Brown Explains Hail Mary Defense Personnel + What He Would Have Changed
West Virginia's 41-39 loss to Houston is a game that Mountaineer fans will never forget. WVU takes the lead with 12 seconds to go on a 50-yard touchdown pass on 4th & 10 only to be followed up by a Hail Mary as the clock hit zeroes.
"Never experienced a loss like that," said WVU head coach Neal Brown. "The game should have never came down to a Hail Mary. I felt strongly about that after the contest and even more so after watching it four or five times."
Neal is 100% right. The Hail Mary isn't the sole reason the Mountaineers lost the game. They made so many crucial mistakes throughout the night that allowed Houston to hang around and even give them a two-score lead in the fourth quarter.
But the final play of the game will always be remembered. Hail Mary's have a very low success rate, hence why they call it a Hail Mary. But how West Virginia defended that play has been heavily scrutinized. They only rushed three, had a linebacker playing either in a spy in some sort of zone that essentially took him out of the play, and WVU declined to put any of its tallest offensive players on the field. Brown explained the thinking behind the personnel and the coverage they played along with what he would have changed after re-watching it.
"We had our regular defense in because we knew they had two plays. We have a last play grouping, we didn't put it in. We didn't practice it last week, mostly because we had some injuries in it. Quit using offensive guys really I guess several years ago. If you remember when the Patriots had (Rob) Gronkowski out there, I think the Dolphins beat them. So took that and just kept defensive guys out there. And our best defensive guys are our best vertical guys anyway. Bottom line, we didn't execute. If I had to do anything over again, we would have just pressured. We three-man rushed it. Probably would have brought five."
Now, there's no reason to put three or four receivers back there at the goal line, but putting 6-foot-7 tight end Kole Taylor back there could have helped. I also agree with Brown that bringing three was a bad decision. It gave Donovan Smith all the time in the world to get a good ball off, giving his guys a chance to come down with it and get in the end zone.
The fact of the matter is, there's nothing the Mountaineers can do about it now. It's over with. They have to live with the result and try to move on. If they fail to do so, that game and that play will beat them twice.
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