MORGANTOWN - Jeff Casteel seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time during the preseason and the first few games of West Virginia's football season attempting to lower expectations for his defense.
MORGANTOWN - Jeff Casteel seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time during the preseason and the first few games of West Virginia's football season attempting to lower expectations for his defense.
Granted, there was a really good reason. Everyone seemed to want to talk about how great the group was, how it might be the school's best in years, if not ever.
If you're a defensive coordinator trying to keep your guys humble and hungry, as Casteel is, who needs all that lavish praise? Shoot, accentuate the negative, not the positive, at least until these guys prove themselves.
Well, four games into the season, they have.
True, none of the offenses the Mountaineers have faced to date are going to win many awards. That includes the offense of what is now the No. 12 team in the country, LSU. The Tigers are winning in spite of their offense, not because of it. Coastal Carolina is 67th in the FCS in total offense. Among the big boys, Maryland, Marshall and LSU are 87th, 83rd and 102nd, respectively.
And, of course, there will remain the pesky issue of covering the deep ball. You know the facts. Marshall completed a 96-yard touchdown pass. Maryland struck for 60- and 80-yarders. Even LSU had a shot and managed to draw a pass interference flag against Brandon Hogan on what otherwise might have been a 62-yard score.
Still, consider that against Maryland the Mountaineers were on defense for 51 plays. On the 49 that didn't go for long touchdowns they gave up 77 total yards.
Marshall ran 56 plays against West Virginia and on 53 of those gave up just 184 yards.
As for LSU, the Tigers ran 59 plays and gained just 230 yards.
In other words, subtract five plays from the season and West Virginia's defense has given up 491 yards on 161 plays against FBS opponents, an average of three yards every time the ball is snapped.
MORGANTOWN - Jeff Casteel seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time during the preseason and the first few games of West Virginia's football season attempting to lower expectations for his defense.
Granted, there was a really good reason. Everyone seemed to want to talk about how great the group was, how it might be the school's best in years, if not ever.
If you're a defensive coordinator trying to keep your guys humble and hungry, as Casteel is, who needs all that lavish praise? Shoot, accentuate the negative, not the positive, at least until these guys prove themselves.
Well, four games into the season, they have.
True, none of the offenses the Mountaineers have faced to date are going to win many awards. That includes the offense of what is now the No. 12 team in the country, LSU. The Tigers are winning in spite of their offense, not because of it. Coastal Carolina is 67th in the FCS in total offense. Among the big boys, Maryland, Marshall and LSU are 87th, 83rd and 102nd, respectively.
And, of course, there will remain the pesky issue of covering the deep ball. You know the facts. Marshall completed a 96-yard touchdown pass. Maryland struck for 60- and 80-yarders. Even LSU had a shot and managed to draw a pass interference flag against Brandon Hogan on what otherwise might have been a 62-yard score.
Still, consider that against Maryland the Mountaineers were on defense for 51 plays. On the 49 that didn't go for long touchdowns they gave up 77 total yards.
Marshall ran 56 plays against West Virginia and on 53 of those gave up just 184 yards.
As for LSU, the Tigers ran 59 plays and gained just 230 yards.
In other words, subtract five plays from the season and West Virginia's defense has given up 491 yards on 161 plays against FBS opponents, an average of three yards every time the ball is snapped.
Sure, on those other five plays West Virginia gave up 320 yards and three touchdowns. But if you're a defensive coordinator and you have to work on something, wouldn't you prefer to be working on eliminating what happened on five of 166 plays over three games rather than what teams were doing to you on 88 other rushes or 73 other passes?
Consider the defense's performance at LSU. While everyone has his favorite punching bag while trying to explain away that 20-14 loss - go ahead, pick one: turnovers, offensive inefficiency in the clutch, special teams, coaching - don't even think about targeting the defense. Playing in one of the toughest stadiums in the country against a Top 25 team, West Virginia's defense was mainly responsible for giving up three points.
Three. That's it.
The Tigers scored one of their two touchdowns on a punt return. They got a field goal after an interception and the other touchdown after a fumble. On those two post-turnover possessions combined, LSU gained 16 yards and didn't pick up a first down. Even with momentum and that crowd squarely on their side, the Tigers needed four plays to barely get into the end zone after a fumble at the 7-yard line.
And even on the three points the defense was primarily responsible for giving up, LSU had to drive 14 plays, go 72 yards, take advantage of that pass interference penalty and then avoid a near interception by Sidney Glover. And yet the Tigers couldn't get into the end zone with a first-and-goal.
Still, Casteel is not ready to anoint this group - which now ranks seventh in the country in total defense - as anything special, which is a good thing. Keep 'em humble. Five of the eight offenses the Mountaineers will face the remainder of the season are ranked statistically higher than any they have faced to date (although none are ranked in the top 50, which bodes well). There remains the annoying potential for those big plays.
Even in light of a magnificent performance at LSU, Casteel was able to find flaws, like giving up a 13-yard run on third-and-14 after the interception to allow the Tigers to get back into the outskirts of field goal range (49 yards).
"They're always a work in progress,'' Casteel said. "When we turn the film on we see a lot of things that we've got to get better at. The good thing is they play hard, they're physical and they try to swarm the football. My hat's off to them. They're doing the things that we need them to do.
"We just have to go back and look [at the tape of LSU]. And it'll be a tough one to watch because we had a chance to put away a good team and it got away from us. But I think it's something to build on.''
Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.
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