Moonshine and Miniature Defensive Linemen: A Gif Analysis of a Single WVU Game

[Katfid54 8593]

As I have a few other times this year, I watched a single game (NC State @ WVU) of our upcoming opponent, West Virginia.  Based on that viewing, I make drastic and wide-reaching claims about the strengths and weaknesses of the Mountaineers.  As you can already tell, my strategy and analysis is as flawed as West Virginia’s claim to statehood (seriously, check it out here:  West Virginia is probably unconstitutional). 

But enough self-flagellation.  Let’s get to it:

 

Coach philosophy:

After a strong, but ultimately disappointing 2018 campaign, Dana Holgorsen left the craggy bootlegging dens of Morgantown for the concrete syzzurp jungle of Houston.  The 2018 WVU squad was stacked; it saw five players drafted and had another—David Sills—be named All American.  The 2019 squad is…. not stacked.

New coach Neal Brown spells his first name wrong and has taken over the helm of the Mountaineers.  You probably remember Neal Brown from the time his Troy Spartans took down LSU.  You probably forgot that he was offensive coordinator at Texas Tech under Tommy Tuberville, following their firing of Mike Leach.  After his hiring, Tuberville fired Tech’s then-inside WRs coach, Lincoln Riley.  Brown’s OC highlights at Texas Tech featured such memorable contests as Taylor Potts leading the Red Raiders to a close win over Northwestern in the 2011 Ticket City Bowl, and literally no other games (unless you count the time they got rung up 41-7 by the Tom Herman-OC’ed Iowa State Cyclones?).

Neal Brown is technically a member of the Air Raid coaching tree, as he played under Leach and Mumme at Kentucky in the late 2000s.  But his offense is not particularly Air Raid-y, and in my viewing of a single game, I saw very few of the Air Raid staples of Yore (saw a version of mesh once, didn’t see four verts, etc.).

Brown’s coaching style appears to be:  aggression.  He has taken an underpowered WVU squad (smart of Holgo to get out while he did, by the way) and has basically cranked the intensity and aggression up to 11.  Speaking of crank, there is a crystal method to West Virginia’s madness:  His defense’s sole goal appears to be trying to force negative plays in the run game on first down to make the offense resort to predictable play calling later in the series.  Sound familiar?  It’s Orlando’s defensive philosophy.

But as you’ll see below, WVU’s defense is far less staffed for that approach.  And based on what I saw from NC State, if faced with a competent offensive attack, WVU’s aggression will likely crumble when stacked against a balanced offense.

But while WVU plays aggressive (several clips of that in the defensive breakdown below), they do not appear to be well-coached. 

They make lots of silly mistakes and mental errors that Texas can capitalize.

 

Offensive Philosophy:

I mentioned above that WVU’s personnel and depth leaves something to be desired.  The one thing Holgorsen left a lot of, though, is speed at the receiver position.  And they use it.

WVU LOVES buck and toss sweep. 

They’ll run it from any formation to any guy.

They’ll run double sweep action and try to confuse the defense on who caught the ball from the toss. 

 

QB:

WVU’s QB is Austin Kendall, who grad-transferred in from OU.  He’s no Will Grier:

Kendall has a tendency to miss throws high.  Sometimes it’s due to pressure.  Othertime, it’s due to him just being kind of shitty.

In either event, there ought to be some opportunities for our safeties and LBs to pick off stray passes on Saturday.

 

To the extent Brown is a true Air Raid disciple, you’d think he’d be able to get his offense up and running pretty easily at WVU.  But there are…. some kinks:

But just like any more experienced college QB, if Kendall gets into a rhythm, he can make some good throws.

Watch that one again, if you glazed over it.  This is actually a super savvy play in the red zone, when Air Raid offenses tend to bog down due to lack of space.  What is so special about it?  Watch Kendall cut the play action short to look at the backside post.  This takes the safety all the way from the near hash most of the way to the far hash in about a second and a half.  Now, that safety is playing run hard, so if he draws out the play action, maybe he still has a good window, but by that time, his receiver is several steps deeper into the redzone.

