Preliminary notes and thoughts on West Virginia

West Virginia travels to Austin with the same 2-2 record as Texas. Their two losses were against rival Pitt and a revamped Kansas in overtime. Their two wins were over Towson and rival Virginia Tech. They have looked pretty good at times, and pretty average at times. They’re nearly as close to being 4-0 as Texas is.

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The Mountaineers opened as a 9.5-point underdog and that appears a bit curious to these eyes. Keeping in mind I’m not exactly Frank Rosenthal, that margin seems a bit wide.

Styles make fights and Texas should have a fight on its hands due to the West Virginia passing attack. Quarterback JT Daniels will make his second start in DKR. His first occurred in 2018 when he played for USC. That’s four years and a terrible mustache ago, but he’s still the same passing talent he was then. It remains to be seen how much he’s evolved as a quarterback.

Neal Brown likes to settle Daniels down with perimeter throws early in the game. Texas has done well to defend those this year. Against Virginia Tech, Daniels did struggle some finding windows in zone coverage. Hopefully that continues, because…

The biggest concern in this game for Texas will be the Texas secondary matching up against the talented, if inconsistent, WVU receiving trio of Bryce Ford-Wheaton, Kaden Prather, and Sam James. Ford-Wheaton receives most of the headlines because he is a specimen, but his +/- isn’t the greatest on the season. WVU was on its way to a probable victory against Pitt before a perfectly thrown ball from Daniels slipped through Ford-Wheaton’s hands and was returned 56-yards to put Pitt up by the decisive 38-31 score late in the game. On 3rd and 5 in overtime against Kansas, Ford-Wheaton ran a lazy route that was picked by Cobee Bryant and returned the other way. Game over. You may remember Bryant, he’s the one who robbed Hudson Card last year. He might be good.

Prather is the one who catches my attention. He’s big, but moves like a much smaller receiver. He’s smooth with good speed. Ryan Watts and D’Shawn Jamison have played well but this will be a big test, especially for Jamison. WVU will play Ford-Wheaton in the boundary or field and will look to isolate him 1-on-1 in the red zone.

Ensuring the safeties and linebackers have plenty to worry about is the slot receiver James, as well as the WVU running game. The running backs are solid. Freshman CJ Donaldson is garnering most of the headlines. He played tight end in high school which the telecast will note 10 times. He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 240 pounds but doesn’t necessarily look that big. He reminds a little of Royce Freeman, but he’s not that good. After Donovan Smith’s success last week in short yardage, will we see Donaldson in Wildcat? The other two backs, Tony Mathis and Justin Johnson like to bounce it outside.

The WVU O-line looks above average. They gave up three sacks to Pitt (along with other pressures), none to KU, and one to Va Tech when the whole line got smoked. Other than that, Daniels has had time to get the ball out more often than not. Neal Brown has singled out his center, Zach Frazier, for his assignment soundness. They’re not the biggest across the board, but they’re not small. Doug Nester at right guard looks pretty good and he does have some size. This is a very experienced group.

I used the word ‘solid’ a lot when taking notes, but I like their tight end Mike O’Laughlin. He typically lines up as a wing. They’ll zip him out into space post-snap to block for wide receivers, pull him inside to run block, sneak him out in space for receptions, etc. Good size and he gets his body in good position to block. They use a couple other tight ends as well as.

On defense, the Mountaineers often use a three-man front but they’ll also walk up their outside linebacker. Nose tackle Jordan Jefferson is quick and powerful and will give the iOL plenty to worry about. He was quite active versus the Hokies. They’ll need to double him. Dante Stills is back for only his fifth year. It seems he’s been around since stills of a different sort littered the state. He had a big game versus Pitt but has been quiet since.

Linebacker Lee Kpogba is a solid ILB, similar to Jaylan Ford. Safety Marcis Floyd is their second leading tackler. He’s a graduate transfer from Murray State.

Other than Kansas — a run game Texas can’t replicate — West Virginia has been very good against the run. This isn’t the game to stubbornly run the ball on obvious run downs.

The WVU secondary plays off coverage quite a bit so Sark should find passing opportunity underneath, to the flat, and in the RPO game. This could be a big game for Jordan Whittington and Ja’Tavion Sanders.

At the same time WVU was playing off coverage, they also let the Hokies get loose in the secondary on numerous occasions. Maybe Va Tech has a couple of Xavier Worthys, or maybe it doesn’t always require an Xavier Worthy to get open down the field.

Va Tech had trouble converting opportunities and generally shot itself in the foot too many times to count. That game was closer than the 33-10 score would indicate.

This is going to be a difficult game, especially if UT’s old habits refuse to die. Texas is going to need to play four good quarters.