Rapid Takeaways After West Virginia Stuns No. 22 Houston

The streak is officially over. West Virginia snaps its five-game skid and picks up its first win in Big 12 play, pulling off the upset of No. 22 Houston. Here are my takeaways from this one.

There's something there with Scotty Fox

For the second straight week, the true freshman looked the part. It wasn't perfect by any means, but he rarely puts the ball in harm's way and doesn't panic when things go awry. The accuracy is there, the arm talent is there, now it's all about stacking strong outings down the stretch and eventually reaching a mastery level of the system.

Boom or bust defense

I wasn't expecting the defense to turn into this top half of the Big 12 unit after last week's performance against TCU, but I figured they would build off of last week and show some more consistency. Instead, they took a major step back. Tackling was a huge issue once again, with many drives being kept alive because of the inability to finish through the play. Cornerbacks flipped their hips the wrong way several times, and much of the back end looked like they were second-guessing things in the pass game. Forcing a few turnovers was much needed, but they needed to do a better job of getting off the field on third and fourth downs.

Needed more of Cam Vaughn

He finally got uncorked last week and looked like he was going to have a big day after he hauled in a 24-yard touchdown catch in the first half, but Houston did a good job in coverage when they took some shots downfield. Underneath, however, I'm surprised they didn't really look to get him involved. Flipping it out there to him a couple of times and letting him do his thing after the catch could have helped, especially in obvious blitzing situations.

Diore brought it

It wasn't a flashy performance, but running back Diore Hubbard brought his lunchpail with him today, grinding out over 100 yards on 29 carries. WVU has struggled to find any success on the ground in recent weeks, with most of its production coming from the quarterback spot.