Here’s a view of Kendall from the safety’s perspective on this play:

Generally speaking, though, Kendall isn’t going to beat Texas, if Texas doesn’t bail him out by giving up cheap penalties.  Kendall doesn’t have the arm strength or accuracy to hit the deep bombs that Will Grier made so many teams pay with:

And when Texas has an opportunity to pick Kendall off (and there will be opportunities), they can’t shoot themselves in the foot by fighting over the ball:

I’ve said it a few times, but Kendall will give the ball away—especially if he gets pressured.  Texas should capitalize:

 

WR:

As mentioned above, WVU has speed at the WR position.  Sean Ryan (18) and Sam James (13) were their best options in the game I watched.  Neither should scare you, especially because Kendall struggles getting them the ball.

Here’s Ryan.  He’s a bigger receiver—in the Collin Johnson mold.  He still has good speed, though.  Holgorsen didn’t recruit you unless you had speed.

WVU’s best (or at least most lethal) receiver is James.  He has plenty of speed:

I mean, seriously.  Look at the separation he gets here on a very simple post-corner:

Wow.

But James, while explosive, struggles with consistency.  If he doesn’t get the separation he wants, he will drop the ball:

 

RB:

WVU’s running back is fine.  He’s #6, and his name is McCoy.  He’s not going to hurt us on Saturday, unless Orlando loses his mind in stopping the run for some reason.

 

OL:

West Virginia’s OL is significantly less intimidating than last year.  I’m not even sure how good they were last year; Grier always got the ball out so fast, it was impossible to get to him.  Things are… different… now.

WVU’s OL can sometimes hit on outside zone decently.  Theydo a nice job of working together on OZ to pass off defenders and get to the second level.  

WVU’s pass pro

 

 

Defensive Philosophy:

As mentioned above, WVU’s D is aggressive.  Their DL gets upfield on almost every play, making them susceptible to screens and traps, and their safeties try to DESTROY wide receivers, making them susceptible to PIs and targeting penalties.  Their LBs generally suck—especially in pass coverage.  No first-year DC bump here.  WVU’s LBs are just turf-guarders in the pass game. 

There are a lot of opportunities for explosive plays here.

 

DL:

As mentioned, WVU’s defensive line’s sole mission in life is to get upfield.  And that makes sense, given how undersized they are.

#55 is Dante Stills.  #56 is (his brother?) Darius Stills.  They rotate at DT/NG (depending on whether WVU shows an odd or even front).  And they both get their asses upfield:

Here’s Dante Stills (55):

He is WVU’s best DL (maybe by a lot):

But Stills is so focused on getting upfield that he is susceptible to jumping offsides:

Here’s his brother, Darius:

Seriously—look at how far upfield these guys get

Here’s where WVU’s really bad, though:  Moving laterally.  They got destroyed by NC State running outside zone

And when they didn’t get penetration, on inside zone, too:

The other thing that will punish this defense is screens… if you don’t throw the ball four feet over your RB’s head.

And if you don’t get IN FRONT of your lead blockers…

 

LB:

Linebackers might be the weakest part of the defense—especially in pass coverage.

WVU’s LBs’ gap integrity is a mess.  Just check out how haphazardly they’re running around here:

Gap integrity is a mess here.  The stand-up DE/OLB gets easily hooked by the tight end.  The playside mike backer tries to shoot a gap for no apparent reason, putting him in the wash and taking him out of the play.  And the run supporting safety tries to shoot that same gap, allowing the tackle to get to him and put a block on him.

And I can’t wait to see Braun link up with these undersized linebackers and take them out for breakfast:

Pancakes anyone?

Pass defense by LBs is rough. 

Look at 10 here—he’s just covering space.  He doesn’t commit to try and cover the inside wide receiver, and he doesn’t work over to the Y, either.  Nor does the outside linebacker lay a hand on the Y as he runs up the seam, and until the QB throws the ball, the safety is actually running away from the tight end running up the middle of the field.

