West Virginia football and Texas Tech tried to break the scoreboard on Saturday. Here are three things we learned from the Mountaineers’ Week 7 tilt against the Red Raiders.
Facing a tougher matchup than expected on Saturday afternoon, West Virginia football hosted a ranked Texas Tech team in a Big 12 matchup, fighting for positioning. The Mountaineers came away with a big win to improve to 4-2 on the year, beating the Red Raiders and their potent offense, 46-35.
The Mountaineers have now moved to 4-2 on the season and look like a legitimate threat on the offensive side of the ball, at least. Dana Holgorsen has a talented offense at his disposal and he used it well on Saturday afternoon to the tune of 46 yards and 352 yards through the air.
Will Grier had yet another solid game, but the Red Raiders held West Virginia to just 44 rushing yards on 29 carries — 1.5 yards per touch.
The Mountaineers will be riding a high an emotional high heading into a road game against Baylor in Week 8. What did we learn from the Mountaineers’ 11-point win over Texas Tech?
3. Texas Tech is going to scare the Big 12 front-runners
Despite losing, Texas Tech is going to be scary down the stretch for some Big 12 favorites. The Red Raiders totaled over 500 yards of offense and Nic Shimonek looks like the real deal.
The senior quarterback completed 24-of-39 passes for 323 yards and four touchdowns with an interception and he hit eight different receivers. He was calm under pressure on the road and that should be worrisome for future opponents of the Red Raiders.
Oh, and the ground game was solid, led by Justin Stockton who had 96 yards on 15 carries. Tre King had eight rushes for 67 yards and a touchdown and they totaled 190 yards on 5.8 per carry Saturday. Moreover, the run defense was strong against Justin Crawford and Kennedy McKoy.
Watch out for the Red Raiders, Big 12 contenders.
2. Will Grier can’t do it all by himself
Coming into the season, West Virginia looked to have a potentially dominant rushing attack led by Justin Crawford and Kennedy McCoy, but the Mountaineers struggled on the ground Saturday. In fact, Crawford, the team’s leading rusher, had just 47 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries.
That left the entire offensive attack on the shoulders of Will Grier. The junior quarterback attempted 41 passes while the Mountaineers carried the ball just 29 times — seven times by Grier himself (which were mostly sacks).
McKoy wasn’t much better on Saturday night as the sophomore running back ran just seven times for 35 yards. If the Mountaineers are going to have any long-term success this season, they will need to have a more consistent rushing attack like they had from Crawford in the first five games of the season.
Grier is going to get completely worn out if West Virginia uses his arm 40-50 times per game to beat a high-powered offense like Texas Tech because guess what? There are plenty of elite offenses left on the schedule for the Mountaineers to face off against.
1. Neither of these team can contend for a Big 12 title
There’s just not enough defense to go around between these two teams to make either one a Big 12 title contender. The Mountaineers allowed over 500 yards of total offense while the Red Raiders gave up 352 passing yards, but stopped West Virginia’s rushing attack.
Sure, the Big 12 has become an offensive-based conference in recent years, but there still needs to be some semblance of a defense in order to contend for a title. Even when Oklahoma’s defense struggled last year, it stepped up when it needed to.
There just might not be enough talent on these two teams’ defenses to contend for the conference title. On top of that, both already have conference losses. West Virginia has just one while Texas Tech has two. Still, it was difficult to watch as neither secondary could slow down the opposing quarterback.
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The Mountaineers have the best shot to win the Big 12 between these two teams, but will they be able to prove me wrong and go on a run? Time will tell.