After putting together a dominant first drive, WVU OL Nick Malone says it was ‘self-inflicted wounds’ that hurt the Mountaineers’ offense the rest of the game in the 28-16 loss to Iowa State on Saturday.
One of the easiest to notice of those mistakes was center Brandon Yates and the issues that he had delivering high snaps to Garrett Greene. Neal Brown said on Monday that there were 11 snaps that botched plays and forced WVU to have to play behind the sticks.
Malone mentioned how the snaps were the easiest thing for fans to see but the mistakes went well beyond that such as missing key blocks or not communicating well as a line. However, Malone does expect Yates to bounce back in the upcoming game against Kansas State after a big week of practice.
“He’s a guy who is going to come back and fight. There’s never any giving up or he’s always going to fight back and I think he’ll show it this week.” Malone added, “I think he’s going to try different stuff this week snapping but it’s kinda just for him getting back to a routine and especially for us being around him, you got to build him up instead of tear him down because if you tear him down there’s good from that.”
West Virginia was able to go 75 yards in 14 plays while taking 7:42 to score on the opening drive, eating up over half of the first quarter clock. But after that, the Mountaineers wouldn’t score another touchdown until late in the fourth quarter after the game had already been decided.
According to Malone, the worst part of a game like that is the team knowing they were good enough to win the game, they just made too many mistakes that hurt themselves.
“It’s very frustrating because like you said, the first drive we so down and we score easy and it’s kind of going along the lines of like I said beating ourselves. We’re one of the best teams in the country, one of the best offenses in the country and when we have those inflicted wounds, it’s kind of like this shouldn’t be happening. We should be dominating.”
WVU will have a chance against another ranked opponent under the lights of Milan Puskar Stadium once again this week against Kansas State at 7:30 p.m. ET. The game can be viewed on FOX.
