From WVU's SID
Liberty Postgame Notes
September 12, 2015
Liberty played its first game against a Big 12 opponent in program history and the Flames are
now 1-5 all-time against FBS opponents under head coach Turner Gill.
Liberty played the game in front of 52,899 fans, the third largest crowd to see a Liberty football
game in program history.
DE Chima Uzowihe finished the game with a sack, moving him into a tie for first place in Big
South Conference history with 20.5 career sacks.
WR Darrin Peterson moved into fourth place on Liberty’s career receptions (159) and receiving
yards (2,411) list during the game.
QB Josh Woodrum moved into third place on the Big South career total offensive yards listing
(8,379 career yards).
WVU Notes:
Al-Rasheed Benton earned his fi rst career start today. A total of 32 Mountaineer players have at least one career start.
WVU denied Liberty a point until the Flames scored a touchdown at 4:35 in the third quarter, giving the Mountaineers
seven straight quarters of shutout play (dating back to WVU’s 45-37 loss to Texas A&M at the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on Dec.
29, 2014). WVU last played seven straight quarters of shutout play in 1997 (vs. Rutgers 48-0 W, Oct. 4; at Maryland, 31-14 W,
Oct. 11).
The WVU defense held Liberty to 92 rushing yards, the fi rst opponent to not gain 100 yards rushing since Kansas State
gained one yard rushing on Nov. 20, 2014.
With two fi eld goals today, Josh Lambert pushed his career total to 52, moving him into a tie with Charlie Baumann (1985-
88) at No. 4 on the Mountaineers’ career fi eld goals made chart.
Skyler Howard’s 21 pass completions matched his career high, fi rst set at Iowa State in 2014.
Howard has now thrown three touchdowns in three of his four career starts.
Howard’s fi rst quarter, 34-yard rush was a career long.
Shelton Gibson’s second quarter, 52-yard touchdown reception was WVU’s fi rst 50+ yard touchdown catch since Howard
connected with Mario Alford for a 53-yard score against Kansas State on Nov. 20, 2014.
Wendell Smallwood’s two touchdowns were a career single-game best.
Since 2000, WVU is 94-12 when scoring 30 or more points in a contest
WVU Quotes
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen
Those guys are well coached. They have good players who are going to win a bunch of games. I am really impressed with those guys and the attitudes that they have. They have good players. They are going to win a bunch of ball games. I really want to commend them.
I thought our guys played pretty good. Offensively, I think we made strides. We had zero turnovers for the second straight game. I think everybody is pretty fired up about that. The completion percentage was pretty high. I think Skyler did a good job putting the ball in play. They played way off by the nature of their defense. The big plays that we were able to get last week, those plays weren’t available this week. When we play teams like this, we have to do a good job at putting the ball in play. I think we did that.
Defensively, we had another shutout in the first half. I think we all are a little disappointed with giving up some of those plays and the amount of points that we gave up in the second half. Teams are going to score. There are a lot of good players out there that are going to do that, and we have to learn how to handle that.
I thought special teams were solid. We continue to make strides on that. We are 2-0. Our goal is to be 2-0 after this point in the season, and we are.
On the running game getting some traction
The running game is trying to get some traction. We had 172 yards. It’s about four yards a carry, which is pretty average. I am very happy with it. If we are going to try and take some negatives from this victory then I am going to take some other questions. There is going to be a whole bunch of things that we are going to go back and look at on the film, and say that we need to do a better job. It’s week two. We are a working progress.
On the shorter passing game
It was a completely different game plan than what it was a week ago. This was pretty much the game plan going into that game, and we had to adjust it based on the fact that they outnumbered us in the box. This team was going to play way off of us, and make us take our time going down the field which I thought we did okay at.
On redshirt senior linebacker Jared Barber
He felt pretty good this morning. He probably could’ve played, but we made the decision that it’s a long season. I thought Al-Rasheed Benton played really good last week. By having depth and having a guy like Al that played so good last week, it allows us to do that. That’s going to be beneficial over the course of the season. If this would’ve been a higher profile game, Jared probably would’ve played. He’s going to be out there on the field no matter what, but we are going to need him healthy for the year. Going into a bye week, we want to get him 100 percent healthy for the Maryland game.
On junior quarterback Skyler Howard taking care of the ball
I’m not trying to jinx him. It’s the first thing I said to Mike and Mike over here. It’s why I bought into him in the offseason. Looking back at the turnover percentage that he did and all of his snaps as a sophomore was better than anybody I have ever coached. The lack of turnovers is key. He had one turnover in five and half games now. That was the number one thing with me wanting to go with him. He does a great job at taking care of the ball. It’s disappointing that we didn’t get any turnovers defensively after how many we got last week. We had five last week, and didn’t have any today. That’s kind of disappointing, but the fact that we continue to take care of the ball offensively is good. He’s a big part of that, and it takes a lot of work being able to take care of the ball. A lot of this run game stuff that we are doing increases the likelihood of that ball being on the ground. It takes a lot of work. We committed to it, and both of those guys are doing a good job with it.
