West Virginia
West Virginia, Baylor coming off Big 12 losses, byes
Baylor (3-2, 1-1 Large 12) at West Virginia (2-3, 0-2), Thursday, 7 p.m. ET (FS1)
Line: Baylor by 3 1/2, in response to FanDuel Sportsbook.
Sequence document: West Virginia leads 6-4.
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
Each groups are coming off of bye weeks that adopted losses. Baylor can hardly afford one other setback in its bid to repeat as Large 12 champion after falling at house to No. 8 Oklahoma State. West Virginia remains to be making an attempt to achieve its footing after shedding its first two league video games, together with a double-digit setback at Texas.
KEY MATCHUP
Baylor QB Blake Shapen in opposition to the West Virginia protection. Shapen threw for a career-high 345 yards in a 36-25 house loss to the Cowboys on Oct. 1. He had two landing passes with two interceptions. West Virginia is permitting a Large 12-worst 8.3 yards per go try and has one interception this season, the bottom within the league.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Baylor: RB Richard Reese. After the Bears needed to exchange their three main rushers from a yr in the past, Reese has scored seven touchdowns and is fourth amongst all freshmen nationally with 400 speeding yards.
West Virginia: WR Bryce Ford-Wheaton. The 6-foot-3 Ford-Wheaton is fourth within the Large 12 with 82 receiving yards per recreation. He’s averaging seven receptions, usually making contested catches, and has 4 landing grabs total however none over the previous three video games.
FACTS & FIGURES
West Virginia is 5-0 in opposition to Baylor in Morgantown … Baylor WR Monaray Baldwin has solely 12 receptions however leads the league with a mean of 21.8 yards per catch. … West Virginia freshman RB CJ Donaldson is within the concussion protocol and can miss the sport after getting damage at Texas. He leads the Mountaineers with 369 speeding yards and 6 TDs. … Baylor has held 4 of its 5 opponents to beneath 100 yards speeding. … West Virginia’s third-down success fee of 49.4% on offense ranks fifteenth nationally.
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West Virginia
West Virginia School Closings & Delays – Monday, December 16
WEST VIRGINIA (LOOTPRESS) – Snowy and icy conditions have resulted in some West Virginia school districts altering schedules for Monday.
The latest school closings and delays for tomorrow, December 16, may be viewed below.
BERKELEY COUNTY: Closed
GRANT COUNTY: 2-hour delay
HAMPSHIRE COUNTY: 2-hour delay
HARDY COUNTY: 2-hour delay
JEFFERSON COUNTY: 2-hour delay
MINERAL COUNTY: 2-hour delay
MORGAN COUNTY: 2-hour delay
PENDLETON COUNTY: 2-hour delay
TUCKER COUNTY: 2-hour delay
Stick with LOOTPRESS for the latest.
West Virginia
A Young, Fast Riser Could Be West Virginia’s Next Defensive Coordinator
The very first thing West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez has to do is put a staff together, ideally starting with finding a defensive coordinator. There is no set scheme Rodriguez is searching for, but he does have a few guys in mind.
“It depends on the coordinator I hire. I’ve got a couple that I’ve talked to, and they’re different,” Rodriguez said Thursday. “And everybody runs the same of everything now defensively whether it’s an odd-stack or an even front. Everybody has certain personnel packages they use for their own defense, but I’m going to pick the d coordinator first. I’ll have a really good one because I have enough resources to hire a really, really good one, and then from there, I’ll build out the defensive staff. There’s not one particular scheme that I want other than that I want to be really aggressive and force the issue, so to speak, on the other team.”
While Rodriguez doesn’t seem to mind what the defensive scheme is, his teams had great success with the 3-3-5 in his first stint in Morgantown. That doesn’t mean he’ll lean in that direction, but he has ties with a lot of guys who have experience running it. One of which is Zac Alley, who is currently the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Oklahoma.
His relationship with Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables goes back to 2011 when he served as a student assistant under him on the staff at Clemson. Alley remained at Clemson through the 2018 season before moving on to take his first position coach job as the inside linebackers coach at Boise State.
After two years in Boise, Terry Bowden named him the defensive coordinator at UL-Monroe in 2021, making him the youngest coordinator at the FBS level at 27. There, he met Rich Rodriguez, who was the offensive coordinator for the Warhawks. He was so impressed by Alley’s coaching and ability to scheme a defense that he brought him to Jacksonville State the following year to serve as his defensive coordinator.
Alley’s unit finished 33rd in scoring defense and 43rd in total defense. The Gamecocks were stout against the run, allowing just 2.8 yards per carry while causing a ton of havoc by creating 25 turnovers (16 interceptions), and a 13th-place finish nationally in sacks per game (2.9).
That success has carried over into his new post at Oklahoma in his first year on the job. The Sooners have seen drastic improvements in the four key defensive statistical categories, as shown below.
2023 (Before Alley) |
2024 (With Alley) |
|
---|---|---|
Total Defense |
389.7 (60th) |
324.4 (20th) |
Pass Defense |
250.8 (100th) |
218.6 (63rd) |
Rush Defense |
138.9 (42nd) |
105.7 (11th) |
Scoring Defense |
23.5 (41st) |
22.3 (31st)A |
Alley’s approach fits the exact style Rodriguez wants his defense to play – fast, physical, and aggressive. But the one thing he adds to that is the wrinkles he throws in pre-snap. There’s a lot of movement, which causes the picture to change for the quarterback and often puts them in a tough spot. The defensive line will throw a lot of twists and stunts to make things even more difficult to handle.
He does a really good job of mixing things up visually, creating a bit of a guessing game as to where the pressure is coming from and who is dropping in coverage. He ran a lot of odd stack at Jax State but did mix in a healthy dose of four down fronts as well. He’s able to adapt to the personnel he has, which is probably the most impressive part about him for being such a young coordinator.
MORE STORIES FROM WEST VIRGINIA ON SI
Wren Baker Explains How He Landed on Rich Rodriguez as WVU’s Next Coach
CFB Analyst: Rich Rod Hire Could ‘Fundamentally Alter the Landscape of the Big 12’
Score Predictions for West Virginia vs. Bethune-Cookman
Spread & Over/Under Predictions for West Virginia vs. Bethune-Cookman
West Virginia
WVU Basketball Interviews: Bethune-Cookman Post Game
West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries and Mountaineer players Jake Auer, Sencire Harris, and Javon Small discuss the Bethune-Cookman win.
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