PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) – The Little Kanawha Area Community Foundation (LKACF) is an advisory board aligned with the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation representing the counties of Wirt, Calhoun, and Gilmer.

The goal of the LKACF is to give support and help to a section of the rural communities in West Virginia.

Fred Rader, the executive director of the Parkersburg Area Community

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A recently released MetroNews West Virginia poll shows that Jim Justice is a prohibitive favorite to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Joe Manchin. The poll shows the Republican Governor leads Democrat Glenn Elliott 62 percent to 28 percent.  Only ten percent either favor another candidate or are not sure.

The support for Justice is broad. He has a significant advantage over Elliott in all the major demographic categories—gender, income level, age, region of the state and level of education. The only potential weak spot is among voters with bachelor’s degrees, where Justice is favored by 49 percent to 36 percent for Elliott.

Justice’s favorables among West Virginia voters are almost as strong as Donald Trump’s—60 percent for Trump and 57 percent for Justice. Just 32 percent of voters view Justice unfavorably, compared with 37 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Senator Shelley Moore Capito.

Two-thirds of the state’s voters approve of the job Justice is doing as Governor, while only 27 percent disapprove. Notably, Justice maintains that high job approval rating even though a majority of voters have a negative view of the state. Fifty-six percent believe West Virginia is on the wrong track and 75 percent think the state’s economy is likely to get worse or just stay the same.

The numbers for Justice are remarkable given that in the latter part of his first term he was underwater. The MetroNews West Virginia Poll in 2019 had Justice’s job approval rating at just 42 percent, while 40 percent disapproved. However, since then Justice’s numbers have been steadily rising.

That increase can be attributed to several factors. He handled the pandemic with science-based decisions and great empathy for the victims. His daily briefings were informative and comforting. In addition, the state has experienced more economic development announcements in the last few years than any time in recent memory.

Meanwhile, Democratic challenger Glenn Elliott has spent the summer traveling the state, going door to door, and trying to build a grassroots base for his campaign. It is a solid strategy for a candidate with limited resources, but it is also a tough row to hoe.

Elliott’s biggest challenge is that most voters simply do not know him. Our poll found that 27 percent have a favorable opinion of him, only 17 percent view him unfavorably, but 57 percent just are not sure. A potential upside is that Elliott is a blank slate to many, so he has a chance to create a favorable impression, but that takes time and money, and the election is just a little over two months away.

There has been a lot of news lately about the Justice family businesses’ non-payment or slow payment of bills, taxes and even health insurance premiums for Greenbrier employees. However, neither that nor perceptions about the state’s economy are having much of an impact.

It is clear that a majority of voters like Jim Justice and think he is doing a good job.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley share belief that effort and physicality weren’t the cause of most problems the Mountaineer defense endured during Saturday’s 34-12 season-opening loss to No. 8 Penn State.

But as the team looks to move forward ahead of Saturday’s 6 p.m. contest against Albany, both Brown and Lesley made it clear the unit was nowhere near good enough in what was largely an all-around forgettable Week 1 showing.

“Defensively, our issues were not because they knocked us off the ball. That wasn’t the case,” Brown said. “We did not do a good enough job in any of our run games. We did a really poor job in our pass lanes, because we were too fast. When we were running d-line games on passing downs, we were too fast and left big gaps. I haven’t calculated the scramble yards, but it’s quite a bit — probably 50 or more. We over-pursued the ball in outside zone. 

“It’s about simplifying what we’re trying to do in the run game and making sure our cutback lanes are in better spots. I didn’t have an issue with our physicality, but our execution was not very good. They out-gapped us on a couple of unbalanced plays.”

Brown singled out linebacker Josiah Trotter and safeties Anthony Wilson and Jaheem Joseph for strong individual efforts in the setback. West Virginia forced an early turnover when defensive lineman TJ Jackson recovered a Drew Allar fumble. That was the Nittany Lions’ only turnover and about all that went wrong for Allar, who was otherwise efficient and completed 11-of-17 passes for 216 yards with three touchdowns.

“We weren’t consistent enough,” Joseph said. “We had spurts in the game when we executed and spurts when we didn’t, and it showed with a lot of explosive plays.”

Allar guided a unit that finished with 457 total yards and 409 over the final three quarters when it amassed all of its point production. The Mountaineers did not record a sack or quarterback hurry.

“His completion percentage was not very good with pressure. Now they know that, too, and there’s a lot of seven-man protection,” Brown said. “Pick your poison. If they are going to seven-man protect, you have to bring a lot of people, and if you do, you’re leaving yourself in man coverage. You have to pick and choose. He played very well, but he had space. There was never a time in the game where he was uncomfortable and that’s on us.”

PSU’s success on first down was pivotal as the Nittany Lions totaled 224 yards on 28 first down plays. Each of Penn State’s first four touchdowns, which covered a total of 128 yards, came on first down.

“The easy answer is pressure. The hard part of pressure against what we know they like to do and what that guy has always done is that’s when he’s always making you adjust,” Lesley said. “You can pressure yourself into a touchdown play on first downs if you’re not careful. We had a couple on first downs where we sent pressure and we were very effective at it. 

“We saw two personnels we guessed we would see and as you’re adjusting through that, you’re staying pretty basic to figure out where are they going with this and what are they trying to do. Some of those first down yardage plays came in that scenario. When we settled in, I thought we were fine.”

All but 49 of PSU’s 22 rushing yards came over the final two quarters following a 2 hour and 19 minute weather delay at halftime. The Nittany Lions also  scored in the final seconds of the first half and on the opening possession of the second half to turn what had been a competitive 13-6 game into a three touchdown margin.

“We talk about effort, aggression and toughness and I didn’t see a lack of any of those things. That aggression sometimes can bite you and against good football teams, when you make those mistakes, they find them,” Lesley said. “They’re mistakes that are very fixable. I hate that we have to fix them in that kind of atmosphere and team in Week 1, but it is what it is. The last thing I told them before we left the hotel is we don’t need to do anybody to do anything special. We just need you to do your job. That’s tough in that kind of environment.”

Ultimately, being out of position on several key plays and allowing Allar to settle in and develop rhythm proved problematic for a defense that surrendered nearly 20 yards per completion and 7.6 yards per play.

“From a team perspective, sometimes stats don’t tell the story but in this game, they do,” Brown said. “Rushing, we averaged 2.7 and they were 5.3. They rushed for 222 and we rushed for 85. The big reason why is negative plays — something you can’t versus those guys and snaps caused ours. Turnover margin is 3-1. The middle 8 [minutes] really is where the game was decided — 14-3 them.  

“Our rush defense was not good. We gave up explosive runs and a lot of quarterback scrambles. The explosives killed us and the quarterback run game. We generated zero pressure. He’s struggled with pressure and we didn’t generate any. That was disappointing. We struggled when they went unbalanced and tempo’d us, so I’m sure we’ll see that again.”