On how exciting it is running a lot of the younger guys on the field
It’s huge. This is the second week in a row that we were able to do it. I was a little disappointed giving up those points in the third quarter because we would’ve been able to put more people in there defensively if that wasn’t the case. It’s always good to play those guys. Receiver-wise, we committed to doing it earlier than that. They played a lot in the second quarter.
Liberty coach Turner Gill
I give a lot of credit to West Virginia. They are a good football team. They did a great job playing the game. I thought our guys continued to fight. They did a good job playing all four quarters. Obviously, West Virginia was the better team. We’re going to learn from this game. We’re going to move forward. I expect our guys to be ready to play next week. Again, it’s a good football game for us, good environment. It’s a learning process for our young guys. I guarantee you our guys will be ready to play. We are going to make sure we give God the glory. We appreciate what God gives us each and every day. Again, to God be the glory.
On WVU’s Skyler Howard
He’s a good football player, a good quarterback. He did a lot of good things. Very efficient in his passing game. Very accurate. He ran that offense very good. They were patient. They didn’t have a lot of deep balls thrown down the field. Again, kind of talked about it going into the game. We have to tackle well and we didn’t do that. When you don’t tackle well, they are going to have some big plays for us. Again, we’ll keep on going. I tip my hat off to Skyler. He did a good job.
On why Darrin Peterson didn’t play in the second half
He has a little bit of an injury. We’re going to evaluate a little bit here and see what the details are. We’ll go from there. I don’t think it’s anything serious. I just kept him out. He could’ve played. I just decided to keep him out.
On what he liked about Liberty’s second half performance
When you go out and have opportunities to score touchdowns, we had three field goals we missed. You hope you’re going to have some touchdowns. If we had one or two touchdowns out of those three drives, then I think the game is going to be a little bit different. If we make the field goals, I think the game might be a little bit different as we come down toward the stretch. But again, they’re a good football team. They did a good job. They did what they had to do defensively and offensively.
Liberty Postgame Notes
September 12, 2015
Liberty played its first game against a Big 12 opponent in program history and the Flames are
now 1-5 all-time against FBS opponents under head coach Turner Gill.
Liberty played the game in front of 52,899 fans, the third largest crowd to see a Liberty football
game in program history.
DE Chima Uzowihe finished the game with a sack, moving him into a tie for first place in Big
South Conference history with 20.5 career sacks.
WR Darrin Peterson moved into fourth place on Liberty’s career receptions (159) and receiving
yards (2,411) list during the game.
QB Josh Woodrum moved into third place on the Big South career total offensive yards listing
(8,379 career yards).
WVU Notes:
Al-Rasheed Benton earned his fi rst career start today. A total of 32 Mountaineer players have at least one career start.
WVU denied Liberty a point until the Flames scored a touchdown at 4:35 in the third quarter, giving the Mountaineers
seven straight quarters of shutout play (dating back to WVU’s 45-37 loss to Texas A&M at the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on Dec.
29, 2014). WVU last played seven straight quarters of shutout play in 1997 (vs. Rutgers 48-0 W, Oct. 4; at Maryland, 31-14 W,
Oct. 11).
The WVU defense held Liberty to 92 rushing yards, the fi rst opponent to not gain 100 yards rushing since Kansas State
gained one yard rushing on Nov. 20, 2014.
With two fi eld goals today, Josh Lambert pushed his career total to 52, moving him into a tie with Charlie Baumann (1985-
88) at No. 4 on the Mountaineers’ career fi eld goals made chart.
Skyler Howard’s 21 pass completions matched his career high, fi rst set at Iowa State in 2014.
Howard has now thrown three touchdowns in three of his four career starts.
Howard’s fi rst quarter, 34-yard rush was a career long.
Shelton Gibson’s second quarter, 52-yard touchdown reception was WVU’s fi rst 50+ yard touchdown catch since Howard
connected with Mario Alford for a 53-yard score against Kansas State on Nov. 20, 2014.
Wendell Smallwood’s two touchdowns were a career single-game best.
Since 2000, WVU is 94-12 when scoring 30 or more points in a contest
WVU Quotes
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen
Those guys are well coached. They have good players who are going to win a bunch of games. I am really impressed with those guys and the attitudes that they have. They have good players. They are going to win a bunch of ball games. I really want to commend them.
