In The Trenches: Evaluating West Virginia's offensive line in Oklahoma State loss

We're back after West Virginia's first loss of the season with another installment of 'In The Trenches,' where this writer – a former high school and Division 2 offensive lineman – takes a deep dive into how West Virginia's offensive line played in their prior game, and where they're at on the season as a whole.

Let's waste no time and dive right into the meat and potatoes of how the O-line performed for the Mountaineers in a 17-point loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

West Virginia didn't win at the line of scrimmage on offense

Remember when the Cowboys led 328-24 late in the third quarter, and the Mountaineers decided to go for it on 4th-&-1? West Virginia's offensive line got stood up at the line of scrimmage, Oklahoma State had every gap filled, and play was stopped behind the line of scrimmage to force a turnover on downs. That play begins at the 44-second mark of the video below.

Did that feel like deja vu to anyone else? We watched that exact moment play out several times last year. It's encouraging that it took four weeks for it happen this year, but you don't want it to happen at all if you want to be a legitimate championship contender. And while it was the most noticeable occurrence, it wasn't the only play on Saturday the Mountaineers failed to get much push up front.

It wasn't near as bad as some of last year's dismal efforts, but it was the first time this year some of the lack of movement at the line of scrimmage truly concerned me. Luckily, this group is solid at locking defenders up in place when they're not blowing teams off the ball, so that helps in instances like these, and the run game still got significant traction.

But Mike Hawkins Jr. and Cam Cook forced 14 missed tackles combined Saturday, and you'd prefer they didn't have to do that. You'll notice if you watch the game highlights below, there were several West Virginia plays where Hawkins Jr. and Cook got significant yardage, but it came after breaking tackles early close to the line of scrimmage.

You can tell when looking at the Pro Football Focus (PFF) grades as well, because the Mountaineers had just two offensive lineman (Wes King, Carsten Casady) post above-average offensive grades (average is a 65.0). They were also the only two with above-average run-blocking grades, and both narrowly eclipsed the required grade for that.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys saw four of their six highest-graded players come from the defensive line, and five defensive lineman graded out above-average defensively.

The Mountaineers are still much-improved from last year, and the future is bright

Let's talk the positives now. Last year, the Mountaineers graded 124th in run blocking in the FBS and 60th in pass blocking (yeah, feels high to me too) in pass blocking, according to PFF. Their run block grade was a 50.0, and their run blocking grade and pass blocking grade combined averages out to 59.6.

This season, the team has graded out 94th in pass blocking and 48th in run blocking through their first four games. If you average the two grades together, it comes out to a 62.9. That's a significant improvement overall (though pass blocking has apparently regressed), and you can see it when putting the Mountaineers through the eye test.

I've already seen more movement off the line of scrimmage in four games than I did all of last season. And like I said, this group looks much better at holding blocks longer than last year's, even when they're not garnering a significant push at the line of scrimmage. And the grades are already looking better despite last year's group having 12 games to play together, while this group had only had four.

As an offensive lineman myself, I can assure that things get a lot easier the longer you play together, and these guys will look even better in comparison to last season as the year goes on. And you can bring most of this group back next year – Carsten Casady and Nick Krahe will have one year of eligibility left, Amare Grayson will have two years, and Kevin Brown will have four years.

And on the two-deep, Malik Agbo is the only back-up out of eligibility after this season. So if you can identify 6-7 of those eight players and retain them, this group will continue to develop next year. and Given where they are now, they could be an elite group with another year of development together.

And given how much the quarterback and running back position have improved this year, you don't really need this group to be excellent right now – you need them to be sufficient. And while there were hiccups, they were mostly sufficient on Saturday, with just one or two ugly moments.

Get those fixed, and you're right on schedule. After one month of the season, it feels like fans should be pretty satisifed with the offensive line play – but at the same time, some development is still neccessary.

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