Sep. 4—MORGANTOWN — Jordan Lesley has an issue with what WVU’s defense played like against Penn State on Saturday, but he doesn’t have an issue with how the Mountaineers played.
“We talk about effort, aggression and toughness and I didn’t see a lack of any of those things, ” Lesley said. “That aggression can sometimes bite you. Good football teams, when you make those mistakes, they find them.”
WVU’s defense made plenty of mistakes en route to a 34-12 loss to the Nittany Lions, but WVU’s fourth-year defensive coordinator thinks the way those mistakes were made isn’t cause for alarm.
“The intent of the player is all good, ” Lesley said. “They’re trying to make a player to help their team. To me, that sums up the positive and the negative.”
One play Lesley pointed to was Penn State’s first touchdown, a 50-yard pass to receiver Harrison Wallace. Lesley said safety Kekoura Tarnue got beaten on a post route because he was trying to make a play on an outside route that he correctly read.
“Those are mistakes that are very fixable, ” he said. “I just hate that we have to fix them in that kind of atmosphere against that kind of team in week one.”
Mistakes leading to big plays were the theme of WVU’s defense on Saturday. The Mountaineers didn’t get beat on every single play—they competed quite well through parts of the game—but Penn State capitalized time and again on one or two mistakes for big plays or touchdowns.
“We weren’t consistent enough, ” said safety Jaheem Joseph, who made his WGVU debut after transferring from Northwestern. “We had spurts in the game when we executed and we had spurts when we didn’t and it showed in a lot of explosive plays.”
The Nittany Lions had 10 plays of more than 15 yards, including all five of their touchdowns.
“We didn’t play well enough to win the game, ” Lesley said plainly. “We didn’t…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lesley-thinks-wvus-defense-chance-023300286.html
Author : The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
Publish date : 2024-09-05 02:33:00
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