulation time but our veteran coaching staff made some major mistakes in clock management as if we were playing for the overtime. When you get the football with 2:09 left and 2 timeouts and you let 20 seconds at a time roll off the clock and then end regulation with a wounded duck pass and leave a time out on the board??.

I guess I do need to say something about coach Bill Stewart. I have read a lot to bashing of him on various message boards and even on my own message board there were calls for him to be fired and concerns about the program for the next 6 seasons while coach Stewart has a contract. I will say I was not in favor of the hire because you should never give someone a coaching job based on one emotional bowl game victory. There have been times so far this season in each game where coach Stewart has appeared confused on the sidelines and that is a concern, the embarrassing clock management at the end of the Colorado game rivals anything I have seen in a high school football game, not to mention the end of the 1st half where it appeared as if coach Stewart was attempting to "outwit" another high school coach with this "call time out with 3 seconds left and force a punt" Coach Hawkins most likely got a chuckle out of that as he simply had the punter take one step forward after taking the snap and down the ball to end the half. Did you really think a major college coach would punt in that situation?

Having said all that coach Stewart has some growing pains as a major college head coach but he has surrounded himself with veteran assistant coaches and I believe that those assistants may help him through these tough times and get this program back on track. There was major improvement in most areas of the game between the East Carolina game and this one and as concerning as it is that this Mountaineer offense has scored just 17 points in the last 2 games let's see what happens in these next three home games before Auburns comes in We will certainly know much more about coach Stewart and his staff after those games.

Until next time........Let's GOOOOOO Mountaineers!!!!!!!!!!!!