AMES, Iowa — Where is the hard edge we’ve heard so much about? Where’s the toughness? Where’s the discipline? Where’s the physical, nasty brand of football that Rich Rodriguez has preached since the day he returned to Morgantown? Because right now, West Virginia looks soft, undisciplined, and Zac Alley’s defense is an absolute mess.
There really isn’t another way to say it after what we’ve watched the last two weeks. West Virginia gave up an embarrassing 609 yards of total offense against Oklahoma State last weekend. You figured there was absolutely no way it could happen again. This was going to be the response game. This was going to be the week when an embarrassed defense came out angry, physical, and ready to prove that Oklahoma State was an aberration. Instead, Iowa State rolled up 566 yards of total offense. That means West Virginia has now allowed an unbelievable 1,175 yards in just two games.
That’s not a bad stretch. That’s not one or two busted coverages. That’s not something you can blame on a couple of missed tackles. That is a defense with major problems, and what makes Saturday even more troubling is who did it. Iowa State came into this game as one of the worst offensive teams in the Big 12 Conference. This wasn’t some offensive juggernaut that West Virginia was trying to slow down. This was supposed to be the perfect opportunity for the Mountaineers to get their defense back on track. Instead, Iowa State looked like one of the most explosive offenses in the country.
And perhaps nothing sums up the problem better than what sophomore running back Aiden Flores did to this defense. Flores ran for more than 200 yards against West Virginia. More than 200 yards. Everybody knew Iowa State was going to try to run the football, and it simply didn’t matter. West Virginia couldn’t stop it. The Mountaineers were getting blocked, missing tackles, taking bad angles, losing gap integrity and allowing Flores to consistently get into the second level. At times, Iowa State didn’t have to do anything complicated. They lined up, ran the football and physically beat West Virginia.
That might be the most concerning part of all of this. Rich Rodriguez has spent months talking about toughness. He has talked about discipline. He has talked about creating a hard edge and restoring the identity that once made West Virginia football so difficult to play against. Well, where is it? Because a team with a hard edge doesn’t get physically pushed around for 566 yards one week after surrendering 609. A tough defense doesn’t allow a running back to go for more than 200 yards while everyone knows he’s getting the football. A disciplined defense doesn’t continually miss tackles, take poor angles, lose contain, bust assignments and allow explosive plays.
And at this point, Zac Alley has to answer for it. I’ve defended Alley because I don’t believe every defensive breakdown automatically falls on the defensive coordinator. Sometimes the call is right and a player misses a tackle. Sometimes a defender blows an assignment. Sometimes the offense simply makes a great play. There have been individual plays this season where Alley has taken criticism for things that weren’t necessarily his fault. But you can’t explain away 1,175 yards in two games. You just can’t.
At some point, the defensive coordinator owns the performance of his defense, and right now Alley’s defense is a mess. West Virginia isn’t consistently getting off blocks. It isn’t tackling well enough. It isn’t getting off the field when it needs to. There are too many breakdowns, too many missed assignments and too many moments when players simply don’t appear to be on the same page. Those aren’t isolated mistakes anymore. They’re patterns.
But this goes beyond Zac Alley. This is Rich Rodriguez’s football program. Rodriguez was brought back to Morgantown in large part because West Virginia wanted its identity back. His best teams were built on toughness. They played with an edge. They were conditioned. They were disciplined. They weren’t always more talented than the team standing across from them, but they were going to make that team earn everything it got. That’s the West Virginia football Rich Rodriguez has promised to bring back.
This team doesn’t look anything like that right now.
That doesn’t mean the players don’t care or aren’t playing hard. I’m sure they care deeply. But toughness at this level isn’t about yelling, talking about how physical you are or getting fired up before the game. Toughness shows up on Saturdays. It shows up when a running back comes downhill and somebody has to meet him in the hole. It shows up when an offensive lineman tries to move you off the football and you refuse to move. It shows up when you’re exhausted in the fourth quarter and have to make a tackle to get off the field. It shows up in tackling, gap integrity, assignment football and discipline. Right now, West Virginia is failing in far too many of those areas.
Last week should have been the wake-up call. Giving up 609 yards to Oklahoma State should have embarrassed this defense. You would have expected West Virginia to spend the entire week angry about what happened and arrive in Ames determined to make sure it never happened again. Instead, the Mountaineers gave up another 566 yards and allowed a sophomore running back to go for more than 200 yards.
That’s what makes this so alarming. One terrible defensive performance can happen. Every team has a game where nothing goes right. But when you turn around seven days later and do essentially the same thing again, it starts becoming something much bigger than one bad afternoon. It starts becoming who you are.
And right now, West Virginia is showing us a football team that looks soft, undisciplined and nowhere close to possessing the hard edge its head coach has talked so much about. Rich Rodriguez has spent a lot of time telling everyone what he wants West Virginia football to become. Now it’s time to make it happen, because you can’t build a program around toughness while getting pushed around every Saturday. You can’t preach discipline while making the same mistakes over and over again. And you certainly can’t talk about having a hard edge while giving up 1,175 yards in two weeks.
The talk is over. It’s time for West Virginia to get tough.
