West Virginia Looks to Bounce Back vs. Oklahoma State
Morgantown, WV - The West Virginia Mountaineers (4-2, 2-1) welcome the Oklahoma State Cowboys (4-2, 2-1) Saturday afternoon at 3:30 and airing on ESPN.
Oklahoma State captured wins over Kansas State and Kansas in its last two outing after dropping back-to-back games, highlighted by puzzling home loss to South Alabama where they accumulated a mere 208 yards of total offense. Since then, the Cowboys have averaged 458.3 yards in the last three games.
“I think Oklahoma State is one of the hottest teams in the country, and I really credit coach Gundy and his staff,” said West Virgina head coach Neal Brown. “They had a low point - they get beat at home by South Alabama, and South’s got a bunch of good athletes, but they’ve rebound well. They went up to Ames, lost a close game, took a bye week, and off that bye week, they’ve won two games versus ranked opponents – played both of them at home. You can tell during that bye week is they went back and really simplified what they were doing on offense and defense. Really impressed with the turnaround they made, and you can tell they are playing with a lot of confidence right now.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The key to the Cowboys turnaround is quarterback Alan Bowman. The senior has averaged 283 yards through the air, including tossing for a season-high 336 yards and two touchdowns in the upset win over Kansas last week, marking his first 300-plus passing game since 2020 when he was the signal caller for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, which came in a loss to Oklahoma State.
Ollie Gordon leads the Oklahoma State rushing attack with 534 yards on the season (6.1 ypc) and a team-high four touchdowns while also contributing in the passing game, hauling in 17 receptions for 180 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s a complete back,” said WVU defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley. “[He’s] Big, fast, strong, good vision, runs powerful, [a] hard tackle, especially when he gets going.”
Jaden Bray has a team-leading 296 receiving yards on 23 receptions while Brennan Presley leads the team in receptions with 27 for 217 yards and a team-best three touchdowns.
Linebacker Nickolas Martin leads the team in tackles with 54, including a team-high eight tackles for a loss and a team-leading four sacks.
Safety Cameron Epps has a team-best two interceptions and linebacker Collin Oliver leads the team with five pass deflections.
“Oklahoma State can do a lot of drop eight, they try to clog a lot of the passing lanes and they give you the illusion that you should be able to run the ball with light boxes and then you hand the ball off and they find a way to funnel seven or eight guys around the ball,” said WVU offensive coordinator Chad Scott.
West Virginia is looking to rebound from a heartbreaking loss to the Houston Cougars on the final play of the game on a Hail Mary, snapping the Mountaineers’ four-game winning streak.
The game should have never came down to a Hail Mary, and I felt strongly about that right after the contest, even more so after watching it four our five times,” said Brown.
Quarterback Garrett Greene tossed a career-high 391 yards and two touchdowns in the loss.
“He played extremely well, probably as good as we’ve played at the position here in a long time, and he still left some plays out there, but he played really, really well,” Brown said. “Running the football, his decision-making – that’s the best in a game situation his decision-making has been. We put a ton on him in the run read game and in the throw game.”
Sep 9, 2023; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers quarterback Garrett Greene (6) runs the ball during the second quarter against the Duquesne Dukes at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports
Receiver Devin Carter had his best game as a Mountaineer against Houston with five receptions for 116 yards. Hudson Clement leads the team in receiving yards with 298 yards on 12 receptions and a team-high four touchdowns and tight end Kole Taylor has a team-leading 18 receptions for 228 yards.
The Mountaineer rushing attack has been steady but has lacked explosive plays. However, the group is sixth in the Big 12 Conference in rushing, averaging 185.7 yards per game. CJ Donaldson leads the running back room with 103 carries for 414 yards, averaging 4.0 yards per carry.
Defensively, the Mountaineers had their worst outing, allowing five touchdowns, the most since the season opener at Penn State, and 393 yards of total offense while special teams gave up a kickoff return. The unit ranks fifth in rush defense (119.0 ypg) and pass defense (226.0 ypg).
Middle linebacker Lee Kpogba leads the team in tackles with 46, BANDIT Hershey McLaurin and defensive lineman Mike Lockhart have a team-best 4.5 tackles for a loss apiece, d-lineman Tomiwa Durojaiye leads the team in sacks with three and cornerback Beanie Bishop has a team-high two interceptions.
Oklahoma State leads the all-time series 9-5.
You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us on X:
Facebook - @MountaineersNow
X - @MountaineersNow and Christopher Hall @WVHallBilly
