COLUMN: Zac Alley’s defense is awful, but WVU’s problems go much deeper than that
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MORGANTOWN - Zac Alley is the perfect defensive coordinator.
Let me rephrase that. If a college football team ever finds itself in a position where it needs to let the opponent score quickly in order to give the offense enough time to have an opportunity to go for a score of its own ... then Alley is the right man for that job.
Not exactly sure that's worth a $1.5 million yearly salary, but let's be honest, money is being so irresponsibly thrown around in college football these days at an unbelievable pace that Alley's shortcomings as a defensive coordinator may actually be underpaid.
We could call for Alley to be fired. We won't go that far. That's a decision to be made by the school and WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez.
What we will say is if Alley cashes another paycheck with a WVU logo on it - and it's not a buyout check - the 31-year old should feel extremely fortunate.
Just one week after allowing 609 yards in one football game, well, Alley's adjustments on defense actually led to a 32-yard improvement. Iowa State was, ahem, held to 577 on Saturday in a 45-42 victory against the Mountaineers inside Jack Trice Stadium.
We begin with WVU's defense, because it's the obvious hole in the dam. To be sure, there are others and they stretch to both sides of the ball to up in the booth to down on the sidelines and all the way from the coaches' office to the practice field.
What Iowa State did was expose the overall poorness that still lies within this WVU football program. Yes, this second bunch under Rodriguez may have a lot more in the way of style points compared to last season. It may be a group that is more connected. They may like each other more than last year's bunch.
There's probably a lot less head cases and headaches to deal with on WVU's roster in 2026 compared to 2025.
That does not mean in any single way or purpose that the Mountaineers are any better in Rodriguez's second season.
But, let's get back to Alley for a moment. His defense just allowed a career-high 212 yards rushing to a guy named Aiden Flora. It took all of 22 carries for him to reach that high. He ran for three touchdowns, including the go-ahead score with 1:57 remaining.
Folks, Flora began his college career as a walk-on.
If anyone from WVU shook the young man's hand after the game, it was the only time he was touched all day from someone from Morgantown.
He not only ran for three touchdowns, but Flora also passed for two on trick plays. Both of them only proved that Alley's defensive backs are about as disciplined as a two-year old toddler.
"I thought we were fixing some of the issues, but it certainly didn't look like it," Rodriguez said after the game. "We've got to do a better job. I mean, 29 first downs, 577 yards and two game-winning drives when all you needed was a stop. It's hard to watch."
At least Rodriguez got that right. It surely was hard to watch.
Now, look, we totally get that Iowa State was bigger up front and that Cyclones' offensive line played a whale of a game. We also understand that WVU was in the midst of plugging in two new guys in defensive backs JaCorey Thomas and Jason Chambers, who were recently cleared by the court system to have their eligibility restored.
In 2026, that is hardly an excuse. Since the invention of NIL and rampant transferring, guys have been getting plugged in and out of lineups across the entire country. It's a coach's responsibility to be able to adjust on the fly and still show results, because others sure are.
For two consecutive weeks now Alley has had a poor plan. It's doubtful after a year and a half of this that he's going to come up with a good one.
The current state of the WVU football program stretches beyond just its defense. For a second straight week, Rodriguez just lost to a first-year coach in the Big 12. Like Oklahoma State's Eric Morris the week before, Iowa State's Jimmy Rogers entered this season with a lot of holes, a lot of transfers and not all the time in the world to get everyone on the same page.
And yet they somehow have the ship somewhat moving in the right direction. Why? The guess from here is there was a responsible approach to the situation, whether that was how NIL money was allocated to players to the hiring of competent assistants to relaying the plan of attack from coach to athlete.
WVU did no such thing. It basically handed Rodriguez a blank check two years ago and all he did was spend millions on the hiring of friends and family members.
That's terrific if you're running a hot dog stand, but it's very clear that there is a disconnect between what Rodriguez wants to accomplish and how he is going about trying to get there.
WVU will have a bunch of new players next season and the season after that and so on. Someone in that program needs to get a handle on that fact and say, "OK, what needs to be in place to make that work?"
As of right now, it's clearly not. A year and a half into Rod's second run, he's got a nice win against Pitt and Virginia under his belt, but so many more embarrassing defeats.
Yes, a lot of that falls on WVU's defense and Alley, but in no way does the buck stop there.