Week 10 Preview: (20) West Virginia vs. (7) TCU

With each team having just one loss in conference play, Saturday’s game between TCU and West Virginia becomes an elimination game in the hunt for the Big 12 title. While Kansas State sits firmly in the driver’s seat, the Horned Frogs and Mountaineers are right behind them and both have the Wildcats left on their schedule.

“I don’t know if any of the games that we played on the road, except for the Baylor game that we played this year, would be more magnitude than what this ballgame is,” TCU coach Gary Patterson said earlier in the week.

With conference title implications on the line, it will be the offenses that pundits will be talking about heading into this game. TCU dropped 82 points on Texas Tech last weekend and West Virginia is coming off a performance in which they out-gunned Baylor’s high-profile offense 41-27 just two weeks ago.

Mountaineers’ quarterback Clint Trickett leads the conference in passing with an average of 345.4 yards per game. He’s completing 68.3% of his passes and has thrown 17 touchdown passes to five interceptions. Countering him will be TCU’s Trevone Boykin who engineers the nation’s top scoring offense. Boosted by last week’s performance against Texas Tech, the Horned Frogs are averaging 50.4 points per game.

As prolific as the two offenses are, do not overlook their defenses either. TCU has the conference’s top scoring defense and the Mountaineers are starting to come into their own after holding both Baylor and Oklahoma State to well below their averages over the last two games.

“We’re going to have to get ready,” Patterson said. “We expect West Virginia to play its best game to date.”

West Virginia’s only home loss this season came at the hands of Oklahoma and TCU’s only loss on the season was on the road at Baylor. History tells us this will be a close and very competitive game. Two years ago TCU won in Morgantown by a score of 39-38 in double overtime. Last year, West Virginia won in Ft. Worth by a score of 30-27. That game also went into overtime.

“It doesn’t matter where it’s at, shoot, it’s going to be a big game,” Mountaineers head coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Last week we had a pretty big game against Oklahoma State that we were able to do what we needed to do to be able to win. To be able to come back home — we know it’s going to be a great game. It’s going to be a great, exciting weekend.”

Kickoff: 3:30 PM (ET)

Location: Morgantown, WV

Television: ABC

Line: TCU -3.5

 

*Section photo and Featured Photo (above) credit to Jamie Squire, Getty Images.

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