Oklahoma's Secondary Preparing to Face Familiar Challenge With West Virginia's Offense

The Mountaineers brought in new faces at offensive coordinator and quarterback, but OU is still expecting high volume from the passing attack.

West Virginia is going to provide a different kind of stress to Oklahoma’s defense than Baylor did a week ago.

Dave Aranda’s Bears wanted to keep the ball on the ground, trying to bowl over the OU defense with a run game centered around the outside zone play.

By contrast, the Mountaineers are going to take to the skies this Saturday in their bid to upset the Sooners (5-4 overall, 2-4 Big 12).

West Virginia (3-6, 1-5) coach Neal Brown made some offensive staff changes this offseason, bringing in Graham Harrell to call the plays.

Most recently the offensive coordinator at USC, Harrell deploys a diverse passing attack that held learned as the quarterback at Texas Tech.

Harrell’s arrival coincided with the transfer of JT Daniels from Georgia to Morgantown, reuniting the duo from Daniels’ days playing for the Trojans.

Daniels’ throwing ability has been immediately put to use. Harrell has called on the former 5-star recruit to throw the ball 35 times a game, and Daniels has completed 61.3 percent of his passes for 2,042 yards, 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

The changes to the WVU offense aren’t totally foreign to the Sooners defense, however. Elements of the playing style under Harrell have drawn parallels to Mountaineer offenses that have faced Oklahoma in the past.

“Super Air Raid,” OU linebacker DaShaun White said after practice on Monday. “They’ve kind of been the same for some time now. Obviously different personnel. They’ve always loved the Air Raid and take the top off everybody. They have a great receiving group that will present a lot of challenges and we have to be ready for them.”

Oklahoma will have to bottle up wide receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton, who caught eight balls for 93 yards last year in Norman.

Ford-Wheaton is the leading receiver for the Mountaineers this year, hauling in 51 passes for 605 yards and six touchdowns.

Limiting the West Virginia passing attack will start with good communication on the back end of Oklahoma’s defense.

The Sooners rank No. 73-overall in the country in passing defense, allowing 235.3 yards per game, and they can’t afford any breakdowns to post an improved showing in Morgantown.

“We just have to be better overall,” OU cornerback C.J. Coldon said on Monday. “… Everybody has to communicate on the defense in order for us to be successful out there on the field. We’ve just got to communicate and that sets us up to be in the right spots.”

When the Sooners have been in position over their past three games, they’ve been able to come up with big plays in the passing game.

Oklahoma has come down with six combined interceptions against Kansas, Iowa State and West Virginia, as the unit has simultaneously found ways to give the ball back to the OU offense while building belief in pass coverage.

“We’ve just got to play confident week in, week out. That’s all it is,” Coldon said. “Just coming into the game very confident by our preparation and listening to our coaches and being prepared every week, every day.”

On the whole, West Virginia have had a roller coaster season.

But the best performances for Brown’s Mountaineers have come at home.

WVU is averaging 47.8 points per game this season at Milan Puskar Stadium in large part due to the excellent play of Daniels in Morgantown.

“He throws a great deep ball,” OU defensive coordinator Ted Roof said of Daniels. “He doesn't panic in the pocket, and he's done a good job of throwing under direst.

“He hangs in there, trusts his protection and gets rid of the ball. Regardless of the situation, pressure or no pressure, he's a tough, gutsy competitor.”

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