Holgorsen sees room for improvement after Marshall

Despite winning the season opener against in-state rival Marshall in dominating fashion, Dana Holgorsen still sees the need to improve in many facets of the game.

The second-year head coach held his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon and was – for the most part – pleased with his team’s effort in its 69-34 victory against Marshall Saturday, but still feels mistakes were made, particularly on defense.

"Defensively, we need to tackle better and get better on third down," Holgorsen said. "If you tackle
better on third down, you’re probably getting off the field. We lined up well, we played physical, we played fast and our
first-downs were great. We just didn’t tackle very good on third down."

The West Virginia offense was extremely impressive, racking up 655 total yards.

"Offensively, I like the way we operate. The one glaring thing was the two times the ball was on the ground, which was two times too many,"

Holgorsen said. "We did a heck of a job recovering that. If we don’t get those two fumbles back, we’re probably looking at 21-20 at halftime. That can’t ever happen."

Early last season, the Mountaineers struggled to find consistency with offensive tempo. This wasn’t the case Saturday.

"I thought our tempo was real good. We’re going to vary tempos and go fast when we can," Holgorsen said. "It’s all about it looking good. When you get out there and score your first two drives, it makes it
easier to press the envelope on some things. I was really happy with the tempo."

Holgorsen was most
impressed with his senior quarterback Geno Smith.

"I was really happy with Geno (Smith) and the
operation. As you can tell, he’s seasoned. It’s the best quarterback I’ve been around from an operations standpoint, from a handling-the-game standpoint, getting the calls in, taking care of the football and checking plays," he said. "There are a lot of things he does that you can’t see unless you’re out there."

The Mountaineers will have an off week this weekend before taking on James Madison at FedEx Field Sept. 15.

The team was given a day off for Labor Day but will return to practice Tuesday.

Holgorsen and his staff will use their free time this weekend to hit the
recruiting trail.

"When we have a couple of days (like we do this weekend) we can get to Texas and get to Florida," he said. "We’ll probably send four to Texas and three to Florida. I think (assistant head coach) Steve (Dunlap) is going to stay local; other than that everybody is going to be on an airplane going somewhere."