Watch West Virginia vs Miami Online

We’ll take that, as opposed to letting punts bounce or muffing them outright, but Miami has an under-appreciated weapon in its punt return team, which is averaging 12.9 yards per return.

West Virginia defensive end Adam Shuler, a wide-eyed Longwood native whose numerous tattoos include the “407” zip code and the “100” emoji, was among the loudest.

Senior quarterback Skyler Howard has had a breakout final year in Morgantown. Johnny Williams scored a pair of touchdowns and rushed for 52 yards on 17 carries for Miami in a 21-20 UM victory.

Howard was second on the team with 400 net yards rushing. The conference’s No. 4 rusher surpassed the 1,000-yard mark while also adding 14 touchdowns and is a familiar name to the Mountaineer coaching staff.

Still, West Virginia must be prepared to see classic formations and the use of two-back as the Hurricanes will try to establish the run.

“They’re well coached, they play their tail off, and they get better and better and better throughout the course of the season”, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. The schools two big losses, against Oklahoma State and Oklahoma saw WVU lose the TO battle by a -3 margin. West Virginia run the ball better, but the Miami D stops the run fairly well.

In addition to Crawford and Howard, backup running backs, Rushel Shell, Kennedy McCoy, and Martell Pettway contribute to Holgorsen’s up-tempo offense.

The question then becomes whether the Mountaineers can slow down Mark Walton and company enough to make Richt and crew abandon the running game.

The Mountaineers have reached that 210-yard mark in 10 of 12 games this season. Miami book-ended a four-game skid with four-game winning streaks this year. Adding in those of opponents, and the play on a particular day, and it becomes an nearly impossible series of permutations, but there are still some points that stand out.

WVU has averaged 41 points in four games.

The Hurricanes are 30th nationally against the run. “I think he loves the camaraderie of the team, and I think he loves Miami”.

“He (Kaaya) is a prototypical quarterback”, said WVU’s defensive boss. – Miami defensive Coordinator Manny Diaz, via Miami Herald. They can run the ball. “If they can run it, they can do whatever they want…”

“The reason we put in the wishbone was because we had several great running backs”, Carlen said. Even by the oddsmakers, who made four-loss Miami a three-point favorite. Not surprisingly the Hurricanes lost two of those games. After that, there was Cal in the 2008 Emerald Bowl in San Francisco; Wisconsin in the 2009 Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando; Notre Dame in the 2010 Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas; Louisville in the 2013 Russell Athletic Bowl; South Carolina in the 2014 Duck Commander Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana; and Washington State in last year’s Sun Bowl. He has caught 8 touchdowns with a long of 71 yards. Limiting the Mountaineers tempo will also be important. Finn offers evidence in his game-night analysis that one of the two schools in thie holiday event has significant favor and is easily the better squad in this college bowl matchup – and he supports that by offering a WagerTalk guarantee. It will be that feeling that Holgorsen hopes to dig into when he address those player before the start of the game.

The irony there: Jenkins, a senior from Tampa, has played in 48 games, has nine career interceptions and was an honorable mention All-ACC pick. “They play a tough schedule, have beat a lot of good football teams”. “That is a big deal, and we are trying to change that this year”.

“They’re going to get yards”.

“I don’t know if they look at us being in the Big 12”, he said when asked about the league’s reputation for soft defenses. WVU ranks 66th in the nation, giving up 175.5 yards per game on the ground. 13 Oklahoma State on October 29, and 56-28 to now-No. I think the key match up which will define this bowl game will be the Miami secondary versus the wide outs of West Virginia. That comes out to a plus 11 in wins and negative six in losses.