During the first six weeks of the season, the West Virginia passing game was heavily reliant on explosive plays.
They didn't necessarily have to throw it as much because of how dominant the run game had been, but to make things easier on Cam Cook and Mike Hawkins Jr. on the ground, you're going to need to pitch it around a little bit more, and not always on 3rd down or other obvious passing situations.
This past week against Cincinnati was really the first time we saw them implement a heavy dose of the quick game, and Hawkins absolutely shredded the Bearcats' defense, posting 464 passing yards, the fifth-most in a single game in program history.
“Just getting the quick game going early in the game was the biggest thing going into this week, Hawkins said. "It’s kind of something we focused on — just getting more into rhythm early in the game, get my guys some touches. I think that opened up the passing game more throughout the game.”
Later in the postgame press conference, Hawkins once again talked about feeling good because of the way things were called.
“Just getting more comfortable with my receivers and my running backs when they’re in the open field. It’s definitely slowed down each week. Just seeing it well. Play callers calling it to my liking and getting me going early, and keeping me comfortable. So it’s definitely slowed down each week.”
It's very clear. This is Hawkins' show, and I would expect him to have more of a say in the offense moving forward, as every star quarterback does.
We've talked about this several times this season, but when you lead the country in 20+ yard pass attempts, you are just simply not going to have a sparkling completion percentage. This game against Cincinnati: only 12.1% of his 33 attempts traveled 20+ yards (which he went 3/4 on), and because of it, he finished the day completing 76% of his passes. It was a beautifully called game by Rich Rod, Rhett Rodriguez, and Travis Trickett.
While the defense has a lot of issues at the moment, the staff believes there's still another level for this offense to get to and I think we saw the first step of that on Saturday with the passing game now posing more of a threat.
When you get Hawkins in an RPO play, it puts backers and defensive backs in no man's land. They don't know whether to crash and stop him from making a big play with his feet or stay back in coverage and take away the pass. There were several RPOs where he sold the run and got a defender to bite, leaving a wide-open receiver for him to get the ball to.
It'll be very interesting to see how these last five games will go now that the offense feels fully opened up and puts Hawkins in a position to succeed throwing it. Get your popcorn ready.
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