West Virginia Football: 3 Takeaways from loss to TCU in Week 6

2. Defense?

Two Big 12 games took place in the 12 p.m. ET time slot on Saturday. Texas Tech blasted Kansas 65-19 and Iowa State upset No. 3 Oklahoma 38-31. Those two games averaged 76.5 points per contest. That’s the kind of game that the Big 12 is known for.

Then how in the world did West Virginia and TCU find themselves locked in a defensive struggle? The Horned Frogs forced the Mountaineers tot settle for a field goal on their first drive of the game. TCU’s lone first half score came on a fumbled on a West Virginia punt return. The Frogs would cash that in for a touchdown, but save for a missed WVU field goal the rest of the first half was spent trading punts. It wasn’t until the second half that the scoring really picked up.

While both teams were able to find some measure of success on the ground it was shade of the rushing numbers each have put up so far this season. Both defenses locked down even more tightly through the air with exception of a few second half big plays from each team.

Kenny Hill completed 15-of-28 (53.6 percent) passes for 188 yards, one touchdowns and no interceptions. On the other side, Will Grier completed 25-of-45 passes for 366 yards (55.6 percent), three touchdowns and one interception. Those are pretty paltry numbers for two of the more accurate passers in the conference.