Previewing UNLV's 2010 Opponents: West Virginia Mountaineers

West Virginia's Stats for the 2009 Season:

Returning Starters for West Virginia:

West Virginia returns so many players, it's hard to not see them win 10 games, especially since they play in the Big East. They lost a Tackle, Quarterback, and Wide Receiver on offense. Those are some pretty key positions, but considering that their star running back is back for another season, this offense shouldn't struggle very much. The defense only lost half their D-Line, which could be a good or bad thing. Having the entire secondary and linebacking core back in a 4-3 defense is really good news and passing against this team will be tough, but losing half of your D-Line could really open you up to the run.

The Mountaineers' 2010 schedule isn't too bad for a team of their caliber. They have Maryland and LSU scheduled in non-conference and have 2 or 3 good teams to face in the Big East. The Non-Conference schedule includes Coastal Carolina, Marshall, Maryland, LSU and UNLV. The Challenges come a few weeks in with LSU as their fourth game of the season and Maryland as the third. After that is USF at game #6 and then there isn't really much competition until they face Cincinnati on November 13th. Pittsburgh is their last challenge and that comes as the second to last game of the season on a Friday.

More analysis of West Virginia after the jump...

Strengths of West Virginia

The Mountaineers have liked to throw the football around a lot under Bill Stewart, but that should have to change this year. With the Mountaineers not returning their starting QB and them also returning starting RB Noel Devine, we should see a lot more handoffs in this offense. Now don't get me wrong, Stewart isn't going to completely abandon the pass. He does have to great receivers returning and that will make the load on the QB much easier. But do expect to see Noel Devine getting a lot of carries.

West Virginia's defense will be good this coming season. They return 9 starters with them only losing two defensive linemen. They should be a great defense at defending the pass, with the entire secondary and linebacking core returning. They should be good on defense unless going up against a team with a particularly good Running Back (Pittsburgh).

Weakness of West Virginia

On Offense, their isn't much of an issue. Running really won't be a problem with a star running back and 4 out of 5 offensive linemen returning. Two of the three starting receivers are returning plus the Tight End, so there isn't going  to be much of a catching problem. If there is any issue on offense, it probably is QB. This will be Bill Stewart's third starting QB in 3 years which means that there isn't much cohesion between the QB and really anyone.

The Mountaineers' Defensive issues aren't many, but the main one could be stopping the run. They don't return half their defensive line and their linebackers are made for pass coverage, not run stoppage. Depending on how the two new Defensive Linemen play when they step in will say it all when it comes to stopping the run for this defense. This defense should stop any Air Raid team or Spread offense. But the issues are going to be stopping a dominant running back. This defense will be dominant in probably 10 out of 12 games this season.

West Virginia's Style of Play

As I hinted at earlier in this post, Bill Stewart loves to pass the football. That has always been his style of play, with the offense scoring 26.2 points per game last season. Unfortunately, the starting QB isn't really prepared to throw as much as Stewart would like him to. So expect to see a lot of pound the ball, play actions and a few deep passes on occassion. Expect the scoring average to go down somewhat.

How do UNLV and West Virginia stack up

UNLV does not measure up to many of their non-conference opponents, including West Virginia. With such strength at running back, West Virginia should destroy UNLV on the ground, opening up the passing game and keeping the defense completely off-balance. UNLV's offense should struggle against a Mountaineer defense returning nine starters.

Here are the rest of the statistics for West Virginia:

2010 West Virginia Football Schedule

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