Speaking of which, remember those times Andrew Beck and Sam couldn’t hook up down the seam last year against WVU?  That play will be there on Saturday, too:

Doesn’t even matter who’s throwing the ball:

Given how aggressive this defense is in pursuing the RBs, one other thing that will be there all day on Saturday, if we need to use it, is the QB read game:

 

DB:

I’ve covered a lot of ground, including some safety stuff above.  Suffice it to say, the DBs might be their most aggressive unit on the field—with feast or famine results.

They will try to lower their helmet, and they might have some guys tossed for targeting:

Given the above issues with LBs and safeties covering space instead of players, though, you ought to expect Devin Duvernay to have a big day:

This is a stick-draw concept, but the read on that outside LB is wild, because he just doesn’t move at all until the ball is thrown.  He does nothing except hop.  He doesn’t try to defend the run.  He doesn’t try to defend the pass.  He is frozen in place, except he hops a little bit.  Not a good sign.

 

Conclusion:

For some reason, WVU thinks they have a rivalry with Texas.  Oddly, they might play better in DKR than they do at home against Texas.  But WVU is going to come out fired up on Saturday.  Their fans will be fired up.  They’ll make plays on defense that put us behind the chains.  They will take advantage on offense, if we bail them out or give them free penalties.  But if Texas is methodical and assignment sound, WVU cannot stack up with the horses Texas has, and Texas should win (and cover?) easily.

[futureman 22419]

jesus how long did that take you?

[Girdwood 118]

[Hook1997 5291]

As long as we don’t run the Herman up with a lead offense of run, run, pass the whole fourth, when everyone knows what’s coming.  We “should” win by double digits. 

[Sejjr 3246]

Nice job. 

[Katfid54 8593]

3 hours ago, Hook1997 said:

As long as we don’t run the Herman up with a lead offense of run, run, pass the whole fourth, when everyone knows what’s coming.  We “should” win by double digits. 

Honestly, as long as we don't shit our pants when we have negative plays on offense (and with the way they play D, we will have a few), we ought to win going away.  WVU might be the second worst team we've played this year--ahead of only Rice.  They're pretty close to La. Tech in terms of talent and less well-coached.

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

As a tangent to that Latech needed OT to put Rice away last week. 

[RollLeft 5040]

tldr

[Tex Long 4354]

tl;dr WVU d breakdown.

You left out the important part. The line (as I type) is 10.5 or 11. Do we cover or no?

Good good good shit, btw. Only 1 rep to give, sorry.

[Katfid54 8593]

33 minutes ago, Tex Long said:

You left out the important part. The line (as I type) is 10.5 or 11. Do we cover or no?

Literally my last sentence:

15 hours ago, Katfid54 said:

But if Texas is methodical and assignment sound, WVU cannot stack up with the horses Texas has, and Texas should win (and cover?) easily.

 

[Burt Macklin 19000]

46 minutes ago, Tex Long said:

tl;dr WVU d breakdown.

You left out the important part. The line (as I type) is 10.5 or 11. Do we cover or no?

Good good good shit, btw. Only 1 rep to give, sorry.

I really think people are overestimating WVU (or underestimating Herman’s ability to cover based on past years). WVU should have lost to Kansas. They’re bad and our defense should create a ton of negative plays and some turnovers. 
 

I don’t really find Herman’s history de covering the spread very meaningful for this year. This is the first time Herman has ever had an OL that can impose it’s will in the run game since he’s been a HC and the result of that has been Herman covering against both oft he  bad  teams we’ve played this year.

I expect us to be up by 20+ early in the 4th quarter and I think our backups will be able to hold that lead well enough to cover.

[Katfid54 8593]

17 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

I really think people are overestimating WVU (or underestimating Herman’s ability to cover based on past years). WVU should have lost to Kansas. They’re bad and our defense should create a ton of negative plays and some turnovers. 
 

