West Virginia Produces Another Lackluster Road Performance
Ames, IA - The West Virginia Mountaineers suffered their sixth loss of the season and dropped to the bottom of the of the Big 12 Conference standings following a 31-14 beatdown to the Iowa State Cyclones Saturday evening.
“The story of our game was the inability if our offense to move the ball at all,” said WVU head coach Neal Brown. “Stats are putrid. Gave ourselves no chance to win the game. Credit Iowa State. They’re really good on defense. They’ve been really good on defense for a while and they may have their best unit this year, but we got nothing going.”
West Virginia mustered up only 41 yards of offense in the first quarter. Iowa State managed its first touchdown drive to start the second quarter, going 86 yards on 13 plays to go up 10-0.
The Mountaineers constructed a touchdown drive late in the second quarter. Quarterback JT Daniels kept the drive alive on third and seven, scrambling to his left and finding Sam James crossing over for 17 yards. Daniels later found Bryce Ford-Wheaton in the endzone from 25 yards to cut into 10-7 into halftime.
The West Virginia offensive woes continued in the second half, producing 24 yards but the defense kept the Cyclones off the board.
“I thought defensively we hung in there. I thought we played really well through three quarters. I was disappointed gave up some rushing yardage to them, but we gave ourselves a chance to win defensively.”
Iowa State Cyclones defensive lineman Tyler Onyedim (11) takes down West Virginia Mountaineers running back Justin Johnson Jr. (26) during the third quarter in the Big-12 showdown at Jack Trice Stadium Saturday, Nov. 5. 2022, in Ames, Iowa. Ncaa Football Baylor At Iowa State
Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK
The defense won the field position battle heading into the fourth quarter, forcing a punt on fourth and seven. However, looking to make a play, Reese Smith went for the block, missed, hit the punter and was called for it for 15 yards and the first down. Three plays later, Iowa State was in the endzone.
“The roughing the punter penalty was huge. It’s a 10-7 game at that point we had a chance to get the ball back around midfield,” said Brown. “That was obviously the play of the game. They scored there and took control of the game.”
“We were playing so bad on offense that I thought we had a good as chance to make a play on that,” added Brown. “I mean when you think about it, it was towards the end of the third quarter, other than the last drive, we had nothing going.”
Iowa State grabbed the momentum and ran with it, scoring 21 fourth quarter points while WVU got a late touchdown.
The offense had its worst output of the season, although not by much, recording a mere 200 yards of total offense.
“We wasn’t in sync together as a team, as a unit, honestly,” said receiver Sam James. We missed a lot of opportunities on the field.
The Mountaineers were missing their top two running backs, CJ Donaldson and Tony Mathis Jr. but Brown dismissed it as the offense’s problem on Saturday.
The offense has lacked a pulse on the road. The Mountaineers have been outscored 117-44 the last three games and have been outgained 1,062-662
“We have the talent, we got the players, we just have to go out and execute, honestly,” said James.
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