MORGANTOWN — The Mountaineers are faced with a complete 180 in terms of their opponent from last week to this one.
West Virginia (3-5, 1-4 Big 12) faced the Big 12’s best offense last week against first-place TCU and will see the league’s best defense on the road today at last-place Iowa State.
The Cyclones (3-5, 0-5) sport the league’s toughest defense but pair it with the worst offense in the conference. That combination has ISU with no in-conference wins thus far and riding a five-game losing skid.
“Both teams come into this game needing a win, it’s pretty simple,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “By any means necessary, both teams need a win.”
Iowa State’s offense and defense are mirror images of one another. ISU’s defense leads the conference in points (16.6) and yards allowed (295), but its offense ranks last in points (21.6) and yards (370.1)
Brown is not caught up in the Cyclones’ poor record, however, as four of their five losses have been by one score and three have been by three or fewer points.
ISU also gets West Virginia on the road, where the Mountaineers have not played well in their last two outings — a 38-20 loss at Texas and 48-10 defeat at Texas Tech.
“For us, it’s about us going on the road,” Brown said. “We won on the road at Virginia Tech, but our last two outings haven’t been good enough. We’ve got to go on the road and compete and give ourselves a chance to win on the road against one of the best defenses in the country and a team that’s got a lot to play for.”
The Mountaineers have played in a number of challenging venues this fall including in front of a record-setting crowd at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh and the ever-electric atmosphere in Blacksburg, as well as Austin and Lubbock.
Brown believes Iowa State’s Jack Trice Stadium ranks up there with any one of them.
“That’s one of the toughest venues in the conference to play,” Brown said. “If you have been there, you understand that. If you haven’t, it’s one of the most passionate fanbases, they’re right on top of you, the students do a really good job and it’s a really tough place to play.
“I thought Ames was a really hard place to play when I was a coordinator in the league…their fans always come, no matter what their record is.”
The Cyclones’ offensive standout is Xavier Hutchinson, a big and strong wide receiver who’s caught 77 passes for 830 yards and five touchdowns. Hunter Dekkers throws him the ball and has 14 touchdown passes against 10 interceptions this season.
Iowa State is dead-last in the Big 12 in rushing with just 778 yards this season. Second-worst Texas Tech has 1,103.
Defensively, ISU does not have many statistical standouts, but lineman Will McDonald IV leads the team with 3.5 sacks and linebacker Colby Reeder has a couple of interceptions.
“There’s a lot of new faces, but it’s the same product — and maybe even an improved product,” Brown said of ISU’s defense. “For them, it always starts with the d-line. The reason they’re able to play the way they have over the last several years is because they’ve had multitudes of quality defensive linemen and this year’s no different.”
Like Brown, Iowa State coach Matt Campbell is expecting a close battle between the league’s bottom two teams.
“I think you have a team that’s certainly veteran and a team that’s played a lot of really good football during their time there,” Campbell said of WVU. “I see a really good football team that’s coming in here.”
TWEET — @CodyNespor
