Who Is The Starting Quarterback?
The Mountaineers have started three different quarterbacks this season, and five signal callers have seen at least one snap. With Nicco Marchiol done for the year and likely leaving the program, that's one name you can remove from the discussion. Jaylen Henderson looked mediocre at best against Utah, but offers veteran experience. Khalil Wilkins started against BYU and showed flashes of a future star, but Scotty Fox Jr. might have looked even better in his limited action against the Cougars. And then the wild card of Max Brown is still lingering in the background as well.
They say if you have multiple starting quarterbacks you have none, and that appears to be true for WVU. This offense has struggled to find any success this season, and much of it has to do with the lack of a true playmaker under center. Rodriguez needs to figure out which player offers the best shot at winning for the Mountaineers and get him ready to start against UCF.
Is A Bowl Game Still In Play?
The obvious answer here is yes, because there are six games left and the Mountaineers need four wins to be bowl eligible. But there are questions to how winnable most of the remaining games are, particularly with what we've seen from WVU so far. The Mountaineers need to spend the bye week figuring out exactly which games are realistically winnable, and if there's a decent path to winning four more games, and what they need to do to make that happen if it is a possibility.
If you can, do what you can to to get there, because any bowl bid trumps no bowl bid, and because those extra bowl season practices can be major for development. But if this team can't emerge from the bye week with a clear path to the postseason, it's probably best to look at investing heavily in developing younger talent through the final stretch of play, regardless of win-loss total. There is a bigger picture at play here, after all.
What To Do With The Offensive Line?
It's not a secret to anyone that this WVU offensive line has been absolutely lackluster this season. When you combine the starting five offensive lineman's PFF grades each game this season, they've yet to average higher than 62.08 – the last four games, their average grade has not hit gone higher than 56.68, which they achieved in their most recent loss to BYU. Multiple times in the past three games, individual linemen have been called out for missed assignments, and the entire line has been blown into the backfield with no push in short yardage situations.
Backup interior lineman Carson Lee was PFF's second-highest graded offensive lineman against Kansas behind starting center Landen Livingston, and Lee and backup tackle Malik Agbo were the highest-graded by PFF of the seven offensive lineman who took double-digit snaps against Utah. Backup guards Donovan Haslam and Josh Aisosa saw significant action against Utah as well and impressed fans.
Rodriguez said Agbo and Haslam were going to "play more" ahead of the BYU game, but neither saw much action against the Cougars and the starting lineup remained the same. Changes must come on the offensive line if this team wants to see serious success, or at they very least build for the future. It seemed after the BYU loss that Rodriguez might finally be in that camp as well, calling the offensive line play "ridiculous".
How To Get The Defense Back On Track?
WVU's defense this season hasn't exactly been bad – but it also hasn't been particularly impressive either.
The season started off well, with several forced turnovers in early games, and one of the best pass rushes in the nation. But the Mountaineers have given up 127 points in their last three games and have seen their secondary carved up by Devon Dampier and Bear Bachmeier in consecutive weeks. Now, the Mountaineers are looking quite mediocre on both sides of the ball.
But there seems to be more talent on the defensive side of the ball, and Zac Alley's reputation as a defensive coordinator isn't to be taken lightly. If the Mountaineers can figure out what's causing issues in recent weeks on defense, and get back in touch with what was working in the first few weeks of the season, at least a couple more games could be won on the back of the defense.