West Virginia football: 3 takeaways from Eastern Kentucky beat down
By Phil Poling
2. Special teams needs work
West Virginia special teams won’t enjoy watching this film. They gave up a kick return touchdown. They muffed a punt. They committed multiple penalties on both kick offs and punts. But none of their mistakes cost them — yet.
Against a good team, these plays will be the difference between a win and a loss.
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The kick return touchdown, however, was negated by off-setting penalties. And Alec Sinkfield pounced on his own bobbling of the punt. The penalties could be attributed to the speed of a live football game, something that was hard to prepare for with the unique offseason. The good thing is that these are all correctable mistakes. Plus, who wants to be absolutely perfect the first game?
Great teams are always trying to improve, and this will provide Brown and the Mountaineers that same opportunity.
The punt team did down a kick inside the five yard line, off the foot of Troy transfer Tyler Sumpter. And while punting should never be the highlight of one’s special teams, it’s nice to see the redshirt senior get his feet wet in Morgantown.