West Virginia’s defense attempts to keep TCU from a first down during their game on Saturday evening.

On fourth-and-2, TCU decided to roll the dice inside West Virginia territory on the 30-yard line. TCU quarterback Josh Hoover rolled out and tried to get his favorite target, Eric McAlister, the ball, but defensive tackle Devin Grant stepped in front and broke up the pass. The Horned Frogs turned the ball over on downs.

WVU’s defense stopped TCU’s offense, which is a top 5 offense in the Big 12, five times, and held the offense to a field goal three times, with one of them being at WVU’s 4-yard line. This was a complete flip from just seven days before, when a bottom-half UCF team torched defensive coordinator Zac Alley’s defense for 578 yards and 45 points. UCF punted once the whole game.

“Especially early in the game when the offense couldn’t get a first down,” Rich Rodriguez said. “The defense was in there battling.”

Linebacker Reid Carrico said the week before TCU, the team spent more time in practice taking advantage of every minute. He said they did that in the weeks prior, too, but just a little more this week.

“The last couple of weeks, it hasn’t reflected the amount of time we put in, but this week, we found a way to put in more time and practice hard and make the most of just about every minute that we have out there in practice,” Carrico said. “Coach Rod probably already said we had a great week of practice and put ourselves in a good position to compete.”

The defense attacked early, too. TCU’s first three drives started in WVU territory after a bad punt, and the offense went for it on fourth down a couple of times. The defense was already behind the 8-ball. In those three drives, WVU stopped the offense twice.

“I thought there was a tone set early on, on defense, and just guys playing hard, physical and just answering the bell,” Carrico said. “On defense, individually, in football, you’re going to be put in tough spots. Sometimes, crazy things happen in this game, and if you want to be a great defense, you got to be able to put out the fire.”

There were a lot of issues after the UCF lost, in all three phases of the game. The defense was gashed by the big play, and there were a lot of missed tackles. Those two issues had been a common theme through all four blowouts in the games leading up to TCU.

TCU had just one big play, which was a 46-yard rush before the half, bringing the Horned Frogs down to WVU’s 12. The defense created a stop and forced a field goal. The tackling was a bit better, too. WVU only allowed 96 yards rushing.

“The tackling was a lot better,” Carrico said. “Still missed some. I missed a couple, but I’d say Coach Alley did a great job of getting us prepared and ready to know where we need to be in the fits and all that sort of thing.”

Carrico said the defense was finally applying what Alley went over during practice in the game. He said the defense was anticipating a lot more this week than reacting.

“It allowed us to get downhill, hit the guy at the line of scrimmage, or a yard pass the line of scrimmage,” Carrico said. “Rather than being five yards off the ball that bleeds for seven or eight.”

The defense showed slight improvement and looked more like the defense in the first three games of the season, which was one of the best in the Big 12 and was towards the top of the nation in sacks.

It makes you feel better going forward, knowing, maybe, the rest of the year, WVU won’t allow 38 points a game. This is the time to look better, too, with No. 22 Houston and No. 13 Texas Tech coming up. The Red Raiders have the best offense in the conference, too.

“It’s definitely something that we can build off of,” Carrico said.