I thought our guys played pretty good. Offensively, I think we made strides. We had zero turnovers for the second straight game. I think everybody is pretty fired up about that. The completion percentage was pretty high. I think Skyler did a good job putting the ball in play. They played way off by the nature of their defense. The big plays that we were able to get last week, those plays weren’t available this week. When we play teams like this, we have to do a good job at putting the ball in play. I think we did that.
Defensively, we had another shutout in the first half. I think we all are a little disappointed with giving up some of those plays and the amount of points that we gave up in the second half. Teams are going to score. There are a lot of good players out there that are going to do that, and we have to learn how to handle that.
I thought special teams were solid. We continue to make strides on that. We are 2-0. Our goal is to be 2-0 after this point in the season, and we are.
On the running game getting some traction
The running game is trying to get some traction. We had 172 yards. It’s about four yards a carry, which is pretty average. I am very happy with it. If we are going to try and take some negatives from this victory then I am going to take some other questions. There is going to be a whole bunch of things that we are going to go back and look at on the film, and say that we need to do a better job. It’s week two. We are a working progress.
On the shorter passing game
It was a completely different game plan than what it was a week ago. This was pretty much the game plan going into that game, and we had to adjust it based on the fact that they outnumbered us in the box. This team was going to play way off of us, and make us take our time going down the field which I thought we did okay at.
On redshirt senior linebacker Jared Barber
He felt pretty good this morning. He probably could’ve played, but we made the decision that it’s a long season. I thought Al-Rasheed Benton played really good last week. By having depth and having a guy like Al that played so good last week, it allows us to do that. That’s going to be beneficial over the course of the season. If this would’ve been a higher profile game, Jared probably would’ve played. He’s going to be out there on the field no matter what, but we are going to need him healthy for the year. Going into a bye week, we want to get him 100 percent healthy for the Maryland game.
On junior quarterback Skyler Howard taking care of the ball
I’m not trying to jinx him. It’s the first thing I said to Mike and Mike over here. It’s why I bought into him in the offseason. Looking back at the turnover percentage that he did and all of his snaps as a sophomore was better than anybody I have ever coached. The lack of turnovers is key. He had one turnover in five and half games now. That was the number one thing with me wanting to go with him. He does a great job at taking care of the ball. It’s disappointing that we didn’t get any turnovers defensively after how many we got last week. We had five last week, and didn’t have any today. That’s kind of disappointing, but the fact that we continue to take care of the ball offensively is good. He’s a big part of that, and it takes a lot of work being able to take care of the ball. A lot of this run game stuff that we are doing increases the likelihood of that ball being on the ground. It takes a lot of work. We committed to it, and both of those guys are doing a good job with it.
On how exciting it is running a lot of the younger guys on the field
It’s huge. This is the second week in a row that we were able to do it. I was a little disappointed giving up those points in the third quarter because we would’ve been able to put more people in there defensively if that wasn’t the case. It’s always good to play those guys. Receiver-wise, we committed to doing it earlier than that. They played a lot in the second quarter.
Liberty coach Turner Gill
I give a lot of credit to West Virginia. They are a good football team. They did a great job playing the game. I thought our guys continued to fight. They did a good job playing all four quarters. Obviously, West Virginia was the better team. We’re going to learn from this game. We’re going to move forward. I expect our guys to be ready to play next week. Again, it’s a good football game for us, good environment. It’s a learning process for our young guys. I guarantee you our guys will be ready to play. We are going to make sure we give God the glory. We appreciate what God gives us each and every day. Again, to God be the glory.
On WVU’s Skyler Howard
He’s a good football player, a good quarterback. He did a lot of good things. Very efficient in his passing game. Very accurate. He ran that offense very good. They were patient. They didn’t have a lot of deep balls thrown down the field. Again, kind of talked about it going into the game. We have to tackle well and we didn’t do that. When you don’t tackle well, they are going to have some big plays for us. Again, we’ll keep on going. I tip my hat off to Skyler. He did a good job.
On why Darrin Peterson didn’t play in the second half
He has a little bit of an injury. We’re going to evaluate a little bit here and see what the details are. We’ll go from there. I don’t think it’s anything serious. I just kept him out. He could’ve played. I just decided to keep him out.
On what he liked about Liberty’s second half performance
When you go out and have opportunities to score touchdowns, we had three field goals we missed. You hope you’re going to have some touchdowns. If we had one or two touchdowns out of those three drives, then I think the game is going to be a little bit different. If we make the field goals, I think the game might be a little bit different as we come down toward the stretch. But again, they’re a good football team. They did a good job. They did what they had to do defensively and offensively.