The West Virginia Mountaineers have a serious defensive problem, and head coach Rich Rodriguez isn’t hiding his frustration with the unit coordinated by Zac Alley.
WVU surrendered 577 yards of total offense in a crushing 45-42 loss to Iowa State on Oct. 3, marking the second consecutive week the Mountaineers were shredded defensively. One week earlier, Oklahoma State rolled up 609 yards in a 41-24 victory in Morgantown. After watching his defense allow 1,186 yards across two games, Rodriguez made his feelings clear.
“It’s just poor. Yeah, it’s two games in a row that it’s atrocious defense,” Rodriguez said, via MetroNews Sports. “They ran hard and got some good players, but, you know, I thought we were fixing some of the issues, and it certainly didn’t look like it.”
Those aren’t comments Alley will enjoy hearing from his head coach.
Rich Rodriguez Sounds Alarm on Zac Alley’s WVU Defense
Rodriguez’s frustration goes beyond the massive yardage totals. West Virginia’s offense put 42 points on the scoreboard against Iowa State, yet the Mountaineers still couldn’t leave Ames with a victory.
Iowa State finished with 29 first downs and 577 yards, numbers Rodriguez immediately referenced afterward. More importantly, WVU couldn’t get the defensive stop it desperately needed with the game hanging in the balance.
“Twenty-nine first downs, 577 yards, two game-winning drives, all you need was a stop,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just hard to watch.”
Calling a defense “atrocious” and “hard to watch” is about as direct as Rodriguez could get without specifically calling out Alley by name. It also becomes harder to dismiss the Iowa State performance as one bad game because of what happened seven days earlier.
Oklahoma State produced 609 yards against West Virginia, including 389 through the air and 220 on the ground. The Cowboys averaged 9 yards per play and scored 28 second-half points after WVU had taken a 21-13 lead early in the third quarter.
Rodriguez was already searching for answers after that performance. He criticized WVU’s inability to pressure Oklahoma State quarterback Drew Mestemaker, who completed 20 of 27 passes for 389 yards and three touchdowns. That makes his latest admission even more concerning.
Rodriguez believed WVU was fixing some of its defensive issues. Instead, the Mountaineers followed a 609-yard performance by allowing another 577, and the defense again couldn’t protect an offense that had done enough to win.
Alley isn’t solely responsible for every missed tackle, blown assignment or unsuccessful defensive series. Players still have to execute, and Rodriguez himself is ultimately responsible for the entire program. But Alley is the defensive coordinator, and consecutive performances like these naturally bring scrutiny to the person running the unit.
Rodriguez didn’t mention making a staff change or directly threaten Alley’s job. What he did do was publicly describe the defense as “atrocious” after another disastrous statistical performance. For a defensive coordinator, the message doesn’t need to get much louder.
Rich Rodriguez Puts WVU DC Zac Alley on Notice After ‘Atrocious’ Defensive Effort