West Virginia Lost its Spark and Falls to Ohio

West Virginia suffered its first loss of the season Saturday afternoon after falling 17-10 to Ohio in front of a record crowd (26,740) at Peden Stadium.

"I’m just very disappointed,” West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “It starts with me. I told the guys I failed them this week. I thought we had a good week of practice. I thought we were ready to play, and we weren’t. We didn’t execute.”

West Virginia running back Jaheim White was off and running, slicing up the middle for 10 yards on the Mountaineers first play from scrimmage, but the offense quickly sputtered, and was forced to punt.

The Mountaineers quickly got on track on the second possession and marched down the field. Junior receiver Rodney Gallager captured momentum, taking off for 16 yards on an end around and a 31-yard pass to Cam Vaughn down the left seam setup White for a 32-yard touchdown run and it started to look as if WVU was about to take control of the game.

Ohio responded with a six-play drive into WVU territory, but the Mountaineer defense bowed up and forced the Bobcats to kick a field goal from the 20.

West Virginia’s offense swiftly left the field on a three and out and Ohio again would be stopped just outside the redzone, except the field goal sailed wide right.

With an opportunity to for another scoring drive, the Mountaineers once again went three and out and the Bobcats started to take control of the game.

Ohio graduate senior quarterback Parker Navarro ripped off three consecutive completions 45 yards and used his legs for 15 yards on third and seven to keep the drive alive at the WVU 22 before a defensive holding on third and goal from the nine aided the Bobcats for a touchdown and a 10-7 lead.

“He’s phenomenal,” Rodriguez said. “That was a big worry coming in that you’d have everybody covered and there was times we kept him from going outside but he’d duck inside and scramble. He’s just a phenomenal playmaker and there was no question he’s pretty dynamic.”

Then, on the first play on the Mountaineers’ following possession, White went down with a knee injury after being horse collared along the sideline and he never returned to the game.

“It didn’t look good from the sidelines but I haven’t even talked to the medical staff yet, so I don’t know what’s going on,” Rodriguez stated.

Ohio continued to build on its momentum. After a pass interference on the first play of the drive, Navarro was 3-3 for 59 yards, including a 31-yard touchdown pass to junior receiver Chase Hendricks for a 17-7 lead as the Bobcats took the 10-point advantage into halftime. Hendricks ended his night with eight receptions for 121 yards and the touchdown.

In the second half, West Virginia only mustered up 120 yards of total offense. Fifty-one yards came in the opening drive that resulted in a field goal to pull within a touchdown. It also marked one of three first downs in the second half and the third coming from an Ohio penalty.

The West Virginia defense kept the Bobcats off the board, forcing three consecutive interceptions to give the offense the ball at midfield. Nonetheless all three turnovers were followed by three and outs.

“They forced turnovers – plenty of opportunities,” Rodriguez stated. “We missed a couple tackles here and there and they gave up just a couple of things – third downs, but they battled and played hard and played well enough for us to win but when you lose, everybody loses and like I said, we’ll take this and learn as much as we can from it.”

Rodriguez, searching for answers, put in backup redshirt senior quarterback Jaylen Henderson into the game for two series after the final two turnovers to no avail.

“Tried to get a little spark, particularly with maybe some of the quarterback run stuff,” Rodriguez explained. “It wasn’t Jaylen or Nicco’s fault, it’s just more mine. We’ll evaluate the film, see what went wrong and what we can fix to get better.”

Marchiol re-entered the game as the offensive continued to flounder and never found any rhythm as Ohio chewed up the clock to upset the Mountaineers 17-10.

“I think the biggest thing we got to do with the loss, and the wins, but the losses you got to learn as much as you can from it, like everybody – players, coaches, and everybody in the program.”

The Mountaineers are back in action next Saturday as the Pitt Panthers (2-0) roll into Morgantown for the Backyard Brawl at 3:30 p.m. EST.

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