Thursday Games No Problem for Holgorsen
Coach wants to see how team responds
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MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen didn't hide his feelings about games in the middle of the week.
"I like Thursday night games, this will be fun," he said. "There have been a lot of them around here, clearly, we understand that. A lot of eyes will be on us to see how we respond to what happened up at Iowa State, so I'm looking forward to seeing us, as well.
"I think our guys are determined, I think their practices have been sharp. They're a very determined team like I said last week, and it showed out there at practice. I think we'll be ready to put or best foot forward."
WVU is coming off a 30-14 setback at Iowa State 12 days ago, but still finds itself in the hunt for the school's first Big 12 championship.
"I don't really want to go back and discuss (the ISU game), honestly, but just the blocking and tackling aspect of it," Holgorsen said. "When you get right down to it, this game is about blocking people and tackling people. You have to have a proper mindset, and, hopefully, we'll be in a better mindset. That's my job to get them into that mindset, a better mindset this Thursday than it was the previous Saturday.
"I do know we'll be a little bit more comfortable with our surroundings, which makes a big difference. You see it every week in college football. It happened to the Buckeyes on Saturday night, too. It happens in college football. You have to be ready to go every single week no matter who you play, period. I don't want to take anything away from Iowa State, because they played a great game, and their mindset was better than ours. They did a better job of getting them ready to go than I did. Nonetheless, it comes right down to mindset, blocking and tackling. If you're in the proper mindset, you're going to block better, and you're going to tackle better. And that's what we have to do Thursday."
Key to any success the Mountaineers have in 2018 is the performance of its redshirt senior, and Heisman candidate, quarterback Will Grier.
"I don't have anything figured out, I can assure you that," Holgorsen quipped. "We have to fix a few things; I just thought our timing was a little off last week, which was weird. I did go back, (offensive coordinator) Jake (Spavital) and I sat and watched previous games, and our timing wasn't messed up in those. We made a couple of bad decisions on the goal line, but our timing wasn't off.
"Why was it off at Iowa State? I have some theories on it, but I don't think it'd be a hard fix. We had to go out there, we've done this three times and, (Monday) we'll do it again, we'll just go out there and practice hard and work on our timing. It's running routes and throwing balls and getting a couple of guys fresher and ready to go. I think we accomplished that. I don't have anything figured out, but we did work hard on it, and I think we're in a little better spot than where we were that previous Saturday night."
Key to Grier's success, however, may lie in the team's ability to establish the run early.
Redshirt junior Kennedy McKoy leads the ground attack with 343 yards and two touchdowns on 57 carries while freshman Leddie Brown, who missed the ISU game with a sore ankle, has chipped in 296 yards and a trio of scores on 51 totes. Fans can also expect to see junior Martell Pettaway (49-243) and redshirt sophomore Alec Sinkfield (6-31, TD) lined up behind Grier.
When Grier, who has completed 137 of 192 attempts for 1,919 yards and 22 touchdowns with seven interceptions, goes to the air fans should look for seniors David Sills V (32-390, 7 TDs) and Gary Jennings Jr. (30-402, 6 TDs) and junior Marcus Simms (28-498, 2 TDs) on the receiving end of most of his aerials.
The game will be televised on FS1.