WVU football’s big win over U.T. Martin allowed for depth pieces to play, providing glimpses into future
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MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia football had a 24-0 lead at halftime against Coastal Carolina. With a major lead, Rich Rodriguez had plans to sub in some depth and younger players in the second half to get them experience and figure out what players he can actually win with. But the Chanticleers battled back, and Rodriguez had to keep the starters out there. It was one of the failures of the game.
Other than winning in Week 2, Rodriguez wanted to jump out to a big enough lead to rotate in a lot of players.
True freshman running back Amari Latimer broke off a 29-yard rushing touchdown to make the game 42-0 with 9:56 left in the third quarter. Rodriguez saw enough and felt comfortable pulling the starters and sent out fresh faces, especially with no more redshirting under the new NCAA 5-for-5 eligibility ruling.
"You don't say it, or talk about it a whole lot in the game," Rodriguez said. "But man, if we could get a lead and get some of those guys in there, there's no worry about redshirting freshmen or anything like that because its five years to play five, so it was good."
Sophomore quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. started the next series after the touchdown run. Fox completed two of his four passes -- with one being to West Virginia native Cyrus Traugh for 11 yards -- for 27 yards, and Fox carried the ball four times for another 21 on the ground. Fox played just one drive, and it ended in a field goal.
"Great to see Scotty," Rodriguez said. "We trust him. He knows the offense pretty well. He's a really competitive guy."
From there, Rodriguez subbed in a new quarterback each drive. True freshman quarterback Jyron Hughley was next up, and he showed flashes of the future. He hit JUCO transfer Kedrick Triplett for a 27-yard touchdown on his only pass. Hughley showed dual-threat possibilities and carried the ball four times for 28 yards, with a long of 11 yards.
"He's got a great skill set," Rodriguez said. "Got a little bit of an ugly touchdown pass, but it worked. He's got a lot of skill, so it was great to see him have a whole series to himself."
Quarterback Max Brown and Max Anderson followed in the final two drives.
"They did great," Hawkins said. "Just operating. Good things. Good seeing Scotty, Jyron and Max, really our whole quarterback room got in, so it was a good feeling."
Rodirguez could also get in his third and fourth string running backs, which he said would be pretty important to take pressure off starting back Cam Cook and backup Latimer. Junior JUCO transfer Martavious Boswell and true freshman Lawrence Autry both played. Boswell, being a bit more experienced, came out with Fox as the third-string back. He had eight rushes for 31 yards and broke off an 11-yard rush. Autry carried the ball twice for 11 yards.
The entire offensive line was subbed out once the starters were pulled, too. Trying to run the clock out, there weren't too many pass attempts to receivers. Triplett had the touchdown catch for the first grab of his Mountaineers career, and Traugh had the lone grab.
Defensively, there were changes, too. True freshman Matt Sieg played a lot more in the second half and registered four total tackles and three solo stops. Kent State transfer Jaire Rawlison made a couple of tackles in the fourth quarter, JUCO transfer defensive lineman Emerson Joy had a share of a tackle for loss and Maliek Hawkins (brother of Mike) had a tackle.
Once the clock ran out, Rodriguez managed to play roughly 90 players, which doesn't include the specialists. Almost the entire roster managed to play against U.T. Martin, and most of the players who didn't play aren't eligible yet or are injured.
Early in the season, seeing what WVU's depth looks like is helpful now that the competition ramps up with Virginia and the start of Big 12 play. Rodriguez achieved that goal Saturday.
"I don't know how many guys we play, but we played a lot. I mean a lot of guys," Rodriguez said. "That was one of the things I was hoping we would be able to do is to play a lot of guys because they worked really hard to be able to do that."