Morgantown, W.Va. ? Leading up to Saturday’s 33-14 victory over visiting Kansas, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen was awfully outspoken about how poorly his team played in a 31-19 loss last season in Lawrence.
Holgorsen went as far as to say that watching the tape of the game that ended KU’s 27-game Big 12 losing streak made him want to puke.
Saturday night, following his team’s third victory of the season, Holgorsen was in a much more complimentary mood about the Jayhawks (2-3 overall, 0-2 Big 12).
“I’ve been talking about it all week,” Holgorsen said. “These guys are good on defense. I thought they were good last year. If you look at all their tapes, they give up big plays every now and then. They get put in bad situations because of some other reasons. Defensively, they held their own a lot.”
After getting an extra week off to prepare for the Jayhawks, Holgorsen watched WVU (3-2, 1-1) rack up 200 yards of total offense in the first quarter while racing out to a 16-0 lead. That lead could have been a lot bigger had the Jayhawks’ defense not buckled down during the Mountaineers’ first three possessions, which all featured big plays but ended with field goals.
Holgorsen said he thought his team was fortunate in those situations that the KU offense struggled to get into any kind of rhythm.
“They’ve been put in a lot of bad situations by their offense,” he said. “I was excited about how we were moving the ball. We just weren’t finishing drives.”
That plight became even more prevalent in the second half, as KU limited WVU to just seven points — on a kickoff return by Mario Alford — and forced the Mountaineers into three punts, three drives that ended because of turnovers and another that stalled on downs.
“It got frustrating in the second half,” Holgorsen said.
