Three Real Reasons WVU Fans Should Still Be Optimistic About the 2025 Season

Already giving up on the 2025 WVU football season? If you have, I can't blame you. This season is going nowhere, but some positive things can still happen over the next two months. Scratching out four more wins to become bowl eligible seems a bit far-fetched, but so does going 2-10.

How can the Mountaineers have more success down the stretch?

Finally...a Dual-Threat QB

I said it for weeks, and it finally showed last week versus BYU — behind this atrocious offensive line, you need a mobile quarterback operating the offense. Nicco Marchiol could have survived with average play up front, but anything short of that would lead to the shortcomings we've seen the unit experience. Having the threat of the quarterback running the ball gives the defense just one more thing to be concerned about, and as Rich Rod says, now you're playing 11 on 11 football.

Yes, Khalil Wilkins did wonders with his legs in terms of rushing the ball and picking up yardage by calling his own number, but where his mobility really made a difference was on third down. Entering the game against BYU, the Cougars ranked 7th in 3rd down defense, allowing opponents to convert just 24% of their opportunities. WVU's offense was converting 3rd downs at a 27% clip. The Mountaineers went 7/15, nearly 50%, which was a huge surprise. Wilkins moved the chains four times on nine rushing attempts on third down, including a touchdown. That's something Marchiol wasn't going to be able to give you.

Now, all that being said, Rodriguez hasn't determined who will start vs. UCF, but regardless, all of his options have the ability to do damage with their legs. This new dimension to the offense will help WVU sustain drives and create better field position for its defense when it doesn't score.

A Healthy Running Back Room

It feels like, since the first day of fall camp, this room has been beat up. Kannon Katzer has yet to make his debut, Diore Hubbard missed some time, Jahiem White is out for the year, Cyncir Bowers suffered a head injury, and Tye Edwards is still working through a hip pointer. Throw in the fact that Edwards couldn't even practice until the week before the opener, and the room also unexpectedly lost Jaylan Knighton due to being academically ineligible.

The expectation is that Edwards should be pretty close to 100% by the time WVU takes the field in Orlando next week, giving Rodriguez a healthy room for the first time this season. You couple that with a dynamic running threat at quarterback, and all of a sudden, things begin to look like a Rich Rod offense.

Improved Tackling

Getting guys to the ground has been a chore for this defense all season long. As defensive coordinator Zac Alley pointed out last week, WVU was the best in the country in the time it took to get in position to make a tackle, but was near the bottom in yards after contact. They've been flying around and are clearly in the right spot more often than not; they just have to finish the play.

Removing the Robert Morris game, here are the missed tackle numbers against Ohio, Pitt, Kansas, and Utah — 20, 14, 15, 23 — if you ask Alley, some of those numbers are rather generous of the folks at Pro Football Focus. He charted 34 missed tackles versus Utah. Last week against BYU, that number shrank to just six. If maybe two of those explosive plays don't happen, who knows? It might have been a different game.

Assuming the tackling continues to trend in a positive direction, this defense will be forcing more punts and maintaining good field position for the offense. With as many seniors as there are on that side of the ball, one would think tackling shouldn't be as huge an issue, especially now that we're six games into this.