Sunday Morning Thoughts: Zac Alley Better Figure Things Out in a Hurry

Yikes. That's the only word needed to describe West Virginia's defensive performance on Saturday night against Oklahoma State.

Just one week after a solid showing in Charlotte against Virginia, the Mountaineers took significant steps back on that side of the ball. And if we're being honest, some of these numbers that I'm about to rattle off... pretty embarrassing.

Last night, the Mountaineers allowed 609 yards of total offense — 389 through the air, 220 on the ground. They gave up 19.5 yards per completion and 5.4 yards per rush. Ten explosive plays allowed in the passing game (15+ yards) and six explosives on the ground (10+ yards).

If you are giving up an explosive on roughly one out of every four plays, I don't care what you do on offense; you're not going to win very many of those types of games. A week after logging four three-and-outs as a defense, the Mountaineers only generated one, and it was right before the half when Oklahoma State was content to drain the clock out.

There were a bunch of issues for the defense in this game, so let's go through a handful of them.

Poor tackling

This was by far the worst tackling game for West Virginia. They missed 18 (!) tackles last night, and coming into that game, the most they had in a single game was nine. They had nine against Coastal Carolina, five vs. UT Martin, and seven vs. Virginia. Geimere Latimer and Matt Sieg combined for seven missed tackles, each giving up a touchdown in pass coverage. All night long, it was poor angle after poor angle, a bunch of reaching, misfitting things, everything that could lead to a missed tackle... well, West Virginia did it all.

Non-existent pressure

WVU finished the night with nine pressures, and to be honest, I was shocked that the number was that high. Drew Mestemaker had a clean pocket to operate from all night long, and there were a few times he had all the time in the world. The secondary was atrociously bad, but you can't ask those guys to hold up in coverage for five, six, seven seconds. Mestemaker did get the ball out quickly much of the night, though, which was part of not being able to get to him, but it also shows that the secondary was letting guys scream wide open super early in the route.

Communication is still an issue

I'm not exactly sure why this is still a big problem for the defense. It's excusable for the first couple of weeks of the season, but now you're a month into the schedule. At the end of the day, this falls on Zac Alley. It's his responsibility to make sure his guys know what they are doing and are on the same page all of the time. There were several plays last night where guys were rotating or trying to communicate as the ball was being snapped. Alley has been known to have a very complex defense, so is he putting too much on these guys' plates? Are they getting confused because it's information overload? It's possible. He'll be able to tell us when he talks to the media on Tuesday.

Not enough money was poured into the defense

Fans have every right to be upset with Alley. He is not getting the job done, nor does he have the horses to field a competitive defense — both things can be true. West Virginia was so hell-bent on fixing the offense that it probably poured too much money into that side of the ball instead of balancing things out.

I mean, just go back to when the portal recruiting was going on. When things were happening, this was one of my biggest concerns. They were bringing in guys from the Group of Six level who had experience, yes, but not guys who had played at a high level outside of Harper Holloman and Zeke Durham-Campbell.

The defensive line doesn't have the size or depth it needs, the linebacker group doesn't have the speed and athleticism, and they're leaning on inexperienced guys at corner.

Alley needs to fix it fast

The sky isn't falling on this defense, although it may seem like it after last night. They do have an opportunity to correct things and still manage to play competitive football, but they have a BUNCH of things to iron out.

This team still has enough talent and a manageable schedule to win some games in the Big 12 and be a surprise team in the league. What we found out last night was that the Mountaineers are far from being a contender in the Big 12, but that doesn't mean they can't still turn some heads and take steps in the right direction. For that to happen, though, the defense is going to have to return to its Week 3 form. If not, it could be another long year for the Old Gold and Blue.

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