Between The Eers: The Morning After BYU
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00:10 West Virginia winners 37 to 7 over BYU Saturday night.
00:14 This is Between the Ears, the morning after BYU and I'm Skylar Callahan.
00:19 You can find our stuff on YouTube at Mountaineers Now and
00:23 on Twitter at Mountaineers Now as well.
00:25 What a game.
00:27 The Mountaineers put together a probably the most complete game
00:33 since Neil Brown has arrived, offense, defense, special teams.
00:38 There's obviously some things that need to be cleaned up in all three of those
00:41 phases, but for the most part, they controlled every bit of this game.
00:47 And I can't remember the last time the Mountaineers did that against
00:52 a power five opponent, which is what makes this more promising.
00:58 You're playing pretty good football into the month of November, and
01:03 that's when you wanna be playing your best football.
01:05 As the year goes on, deep into the season,
01:08 you're into the last four game stretch here, and you have a chance to
01:12 do something that you've never done before as a program, and
01:15 that's to get to the Big 12 Championship.
01:16 Now, of course, there's gonna be a lot of things that need to happen in place
01:21 over the next couple of weeks in order for
01:24 you to actually get a chance to go to Dallas.
01:27 But you can only control what you can control.
01:30 And over these last two weeks,
01:32 it looks like West Virginia is ready to turn a corner.
01:36 And it sets up a huge date next Saturday night
01:40 in Norman against the Oklahoma Sooners.
01:44 They get past that one, it's looking pretty good for the Mountaineers.
01:50 So quickly on last night, I briefly discussed it on the Mountaineers
01:55 now post game show, which you can find also here on our channel with Eugene Napoleon.
02:03 But Garrett Green, man, I mean, 12 of 24, 205 yards, pair of touchdowns.
02:10 And it was just kind of like a pedestrian day for him.
02:13 It really wasn't his best performance by any means.
02:20 He didn't have to run the ball that much.
02:21 He only ran it four times for 23 yards.
02:25 But he didn't need to do it.
02:27 So there's no use in doing it.
02:28 But I think for him to evolve and
02:33 become one of the better quarterbacks in this league, he's gotta hit these easy,
02:39 easy, easy layout passes that defenses give him.
02:44 And to me, you can look at the slants and
02:49 the screens and the passes out of the flat,
02:54 the swings as those being the layups.
02:59 But to me, I'm counting everything.
03:00 I'm counting everything where a guy's open or has a beat on his guy down
03:05 the field, whether it's 15, 20 yards down the field.
03:08 Those things are still areas that trouble Garrett Green.
03:14 His accuracy, his touch on the ball.
03:18 He had Cole Taylor, I believe it was in the first half.
03:22 I think it's what led to their first punt.
03:24 Cole Taylor had first down yardage, it was past the sticks,
03:29 it was on second down, and just threw it too high.
03:32 I mean, was wide open, got a couple of steps separation off his man,
03:37 and would have had 12 yards or so, and just hit it too high.
03:42 They ended up putting on that drive.
03:45 And there was one earlier in the game to CJ Donaldson out of the backfield,
03:51 it was just too high and almost too out in front.
03:55 He had another situation with CJ where you could argue it was on CJ,
03:59 more so than Garrett.
04:00 But there's just too many of these happening in the passing game for
04:05 West Virginia.
04:06 It's gotta get cleaned up, because if you're gonna have a chance out in Norman
04:09 next week, this stuff can't happen.
04:12 Your quarterback can't go 50%.
04:15 You can get by doing that against BYU, but
04:19 Oklahoma, you're gonna have to score right there with them.
04:21 I mean, yes, they've lost two games in a row, but this is an offense
04:26 that Dylan Gabriel is in charge of that just can score in a blink of an eye.
04:31 And even though West Virginia only held BYU to seven points last night,
04:37 I wasn't particularly over,
04:41 I don't know how to explain it.
04:46 I don't think it was a factor of West Virginia just playing great defense.
04:53 I think there were some things out there that you could see,
04:56 if this happens next week, it might look a little different.
05:02 BYU was obviously with their backup quarterback in this game.
05:06 They missed a couple of guys on the offensive line and receiver room.
05:09 So they were down some pieces.
05:12 And even having that said, I mean, they were still able to move the ball.
05:18 And they just couldn't convert a few fourth downs and
05:23 kinda played behind the chains a couple of times.
05:25 But I just don't think it was, that was not West Virginia's best
05:30 defensive performance on the season.
05:32 I don't even think it was a top three defense performance.
05:37 But they found ways to get off the field.
05:40 So you gotta give them credit.
05:41 The thing that I think has to be talked about, and
05:50 I'm gonna feel like a broken record talking about this because it's fun to watch.
05:57 Is the dominant one, two kind of
06:03 thunder lightning type duo that West Virginia has in that backfield.
06:08 With Jaheim and CJ.
06:11 Jaheim's surge is going to pay off huge for West Virginia.
06:18 Like, I don't even think I can state how much that kid
06:25 is going to just open things up for this offense.
06:30 I mean, he's averaging, I mean, it seems like a first down every carry.
06:35 When you have a kid that can do that and get you yards and
06:41 be that home run type hitter, that's a backbreaker.
06:45 Especially when you're going up against CJ Donaldson and
06:48 he's giving you the business in between the tackles.
06:52 Over and over and over and over and over again.
06:55 As soon as you get tired, they throw Jaheim and bam,
06:58 there goes a 20, 25 yard pickup by Jaheim White.
07:00 Jaheim White on the season is now averaging 8.3 yards per carry.