I don’t really find Herman’s history de covering the spread very meaningful for this year. This is the first time Herman has ever had an OL that can impose it’s will in the run game since he’s been a HC and the result of that has been Herman covering against both oft he  bad  teams we’ve played this year.

I expect us to be up by 20+ early in the 4th quarter and I think our backups will be able to hold that lead well enough to cover.

Hell, we covered against oSu and played like absolute shit for large stretches of that game (except in red zone defense, which was stout all night).

[Machinator 32098]

15 minutes ago, Katfid54 said:

Hell, we covered against oSu and played like absolute shit for large stretches of that game (except in red zone defense, which was stout all night).

We didn't cover against OSU

[Pato del Muerto 52360]

Friendly reminder that texas’ incorporation into the Union is also unconstitutional. 

[Sock Drawer 214]

4 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Friendly reminder that texas’ incorporation into the Union is also unconstitutional. 

I'm OK with us getting the fuck out. 

[sidis 9769]

1 hour ago, Burt Macklin said:

I really think people are overestimating WVU (or underestimating Herman’s ability to cover based on past years). WVU should have lost to Kansas. They’re bad and our defense should create a ton of negative plays and some turnovers. 
 

I don’t really find Herman’s history de covering the spread very meaningful for this year. This is the first time Herman has ever had an OL that can impose it’s will in the run game since he’s been a HC and the result of that has been Herman covering against both oft he  bad  teams we’ve played this year.

I expect us to be up by 20+ early in the 4th quarter and I think our backups will be able to hold that lead well enough to cover.

conference road games have not been good to us on covering in a long time.  the 2017 baylor and 2017 wvu games are the only conference road games i can think of that we have even won by double digits off the top of my head.

but at the same time, we actually did what we were supposed to do this year with la tech and rice for a change and kicked their asses.  as opposed to beating tulsa at home by the same score as we beat georgia in the sugar bowl.  so here's hoping that corner has been turned as you said.  this game still just worries me though.  lot of youth on a defense that hasn't been great and a long flight.

Edited October 4, 2019 by sidis

[Katfid54 8593]

33 minutes ago, Machinator said:

We didn't cover against OSU

Must depend on when/where you bet, because I had Texas -5.5, which covered.

[Katfid54 8593]

4 minutes ago, sidis said:

conference road games have not been good to us on covering in a long time.  the 2017 baylor and 2017 wvu games are the only conference road games i can think of that we have even won by double digits off the top of my head.

We smoked Iowa State in 2017, didn't we?  (At least as far as the 2017 team was able to "smoke" anyone.)  Didn't their QB freaking quit football after that game, because Orlando's D fucked him up so bad?

[sidis 9769]

10 minutes ago, Katfid54 said:

We smoked Iowa State in 2017, didn't we?  (At least as far as the 2017 team was able to "smoke" anyone.)  Didn't their QB freaking quit football after that game, because Orlando's D fucked him up so bad?

Smoked? 17-7. I mean, I guess it was a double digit win. But no surprise the defense played well. Orlando thrives against conventional offenses like ISU and UGA. Too bad we only play one a year.  

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

6 hours ago, Katfid54 said:

They're pretty close to La. Tech in terms of talent and less well-coached.

It's subjective, of course, but if you offered me a straight up trade between the rosters, I'd take La Tech over WVU. I like Brown as a coach, but given his style, I'm expecting this to be Texas' biggest blowout win of the season. I probably have a bigger spread on this game than anybody else who's making a serious prediction (I'm thinking I'd give WVU 30+ points on this game, honestly) simply because not only does WVU gamble, but they gamble in ways that quite specifically play into Texas' strengths.

Of course, Herman does have a history of occasionally shitting the bed against teams this bad, so wait and see, blah, blah, blah.

