West Virginia Football: 3 takeaways from Mountaineers’ win over Texas Tech
By Phil Poling
1. Jury’s still out on WVU as CFP contender
The West Virginia Mountaineers staked their claim to the College Football Playoff committee on Saturday. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t know.
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Holding a high-octane offense like the Red Raiders to only 10 points in one half of football is resume-worthy, but the Mountaineers’ second half performance didn’t quite hold up. They spent most of it on defense because the offense was in neutral and got worn down by a quarterback who could utilize his legs.
The Mountaineers looked like world-beaters in the first half, doing seemingly whatever they wanted offensively. But something changed at halftime. Something mentally, because Texas Tech all of a sudden didn’t have better players than the Mountaineers; however, they did outplay them.
The offense looked about as bad as they possibly could in the third and fourth quarters.
Their second-half drives looked like this:
3 plays — punt
8 plays — missed field goal
5 plays — punt
3 plays — punt
6 plays — punt
Onside kick recovery — kneel
That’s not an encouraging sign moving forward for an offense who touts the best quarterback in all of college football and possibly the best group of wide receivers in the country, as well.
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If the Mountaineers want to be taken seriously as a College Football Playoff contender, they’ll need to put together two respectable halves of football in the same game. They were lucky to escape Lubbock, Texas, with their 42-35 victory.