West Virginia vs. Baylor: Defenses ineffective in shootout

Geno Smith and the West Virginia Mountaineers tore up the scoreboard alongside the Baylor Bears on Saturday during their 70-63 win. The two teams combined for over 1,500 yards of offense and the scoreline indicates pretty clearly just how much defense the two teams managed to play.

West Virginia blog The Smoking Musket put the focus on the defense, which gave up almost as much as their offense put up. Fortunately for them, they doubt that they'll face another offense like the one Baylor showed any time soon:

The one consolation I keep repeating to myself is that WVU will likely not face an offense of that caliber again the rest of the year (hopefully ever).

Baylor blog Our Daily Bears took the same approach, noting that the offense was as fantastic as it could be but the defense was leaving way too much to be desired:

Our biggest problem at this point is clearly the defensive line, where we're playing a redshirt freshman in an alignment we've never used before because we lost our starter before the season. Over and over again before the game I stressed that pressure would make all the difference; we couldn't expect any secondary, much less ours, to cover receivers like WVU's indefinitely. Today, we got almost zero effective pressure even when we did bring extra rushers. They were close on numerous occasions, but not close enough to impact the play and Geno Smith picked us apart. With better talent, close plays missed become important plays made. That we lack that talent in certain important areas now is not Bennett's fault.

Baylor will move on to play TCU in two weeks while WVU will face the Texas Longhorns in their next game. Both schools will assuredly be looking for some improved defensive play for their next games after one of the greatest shootouts in college football we've ever seen.