Nwachukwu coming on strong as season goes on

Since then, though, Nwachukwu has come on to begin living up to expectations, culminating last week with a season-high seven stops against Oklahoma State, including a tackle for a loss, the fifth straight game in which he has had a least one TFL.

Bruce Tall, the WVU assistant in charge of the defensive line, heaps heavy praise upon Nwachukwu, not so much for his play but for the way he gets ready to play.

“He works so hard in the weight room, he is always off the charts number wise,” Tall said. “Because of what he does in the weight room and how he prepares himself, he makes himself an extremely explosive player.”

How explosive?

“He is as explosive of a player that I have coached,” the coach said, offering “tall” praise, indeed.

• • •

Dr. Robert “Bob” Nugent, who came to Morgantown back when it was what he called “a dirty, dingy coal town” in the 1960s only to make it his home, has died.

Dr. Nugent, one of the nation’s most respected neurosurgeons, worked with the WVU football team for almost 50 years, beginning back in 1968 when Jim Carlen coached the team, until 2013.

Nugent, a Yonkers, New York, native, was a 1950 cum laude graduate of Kenyon College. He received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1953 and completed his neurosurgical training at Duke in 1958.

He came to WVU’s neurosurgery department in 1961 and went on in 1994 to earn the Order of Vandalia — the highest award West Virginia University can bestow.

Dr. Nugent and his late wife, Virginia, have five children — Dana, Robert Jr., Leslie, Barnes and Courtney.

• • •

Both running back Rushel Shell and cornerback Antonio Crawford are injured and their availability on Saturday for the Kansas game remains uncertain.

“I think those are the only two, so they are day-to-day.” coach Dana Holgorsen said. “There’s nothing long term or season ending on either one of them.”

The same may not be true with the injury defensive lineman Xavier Pegues received before the season, an injury that was said would keep him out until at least November.

“He hasn’t practiced yet,” Holgorsen said, when asked about his availability, “so I don’t know.”

• • •

WVU wound up No. 20 in the season’s first College Football Playoff rankings, which had one major surprise in that Texas A&M edged out unbeaten Washington for the No. 4 spot behind Alabama, Clemson and Michigan.

That was more a tribute to the SEC than to A&M.

Somehow, WVU wound up behind nine teams with two defeats, which didn’t speak well for the power of upgrading the schedule.

One has to wonder where the Mountaineers might have been had they defeated Oklahoma State, however.

• • •

The football world has not been kind to Kansas — this week’s WVU opponent.

The Jayhawks have not won a Big 12 game since beating Iowa State in November, 2014, and the conference skid has grown to 17 consecutive losses.

The last three three have been crushing defeats at the hands of Baylor, Oklahoma State and last week, 56-3 at Oklahoma. The Jayhawks have been outscored 149-30 in those three games, an average of 50-10.