Between The Eers: How WVU Beats Penn State
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome back in everybody, Scott Cown here.
00:12 On between the ears, it's almost time for kickoff.
00:16 We are one week away from West Virginia Penn State
00:18 to kick off the 2023 season.
00:21 Today we're gonna kick off a new series
00:24 and that is how WVU beats blank.
00:27 Today, obviously being Penn State now,
00:29 when the season actually gets rolling,
00:31 this will be a show that pops out sometime
00:33 during the middle of the week.
00:35 Don't have a set date for that yet,
00:36 we'll figure that out as we go.
00:38 But again, this is not me saying
00:41 that West Virginia is going to beat Penn State
00:43 or me predicting that they're going to beat Penn State.
00:46 This is just a weekly video that we'll have
00:49 kind of highlighting a couple of points,
00:52 key points for West Virginia
00:54 in their efforts to potentially win that week's game.
00:57 So today, obviously the focus, Penn State.
01:01 So this is gonna be a quick video,
01:02 we're not going in depth, we'll do that later.
01:05 We'll do that next week on the walkthrough game day show
01:08 with Eugene and I, we go through our keys to the game
01:11 and so on and so forth.
01:12 We do the whole preview and all that good stuff.
01:15 So quick points today.
01:17 How does West Virginia beat Penn State?
01:19 Is it possible that they can beat Penn State?
01:22 Yes, 100% it is possible.
01:24 Is it likely?
01:26 Probably not.
01:27 But we're talking about how can they do it?
01:31 There is a way they can do it
01:33 and they've got to live on this game plan.
01:36 First of all, you have to shrink the game.
01:40 You can't go in this back and forth,
01:43 high scoring affair, shootout type of game
01:46 where you just hope you can outscore Penn State.
01:48 That's not going to work.
01:50 I understand that you feel a little bit better
01:54 about this offense going into the season
01:56 and you may have some dudes at receiver,
01:59 you may have a lot of depth at running back,
02:02 but at the end of the day,
02:04 it's going to come down to shrinking the game,
02:07 taking the ball out of Penn State's hands
02:10 and winning by playing good defense,
02:13 good special teams and holding onto the football.
02:15 That brings me to my second point, turnover margin.
02:19 You're not going to win games and I know it sounds cliche,
02:21 but you're not going to win games
02:23 against a team that is significantly better than you
02:27 on paper, talent-wise, from top to bottom,
02:30 if you lose the turnover battle,
02:32 especially if you lose it by two or more.
02:35 You have to be very clean with the football
02:39 and if you win the turnover battle,
02:41 you're going to give yourselves an extra chance
02:43 and that's also going to help go into that first point
02:45 of shrinking the game.
02:47 You force a turnover or two,
02:49 that takes the ball away out of Penn State's hands
02:52 for maybe three, four, maybe even seven, eight minutes.
02:54 Who knows, especially the way you can run the ball.
02:56 So if I were to tell you that West Virginia,
02:59 or if someone were to tell me,
03:01 hey, West Virginia did not turn the ball
03:03 over a single time in this game,
03:05 my guess is West Virginia came that close
03:08 to beating Penn State or maybe they even did it.
03:11 Maybe they did the damn thing and upset Penn State.
03:14 They have no chance if they lose the turnover battle
03:18 by two or more, if they turn it over
03:20 and they don't force any and you're minus one
03:24 in the turnover battle, still, again, that's a gray area.
03:28 You have to be in plus territory
03:31 when it comes to the turnovers.
03:33 And then number three is very obvious,
03:36 still goes back into that first point
03:38 in running the football.
03:41 You have four guys in the backfield,
03:44 not counting Garrett Green, who can run the ball as well.
03:47 You have Jalen Anderson, C.J. Donaldson,
03:49 Justin Johnson, Jaheim White.
03:51 There are so many ways that you can attack
03:53 this Penn State front.
03:55 And with Manny Diaz, he can get a little aggressive
03:57 at times.
