West Virginia’s 38-27 win over Virginia looked comfortable on the scoreboard, but the ending left defensive coordinator Zac Alley irritated.
The Mountaineers were sitting on a three-possession cushion with less than three minutes left after Jack Cassidy’s chip-shot field goal made it 38-21. Virginia still managed to put together an 8-play, 75-yard touchdown drive before the final margin settled at 38-27.
Alley didn’t hide his frustration with the way West Virginia handled that last series.
“We played to not lose on that drive. We didn’t play to win.
And that makes me mad. I don’t like that.
We don’t play to not lose. I’m playing to win," Alley stated.
"Like, sometimes we didn’t challenge receivers; we didn’t play man coverage when I called it. We just did some things where I have no idea what we were thinking.
I chalked it up to a little bit of immaturity from we got a lot of guys who’ve maybe not been in a stage or in a stadium, and that was a big moment. We’ve got to improve and be better in those situations.”
Even with the win in hand, Alley made it clear the standard is higher than simply closing out a game on paper. He said the defense showed flashes of what it can become, but not enough to satisfy him.
“We showed some of our potential when we do our job and play well- what we can be and how we can play. I still didn’t think we played to the standard of where we want to be.
The last drive really made me mad, just not doing our job. You’re going to come down to critical moments in big games where you’re going to have to stop them on that series, and we’re calling things we’ve done since the first day of fall camp, and we’re just making stuff up, so I didn’t like that.
We’ve got some improvement to make from that standpoint. There’s still, in my mind, a lot of things left to do to be where we want to be as a defense, but improving every time.”
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