MORGANTOWN - For years and years now, West Virginia's defense has played and even prospered without banking quarterback sacks. It's an understood admission of the 3-3-5 defensive alignment that an offensive line, sometimes with the help of a tight end, is going to either outnumber or capably counter the defense that sacrifices size to be speedy and uses creativity to be chaotic.
The Mountaineers always try, though. The manufactured pressure, the unpredictable approaches and the cumulative damage can rattle quarterbacks and derail passing games. But this year, their sack numbers are again below average and they haven't harassed quarterbacks into many bad days, the sort of games Baylor's Bryce Petty and TCU's Trevone Boykin endured last season.
They're not trying quite as often either. WVU doesn't have a dynamic player who can explode through pass protection. It hasn't had enough healthy and experienced cornerbacks and safeties to trust to hang in there behind pressure that may never do what it's designed to do.
"We're probably dropping eight out more and trying to give those guys some extra help and not put so much stress on them," defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. "It's a deal where you have to be careful how you call it from a confidence mindset."
It leaves the Mountaineers looking like they did often against Texas Tech, when three defensive linemen pushed offensive linemen and tried to get around them with infrequent success. Meanwhile, the three linebackers and five defensive backs fanned out across the field, covering receivers but also creating space for short, last-resort passes to running backs and runs by quarterback Pat Mahomes.
But Texas Tech had more 20-plus-yard pass plays than anyone in the country before the game. The Red Raiders had just two against WVU.
"If you watch the film and really study it," Gibson said, "we played really well in the back end."
Neither of the big plays was a deep throw. Maybe one was the result of a defensive back's mistake. One was a short pass to a running back beneath a soft defense. The other was a quick throw against a blitz when safety K.J. Dillon was just a tick behind knocking down the pass or tackling the receiver.
"We were trying to control the deep pass game, and you saw the effects of that," Gibson said. "We took away the deep stuff and made Mahomes pull the ball down. Did he do some things? Yeah, he got out on us some. Did that beat us? No. Does it give you a headache? Yes."
In the final half of the season, with the defensive line regularly outnumbered and no one showing more than 3 ½ sacks, with a star safety out for the season and with a starting cornerback and the starting middle linebacker dragging shoulder injuries onto the field, with corners and safeties finding their way in games, the Mountaineers (4-4, 1-4 Big 12) are learning to play without their frequent pressure.
How they fare against offenses nowhere near as prolific and as potent as the five they just saw in succession will define the remainder of the schedule, which continues with Saturday's noon ESPNU game against Texas (4-5, 3-3) at Mountaineer Field.
The Longhorns rank No. 118 nationally in passing yards per game (152.7) and No. 120 in pass attempts per game (21).
"It's fine," cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell said. "We'll adapt. We'll make Cover 3 look like our base defense and we'll make our base look like something else. We'll do things on our end to disguise what we're doing and to help make the quarterback hold the ball a little longer."
The Mountaineers aren't trying as many blitzes, but they're still trying to unearth ways to affect passers. That means moving, disguising and deceiving before the snap. That means trying harder to force quarterbacks to question what they see and doubt what they can do.
But it also means more blitzes, if not in games, then in rehearsals.
"Honestly, I'll tell you what," nose guard Kyle Rose said, "we've probably put more blitzes in in the past few weeks. We put two new ones in last week. There's film now. Teams can watch four or five games and see our blitzes. It's good to mix it up and run something that maybe the offense hasn't seen."
More plays in the playbook doesn't mean more attacking in a game, though. Gibson's playing more passively than he prefers and asking seven or eight players to drop back into coverage more than he wants. It worked against the Red Raiders and it stands to reason it can continue to be effective against a remaining schedule without a team in the top 50 in passing yards per game.
It might eventually be true the Mountaineers get used to the idea and then begin to like it.
"It can be a challenge sometimes, but that's why we've got scholarships," free safety Dravon Askew-Henry said. "We've got to live up to that challenge."