West Virginia football: 3 takeaways from huge win at Kansas State

West Virginia football traveled to Manhattan to battle it out with the Wildcats. And even though it started a new quarterback, it escaped with a 24-20 victory.

First-year West Virginia head coach Neal Brown’s mantra since taking the Mountaineers’ job in January has been to, “Trust the Climb.” He knew building the football program, especially in his image, was going to be a process. And he would be doing so with more inexperienced players than any other coach in the country. But we’ve been seeing results the past few weeks, even if the outcomes don’t end in victories.

However, against the No. 24 Kansas State Wildcats, the Mountaineers pulled out their first victory since beating Kansas in late September. They suffered five straight losses prior to beating the Wildcats, including close contests with No. 11 Texas and No. 12 Baylor, but finally got their first win versus a ranked team in the Neal Brown Era.

Penalties, however, were a huge problem for the Mountaineers. That can be expected from a young team, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. A handful of times, infractions forced West Virginia into tough situations. And while they’re improving week-to-week, they’re simply not good enough to shoot themselves in the foot and routinely overcome it.

We predicted at the beginning of November that Brown and West Virginia would find their quarterback of the future down the stretch, and in Bowling Green transfer Jarret Doege, I believe they have. He didn’t put forth a Heisman-like effort, but he did things the position’s been lacking. The defense continued to step up for West Virginia, too, with Hakeem Bailey sealing the victory with an interception on the Wildcats’ final drive.

This is a huge win for West Virginia (and an equally huge loss for the Wildcats). Here are three takeaways from the 24-20 WVU win.