West Virginia’s 52-31 loss to Arizona on Saturday further proved that the Mountaineers are going to have to outscore teams in shootouts to win games in 2026. One game gets your attention, two games in a row make you concerned, and three make it a trend.
Obviously, the two fumbles by Cam Cook didn’t help the matter, but aside from that, the offense had another good day, putting up 31 points and actually outgaining Arizona 522-482, but it still wasn’t enough. You have to play good football in all areas of the game to net the type of results you want, but it’s difficult to do when one phase has been so poor that it creates a razor-thin margin for error for the other side of the ball.
Head coach Rich Rodriguez even mentioned in his postgame presser that it has made things harder for the offense and him as a play-caller trying to overcome the deficiencies.
“Very frustrating because we couldn’t get a stop on defense, and then offensively, there’s probably a little bit of feel like pressure that you can’t have a turnover. You got to score in every possession, and it’s just extremely frustrating.”
At this juncture of the season, I’m not sure how much can be fixed defensively. With the season halfway over, there’s not a lot of time to make great improvements. It might just be one of those things that this team and staff have to fight through for six more games before they can retool things.
You can tell how frustrating this is for everyone in that building, the defense included, because they have a nearly unstoppable rushing attack with Mike Hawkins Jr. and Cam Cook. Special duos like that don’t come around all that often, and you want to make the absolute most of their time in Morgantown.
While the staff will still do everything they can to milk every ounce of production they can get from this group and do everything possible to give themselves a chance to win, it’s going to be critical to find as many guys as possible down the stretch who can play winning football at this level and do so consistently.
The last thing anyone wants to do is look ahead, and that’s not what I’m suggesting here. It’s simply just finding out who can help you in the future and who can’t. Assuming the Mountaineers are able to retain their main core on offense, they will have a chance to make a serious jump next season. It would help if a few guys on the defensive side emerge and prove to the staff that they can be a part of that.
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