[Katfid54 8593]

11 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

It's subjective, of course, but if you offered me a straight up trade between the rosters, I'd take La Tech over WVU. I like Brown as a coach, but given his style, I'm expecting this to be Texas' biggest blowout win of the season. I probably have a bigger spread on this game than anybody else who's making a serious prediction (I'm thinking I'd give WVU 30+ points on this game, honestly) simply because not only does WVU gamble, but they gamble in ways that quite specifically play into Texas' strengths.

I don't disagree with you, if it were the first game of the year and we were at full strength.  Given some of our injuries right now, I think I'd take Texas up to -17 or so.

[JBJ 3649]

Thanks for posting.  I suffered through the WVU-Kansas game last night, and it's pretty much the same.

The sweep was prevalent.  It was in the script several times and wouldn't surprise me if it were the first play we see tomorrow.

They are a Cover 3 team.  The LBs will hit their landmarks, but it usually comes at the expense of redirecting seams and pattern matching anything crossing.  Two-high looks were always paired with man coverage.  Bltizes were usually exotics on 3rd down 

Upfront they are usually Under but how they set their strength is a mystery to me.  The majority of the time it was set based on the run strength instead of field or passing strength, but not always.  They apex the Will often and the Mike will cheat to cover multiple interior gaps.  Sometimes they'll slant to cover one of the vacated gaps, but sometimes not.  This leads to problems against the run, but theoretically defends well against quick screens and sweeps despite corners bailing.

Edited October 4, 2019 by JBJ

[Johnny5 1]

Bruh, how much adderall did it take you to make that post? Also where can I send my $9.95 ? 

[Valmy77 13123]

2 hours ago, Sock Drawer said:

I'm OK with us getting the fuck out. 

I'm not. 

[JBJ 3649]

46 minutes ago, JBJ said:

They apex the Will often and the Mike will cheat to cover multiple interior gaps.  Sometimes they'll slant to cover one of the vacated gaps, but sometimes not.  This leads to problems against the run, but theoretically defends well against quick screens and sweeps despite corners bailing.

There several examples above, but here's what I mean without football jargon.

The players who the (<40) is pointing right at.  He's typically in the A gap.  The middle linebacker has cheated to right behind the nose tackle to cover both the weak A gap and strong B gap.  The strong safety is Apex to the other side to presuably cover the vacated B gap.

Belpw they Apex the Will to the other side, but result is the same.  Cheated Mike easily gets washed by a good double-team, and Will way behind the play:

 

They may not empty the box like this against us, but they did it against Kansas as well as NCSt and often.  I expect Braun-cakes on the menu.

Edited October 4, 2019 by JBJ

[Poolflood 845]

I'm taking way over the line.  We win by 3 touchdowns.

[HornsOverIthaca 2333]

That was really good, but I couldn't read the whole thing as I ran out of room in my brain.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

8 minutes ago, HornsOverIthaca said:

That was really good, but I couldn't read the whole thing as I ran out of room in my brain.

That's okay, it was about West Virginia. You would have lost the extra brain cells to second hand still fumes if you had used them.

[sidis 9769]

On 10/4/2019 at 11:38 AM, sidis said:

conference road games have not been good to us on covering in a long time.  the 2017 baylor and 2017 wvu games are the only conference road games i can think of that we have even won by double digits off the top of my head.

but at the same time, we actually did what we were supposed to do this year with la tech and rice for a change and kicked their asses.  as opposed to beating tulsa at home by the same score as we beat georgia in the sugar bowl.  so here's hoping that corner has been turned as you said.  this game still just worries me though.  lot of youth on a defense that hasn't been great and a long flight.

Like I said...

I will never understand why people on this site start assuming we will look good on the road just because we get a couple of Close wins against shitty teams. But this site never learns. 

[Neonmoon 38127]

It happens every week. Some arrogant post about how we will blowout win 

All of them know shit 

[sidis 9769]

...but wvu should have lost to Kansas!!!

never learn. We are not remotely good enough to get the benefit of the doubt really ever but definitely not on the road against spread offenses with Orlando at DC.