WVU Football: Week One Analysis

FINAL SCORE:  WVU 48,  Villanova 21

The Villanova Wildcats came into the game with 1-5 record in the series with the West Virginia Mountaineers, but this time they had an excellent game plan. Villanova limited the amount of opportunities WVU's potent offense got by picking up small chunks of yardage for first downs.

Their drives were long, methodical and clock burning. The Wildcats have an exceptional QB in Young and were very well coached. However, even with all of that going for them they still lost by 27 points.

Most of the questions about the West Virginia Mountaineers’ football team this off-season have been centered on the lack of experience on the defensive side of the ball, but the Mountaineer defense was actually very impressive in their season opener especially considering that they were without one of their best players, LB Reed Williams who is still recovering from double shoulder surgery.

Williams was instrumental in the Mountaineers phenomenal win against Oklahoma in last year’s Fiesta Bowl, but Stewart made the decision not to play him against Villanova because he was hurting too much.

Even without Williams, the starting WVU defense only allowed 14 points, and accounted for a touchdown themselves on an 29 yard interception return by linebacker Morty Ivy with 11:29 left in the contest. The game should have ended 48-14, but Villanova called a time out with less than ten seconds remaining in order to then punch it into the end zone against WVU defensive backups.

Statistically, the game was a bit of an anomaly with Villanova winning both the time of possession battle 37:22 to 22:38 and the yardage war 399 to 354. This apparently has some WVU fans concerned, but the Mountaineers just didn't have far to go to get into the end zone and it didn’t take them very long. 

The combination of good field position and the efficiency of Pat White’s passing made it difficult to run up yardage or give the Mountaineer defense much time off of the field.

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