dpWest Virginia and TCU enter Saturday’s noon matchup at Amon G. Carter Stadium with three losses.
Both teams have been exceptional in one phase and struggled mightily in another, with the Mountaineers having great difficulty generating defensive stops while the Horned Frogs have found scoring tough to come by all season.
That means something has to give when the two teams clash at noon in a matchup airing on ESPN2.
WVU (4-3, 1-3 Big 12) has scored no fewer than 24 points in any game, 31-plus in all but one and enters with the No. 18 scoring offense among 138 FBS teams at 38.6 points. The Mountaineers have scored at least three touchdowns in every game and have the No. 5 rushing offense in college football at 272.4 yards, along with a quarterback in Michael Hawkins Jr. fresh off a 464-yard passing performance with five touchdowns in a 45-42 triumph against Cincinnati.
Hawkins is the nation’s leader in yards per completion (18.3) while ranking second in rushing touchdowns (14) and points scored (84).
“They’re playing really fast like everybody used to and they’re really pretty simple in what they do,” TCU head coach Sonny Dykes said. “It’s a great scheme. I mean that. I’m a big believer in simplicity, because simplicity leads to high-quality execution, and that’s what they do. They execute and the guys know what to do. They’re good at what they do. They’re really smart and intentional about getting the ball to playmakers. When you can execute like they do, it puts a ton of pressure on you.”
TCU (3-3, 1-2) is tied with New Mexico for the fewest touchdowns allowed (8) of any FBS team, and though the Horned Frogs have yet to surpass 31 points in five games against FBS competition or score more than 17 in four games against power conference opponents, their defense has kept them squarely in every contest and they’ve yet to allow more than 17 in a game.
“As athletic up front as anybody that I’ve seen in the last couple years,” WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Very athletic and can make you look silly, so you have to stay out of third-and-longs. That’s when they do a lot of their stuff — their different blitzes and games. We have to be able to run the ball better than we ran it Saturday, but that’s going to be a challenge, because they’re pretty stout against that as well. We have a big week to get ready.”
Save for victories against Grambling and Arkansas State, each of TCU’s four other games has been decided by one or two possessions, including last Saturday’s 17-6 win at Baylor when the Bears were held to 310 total yards and completed 22-of-53 passes while failing to find the end zone.
The Horned Frogs have allowed 44 points across three Big 12 games and 59 in matches against power conference opponents, while surrendering an average of 12.2 points halfway through their regular season.
TCU has allowed opponents to convert 30.2 percent (26-of-86) third downs for the season, including 3-of-25 tries when needing at least 10 yards.
While WVU has the second-most plays of 20 or more yards among all FBS teams at 50, the Horned Frogs have allowed the fifth-fewest of any team nationally at 14.
A native of nearby Dallas, Hawkins has been among the most impressive quarterbacks in all of college football. The Oklahoma transfer has completed 83-of-144 passes for 1,519 yards with 10 touchdowns and one interception. He’s also the 12th-leading rusher in FBS with 749 yards on 143 carries.
“He’s an athletic guy,” Dykes said. “They force you to get a lot of people in the box to stop the run and then they throw the ball over your head and they throw it to guys that can make you miss and create opportunities to get guys in space. You have to tackle. This is probably going to be the biggest challenge for us from a tackling standpoint, because they do spread the field so much and they have guys that can create after they get their hands on the ball. It’s a way different offense than we’ve seen at any point this year. They’re pretty unique in what they do.”
Tailback Cam Cook is the Mountaineers’ leading rusher and No. 7 in FBS with 833 yards on the most carries of any player in the country with 168. Cook, who previously played two years at TCU and then one at Jacksonville State, will have his work cut out against a TCU rush defense limiting the opposition to 92 yards per game and 2.9 yards per carry.
“You’re going to have to play in a lot of space at the line of scrimmage, and what I mean by that is with the quarterback-run game and what they do getting the ball on the edge with jet sweeps and all the different things, you’re going to have to play a lot more gaps than what it looks like you’re having to play,” Dykes said. “It’s very different than what most people do for those reasons. Really pretty unique in college football and they’re just really good at what they do.”
Half of the Horned Frogs’ 18 touchdowns scored this season came in a 63-7 win against Grambling, and their offense has struggled sustaining drives and maintaining rhythm.
Quarterback Jaden Craig, a Harvard transfer, is 129-for-193 for 1,694 yards with 10 touchdowns and five interceptions.
Tailback Jeremy Payne has 429 rushing yards on 88 carries but will miss the matchup with an injury.
Wideout Ed Small and Kari Ashley have been Craig’s favorite targets. Small has 35 receptions for 494 yards and two TDs and Ashley shows 29 catches for 392 yards and four scores.
Playing an eighth straight Saturday in advance of its first and only bye week this season, West Virginia’s defense looks to slow a Big 12 offense for the first time all season.
To this point, the Mountaineers are allowing an average of 572.5 yards and 8.6 yards per play in league play.
In Fort Worth, the unit will be without defensive lineman Corey McIntyre Jr. after he suffered an injury against the Bearcats, though cornerback Nick Taylor is listed as probable after missing each of the previous two contests.
“Everybody has to do their job. We’ve seen our defense play well against our offense,” Rodriguez said. “There are moments there. We have to figure out a way of what our guys can really execute, and every week is going to be a different game plan, and kind of go from there. You can’t say wait until the open date, because these games come so quickly. It sure would’ve been nice to have an open date last week or the week before, but that’s not the way it rolled. We have one after this game, so we’ll have a little bit more time to kick the tires around after this game, but we have to do everything we can to win this game, so that’s where our focus is.”
The Mountaineers are 8-6 all-time against TCU, including 4-2 in Fort Worth.
