Top WVU Football Defensive Player Grades in Win Over Houston

In a game in which the 2025 WVU football team set a new season-high for points scored on the road, the Mountaineer defense was also able to contribute to the tally.

In addition to feeling like the proverbial “nail in the coffin” for the Houston Cougars, as West Virginia went up multiple scores in the 4th quarter, the defensive touchdown marked one of the first instances of true complimentary football between the offense and defense this season. For the first time in 2025, the defense notched a touchdown of their own to help out the offense, and the offense consistently moved the ball & picked up first downs to assist the defense. The defensive touchdown was a fitting bookend to a game in which the West Virginia defense caused a ton of havoc. In addition to the trio of turnovers that the defense forced, they also contributed 12 quarterback pressures, four sacks, and five tackles for a loss.

Here are just some of the individual players that helped contribute to such a disruptive defensive performance, according to their defensive grades (min. 20 snaps) provided by Pro Football Focus:

1. CB Jordan Scruggs (90.0 Defensive Grade)

It’s very fitting that the defender that jumped the route and made a play on the ball before racing 80 yards for the defensive touchdown late in the 3rd quarter also achieved the highest defensive grade of the game for the Mountaineers. Jordan Scruggs may not have been a starter in the game on Saturday for WVU, but he certainly was a finisher. In addition to his outstanding coverage grade at 90.1, he also managed to achieve an 81 grade in tackling. Both of these incredibly impressive grades helped him to earn his elite defensive grade that he received following Saturday’s victory.

2. DE Devin Grant (80.0 Defensive Grade)

For the second consecutive week, Devin Grant showed up and made some big plays along the West Virginia front. Last week against TCU, it was Grant that broke the WVU sack drought as he was able to obtain the first sack in that game that the Mountaineers had recorded in multiple weeks. Now, in the win over Houston, he was back at it again. Not only registering another sack, but also adding multiple quarterback pressures, which were the contributing factors to Grant earning a team-high 77.8 pass rushing grade. If the last two games are any indication, Grant may be developing into a player that opposing offense will have to game plan for down the stretch.

3. DT Asani Redwood (76.0 Defensive Grade)

After having been thrust into the starting lineup for the past two games following an injury to Hammond Russell, Asani Redwood stepped up in the victory over Houston, more than holding his own in the middle of the West Virginia defensive line. Not to be outdone by the aforementioned Grant, Russell contributed the havoc caused by the Mountaineer defense in the game as he added two pressures and two quarterback hurries of his own. Any time you have two defensive linemen with high pass rushing grades, you can probably expect a good day for your defense and a bad day for the opposing quarterback, and that’s just what happened on Saturday. Redwood finished with the second-best pass rushing grade on the team of 74.8 grade.

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