Behind Enemy Lines: West Virginia Defense

We already looked at WVU’s offense. Now let’s look at the driving force behind its 6-0 record thus far: A surprisingly elite defense halfway through the season.

Defense

Coach Gundy mentioned Monday that the defense is “playing as good as anyone in the conference, maybe comparable to the top ten teams in the country defensively.” This unit will be Rudolph’s toughest test to date as they rank second in the league in scoring defense and is third in yardage allowed, holding the potent offenses of TCU and Texas Tech to just 27 combined points over the last two weeks.

They uniquely run what’s called the 3-3-5 stack, with five defensive backs on the field. They’re very aggressive, blitzing a lot and throwing off opponents with how different the fronts look in a defense that’s uniquely built to slow down the spread attacks of today.

One of the opportunities the Cowboys will have is when they blitz, they’ll often put their secondary in what’s called cover zero, leaving a lot of one-on-one matchups that appeal to the likes of James Washington, Jhajuan Seales and Jalen McCleskey. The trick will be getting Mason enough time to get the ball downfield, let’s take a look at who will be putting some pressure on him.

The leader of the defensive front (and perhaps that side of the ball) is dominant end Noble Nwachukwu. All-Conference caliber end Nwachukwu leads the Mountaineers in sacks and has five tackles for loss and provides the consistency needed when you only have three down linemen. This season has seen nose tackle Darrien Howard emerge, leading defensive linemen with 23 tackles and four tackles for loss.     

At linebacker, redshirt freshman David Long has surfaced after taking the starting spot from a redshirt senior in conference play as a very physical player that alters the opponent’s run game. Former walk on Justin Arndt leads the team in tackles and seems to be all over the field.

The defensive backfield took a strong hit when it’s only returning starter (and who Coach Holgorsen called their best player) Dravon Askew-Henry was lost to injury before the season started. In stepped five new starters, some as junior college players (corner Rasul Douglas, safety Kyzir White), grad transfers (Antonio Crawford from Miami, Maurice Fleming from Iowa) and players who have been in the program for a good while (seniors Jarrod Harper and Jeremy Tyler).

The rotation has been solid, good for fourth in the conference in pass defense. It’s going to take a big day from Rudolph and The President to give the Cowboys a fighting shot at pulling the upset against this secondary. OSU averages 41.1 points per game and should be their best challenge to date.

Some keys to this game will be if the opportunistic Cowboy defense can force some turnovers against an offense that doesn’t turn over the ball often (only eight turnovers on the season, good for 20th in the country) and the Cowboys can keep pressure off QB1.

Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman said it best that “OSU needs to protect Mason Rudolph. That’s the key to the game. WVU has a great blitz package. It runs a three-man line, so it can drop eight and confuse a QB. But it also can blitz from all kinds of places and confuse a QB. Rudolph is under the gun.” If Justice Hill and Chris Carson can take some pressure off of no. 2, that could go a long way.