07:11 And we're getting to this territory now with Jaheim where it's not just skewed by
07:17 numbers, that's 50 carries on the season.
07:20 That's starting to become a pretty healthy sample size.
07:24 And this is against Power Five, Big 12 competition,
07:28 most of which came against UCF and last night against BYU.
07:32 If he continues to do what he has done over these past two games and
07:39 these next three, West Virginia is gonna have
07:44 a damn good shot of going 3-0 in these three games.
07:49 I know Oklahoma, it seems like they're this unbeatable team for West Virginia.
07:54 I know they beat them last year, but to beat them out there in Norman,
07:59 it feels like an impossible feat, right?
08:01 Everyone always points to this game as a loss on the schedule.
08:07 But the way these two teams have played over the last couple of weeks,
08:11 Oklahoma losing to Kansas, losing to Oklahoma State, those are good teams.
08:17 But you have to wonder about the psyche of OU right now.
08:21 I mean, they've went from being a top team in the country that had aspirations
08:26 to go to the college football playoff to now they're just hoping they can get
08:31 a little bit of help and get into the Big 12 championship game.
08:34 So where is this team's psyche after those two losses?
08:38 Is this a team that's gonna kinda fold and throw in the towel per se?
08:45 >> I don't know if that's exactly what will happen, but
08:48 I think there's gonna be a little bit of doubt that creeps in.
08:52 For West Virginia, this is the most confident team,
08:56 this is the most confident they've been all year.
08:58 They could have folded when they lost the game to Houston on the Hail Mary and
09:05 they followed that up with the fourth quarter blown lead against Oklahoma State.
09:10 And they could have got really out of control for West Virginia, but they did.
09:13 They didn't panic, they stayed calm, they found a way to get away on the road and
09:19 they bounce back or they come back home to face BYU and get a dominating win.
09:25 And now they believe they're as much as a part of this Big 12 race as anybody,
09:30 and they are.
09:31 So they are legitimately one game away, in my opinion,
09:36 because Cincinnati is probably
09:40 worse off than BYU in terms of their depth.
09:47 I honestly thought BYU would score some more points in this game and
09:52 give them a little bit more of a fight.
09:54 But look, Cincinnati's in a tough spot.
09:57 They've got some depth issues, they got quarterback problems.
10:01 They're just fighting to get to the end of the season at this point.
10:04 And Baylor, I don't know what the hell's going on in Waco.
10:10 I mean, that team is one in six at home.
10:12 A one in six record at home for
10:16 a team that just won the Big 12 a couple years ago.
10:19 I have no idea what's going on there.
10:24 I'm gonna have to look in deeper to their situation.
10:27 I haven't watched a ton of Baylor this year.
10:30 I will probably after this week's game against Oklahoma to kind of get ahead
10:35 on that final game.
10:35 But if West Virginia wins this game against Oklahoma next week,
10:41 I feel pretty good in saying that they have a more than
10:47 55 or so percent chance to finish the season nine and three.
10:56 Or excuse me, not 55, 75% chance.
11:01 That's saying something for a team that again was picked 14th in the Big 12 to
11:07 start the season, and they're gonna have a chance to be there in Dallas,
11:12 playing for the damn title at the end of it all.
11:15 So it's gonna be a lot of fun this weekend.
11:21 And I know a lot of people kind of already feel like this game is a loss for
11:27 West Virginia.
11:28 And I understand why, but there's something different about this game.
11:34 And I'm not saying they're gonna win.
11:35 I'm not saying they'll play them close.
11:38 Who knows what will happen?
11:39 But I think there's a valid point
11:45 to feeling good going to normal because of the way they play offensively.
11:57 That was the biggest issue early on in the season was this offense.
11:59 If they didn't play like this offensively or since the bye week, really,
12:06 I don't think you would have any sort of confidence going into this game.
12:11 But they seem to figure those things out.
12:14 The defense didn't play tremendous, but they did play good against BYU.
12:19 They played well at times at UCF.
12:25 You feel like there's something starting to brew here and percolate.
12:31 So we'll see what happens when West Virginia heads out to the plains to take
12:36 on the Oklahoma Sooners and what is an elimination game of sorts for
12:42 the Big 12 title race.
12:43 So West Virginia 37, BYU 7.
12:47 I'll be back here in a couple of days with Chris Hall as we break down the keys to
12:52 the game for the Mountaineers against the Sooners on how West Virginia beats Oklahoma.
12:56 And then on Thursday, I'll be back here with Eugene as we get into our preview and
13:03 prediction of the game on the walkthrough game day show presented by Country Roads.
13:07 Air duct cleaning, take me home to comfort.
13:10 So that'll do it for me here today.
13:13 Make sure you hit that subscribe button on YouTube at Mountaineers Now.
13:16 Follow us on X at Mountaineers Now and
13:19 I'll be having my Sunday morning thoughts article out here in just a few moments.
13:25 Or if you're watching this later in the afternoon on Sunday,
13:27 it's already out.
13:28 Go to the website at Mountaineers Now and check it out.
13:31 Talking about meaningful football in November.
13:34 It's the first time that's happened in a long time.
13:38 So we'll talk about it all week long.
13:41 We'll have you covered all the way up into the Oklahoma game and after.
13:46 So we appreciate you guys for tuning in to another week of game coverage here
13:50 on Mountaineers Now.
13:51 We hope you join us for Oklahoma week.
13:54 So thank you guys for watching.
13:56 Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and we'll see you here in a couple of days.
13:59 Take care.
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