03:58 So if he starts rolling dice, starts loading the box,
04:01 that's going to get that Penn State secondary
04:04 to kind of creep down a little bit,
04:06 allow you to maybe take some shots downfield
04:08 with Devin Carter or, you know,
04:10 or TraeLyn Ray or Jay Sean Polk or Cortez Braham,
04:14 who knows?
04:16 But the more you put stress on that front seven,
04:19 the more it will open up things in the passing game.
04:22 And again, sounds cliche as hell,
04:24 but that's just the bread and butter
04:26 for this West Virginia team.
04:28 Lean on your strength.
04:30 And that is the offensive lineup front
04:32 that has three NFL draft picks on,
04:34 Doug Nestor, Zach Frazier, and Wyatt Monom.
04:36 At some point, they're going to be in the NFL.
04:39 Lean on those guys,
04:40 lean on the versatility of that running back room.
04:42 And all of a sudden, you're shrinking that game,
04:45 you're tiring out that Penn State front seven,
04:48 and by the time the fourth quarter comes around,
04:51 they've got hands on knees and arms on their head
04:55 and all that stuff.
04:55 So you got to take full advantage of that.
04:59 And my number four thing that I want to highlight here
05:03 is getting off to a fast start.
05:06 So again, I know that all of this sounds,
05:09 yes, no duh, right?
05:11 No crap.
05:12 This is obvious stuff here,
05:13 but it's insurmountable to be able to come back
05:18 after falling down 10-0 early in that kind of a setting.
05:24 110,000 fans, first game of the year,
05:27 first time as a full-time starting quarterback,
05:30 more than likely for Garrett Green,
05:33 and this new offense that West Virginia has
05:36 in terms of the personnel.
05:37 If you fall down 10-0 early on,
05:40 that's tough to come back from.
05:43 Confidence may be wavered,
05:45 and that could be a snowball effect
05:47 into something very bad.
05:48 So get out to a quick start.
05:51 It doesn't mean that they have to go out
05:52 and start the game up 10-0.
05:54 It doesn't mean that they have to go up 14-3,
05:58 but be competitive.
06:01 Hang in there.
06:01 Don't get behind two scores early.
06:04 Stay within striking distance.
06:06 Get to halftime within a score,
06:07 and maybe even have the lead,
06:09 which I predicted on my 50 predictions
06:12 for the 2023 season article.
06:14 If you haven't checked that out yet,
06:15 go ahead and let me know what you think.
06:16 On Mountaineers Now, I gave out 50 predictions
06:19 for the whole entire season,
06:21 one of which I just gave to you,
06:22 and that is West Virginia having a lead
06:24 against Penn State at halftime.
06:27 So, hot start, shrink the game, no turnovers,
06:32 lean on the run game.
06:33 You do those four things,
06:35 you check all four of those boxes,
06:37 you're giving yourself a chance to win.
06:39 If you start only checking three or two,
06:42 one or none of those things,
06:44 it's going to be very, very tough
06:45 for West Virginia to leave Happy Valley with a win.
06:48 So, that's it for today's episode,
06:51 how West Virginia beats Penn State.
06:54 Very plain, very simple.
06:56 Again, this is kind of a quick hit thing.
06:58 We'll go more in depth next week
07:00 on the Walkthrough Game Day Show,
07:02 which will air next Thursday night at 7 p.m.
07:05 with myself and Eugene Napoleon.
07:07 And, hey, we thank you guys so much
07:11 for subscribing to our YouTube page @MountaineersNow,
07:14 for following us on Twitter @MountaineersNow,
07:16 for liking our page, for following our content on the site.
07:20 We cannot do this without you guys' support,
07:22 so continue to do that,
07:24 continue to check in on these videos,
07:26 and if you haven't yet, please hit that subscribe button.
07:28 It really helps us out, and we will see you back Monday.
07:32 We're going to take tomorrow off
07:34 to kind of revamp ourselves,
07:35 breathe a little bit before game week starts,
07:37 and then Chris and I will be back on Monday
07:39 to give out our game-by-game predictions
07:42 for the 2023 season.
07:44 So thank you guys for watching.
07:46 Have a great weekend.
07:47 I'm Skylar Callahan here on Between Ears.
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