I have such mixed feelings about this game. I wanted to be mad about the performance of WVU, but all said and done, the game was fair and well played. LSU came into Morgantown and got the job done. The Mountaineers played great on both sides of the ball, regardless of the score, only to suffer from mistakes, Costly Mistakes.
I am going to defend the game play of the Mountaineers here. If you break down the stats, Mountaineers led in almost every category. Racking up over 500+ yards in total Offense, 28 first downs, and holding the tigers to 366 total yards and only 19 first downs. Mountaineers, with all respects, came and got the job done. Unfortunately the job came with some big holes. One of the biggest things the Mountaineers had to overcome the whole game was starting field possession. At one point, ESPN showed a stat that LSU;s starting field possession was around mid-field while the Mountaineers were around there own 14 yard line. I recall LSU's punter putting the Mountaineers within their own 10 and 5 yard line at least 3, maybe 4 times in the first half alone. A team like LSU can not get the ball around the 50 yard line every possession if the opposing team expects to have a chance. WVU's defense had their work cut out for them and after 3 quarters of play, they were handling better than anyone should have expected.
Saying that, another big problem WVU had most of the night was not wrapping up. Time and time again WVU had defensive stops only to give up yards to miss tackles. The last major problem, NO RUNNING GAME. Geno had an amazing, A-mazing game. But you can not come out and throw 40, 50 times a game with no run. And, it is not like the offensive line was not doing their job. The biggest problem with the run game, I noticed, was that the running backs have no perception of where to run to. They seemed to dance around when they needed to lower their shoulders, lower their shoulders when they should have been cutting, and just simply missing the holes that were there. The offense that WVU is running requires a RB with great vision and the ability to read and make decisions. With that being said, the offensive line and the RB's provided Geno with excellent pass protection.
This game could have easily gone down to the wire and even to the favor of the Mountaineers. Even though I feel 3 of the 4 turnovers were freak turnovers, they were still turnovers in which you can not have against an LSU team. And, I think everyone would agree that the Kick Off return following the touchdown to bring WVU within striking distance was the nail in the coffin. A return that showed a tired and poor arm tackling Mountaineer team.
And so, there it is. I am very disappointed in this loss because of the costly mistakes, but the Mountaineer team that showed up Saturday night is a very talented and capable team that should win the BigEast. Mountaineer fans should be happy with their team, and overall performance.
