The West Virginia Mountaineershave not looked like the sharpest teamon the defensive side of the ball this season, which is concerning, given the level of talent the Mountaineers have faced early. And with a showdown against No. 25 Virginia coming this week, they need to get right quick. So what is the issue?
Well, we might finally have an answer to that question. During Tuesday's press conference, defensive coordinator Zac Alley shined a spotlighton what he thinks is causing the problemsfor WVU football on the defensive side of the ball this season.
“I think the communication," Alley said. I got on everybody on Sunday that a lot of the things we saw we did in practice to those calls, and then we get in the game, and we don’t do what we did in practice...That’s something that will be a point of emphasis this week. I felt like we didn’t do a good enough job in the last game to execute to a higher level."
Zac Alley blames West Virginia's defensive issues on lack of communication
There are plenty of reasons that you could place communication struggles. Perhaps it's because early in the season, this group of players aren't fully meshing with each other yet: after all, there are a ton of new players that have never played together before in this rotation.
Maybe it's as simple as the Mountaineers not taking opponents such as Coastal Carolina and UT-Martin seriously enough and weren't placing enough emphasis on communication, given that they're lower-level opponents. And Zac Alley's defense is often described as complicated, with a lot of moving parts. But whatever the reason, Alley pulled no punches about what will happen if it isn't fixed.
WVU DC Zac Alley says one of the issues with the defense so far is very few players have been talking during games. He says he told his team it can't just be only a few players who talk and communicate during games, especially since they rotate guys so much.
— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11)September 15, 2026
“We’re being really quiet. Nobody’s talking,' Alley said. "I told them all, I said, ‘Listen, if there’s two guys in the back end and they do all the communication, and if they’re not in, we got no shot if nobody else talks.'"
"So the challenge this week is we have to play with some anticipation of, like, okay, ‘Hey, if he motions, what are we doing?’ Not just ‘Oh, well, I hope he figures it out, and he’s got him over there.’ Talk to each other and communicate.”
The Mountaineers will certainly need to get their defensive struggles fixed one way or another, because stopping Virginia's veteran offensive line and efficient run game, and keeping Virginia's offense behind scheduleis expected to critical to West Virginia's chancesat pulling of an upset.
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