MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Quarterback Skyler Howard first used his legs, and then his right arm to help 14^th-ranked West Virginia to its seventh victory of the season, a 48-21 conquest of Kansas Saturday night at Milan Puskar Stadium.

Howard completed 16-of-27 passes for 260 yards and three touchdowns, and added 64 yards on the ground before being lifted with 7:01 remaining in the game.

"It wasn't the cleanest game of all, but we'll take it and move on to the next one," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "I've been doing this for a long time. You don't ever take a win for granted, that's for sure. (I am) happy to be 7-1."

It took West Virginia's offense a little while to get warmed up, but once it did, the Kansas defense did little to slow it down as WVU accumulated 341 yards on 46 attempts.

"They were squeezing hard in the box and it took us a couple of series to figure out what to do," Holgorsen noted.

Junior Justin Crawford led the ground attack with a season-high 129 yards on 13 attempts, while true freshman Kennedy McKoy contributed a season-high 127 yards on 18 rushes - 92 of those coming in the first half. "I thought we ran the ball pretty good considering what they were doing defensively," said Holgorsen.

Following Mike Molina's 35-yard field goal on the game's opening drive, Howard used his legs to reach the end zone twice, his first run covering 22 yards and his second going for 33 yards.

Howard then fired two touchdown passes, one to Daikiel Shorts Jr. for seven yards and the other for 19 yards to Shelton Gibson right before the end of the half to give the Mountaineers a commanding 31-0 lead.

West Virginia (7-1, 4-1) scored twice in the third quarter, one a Crawford 27-yard jaunt and the other a Howard-to-Gibson hookup in the back of the end zone covering 32 yards.

Molina added a season-long, 39-yard field goal with 9:53 remaining in the fourth quarter.

The second half consisted mostly of turnovers, miscues, bobbled snaps, injuries, reviews, conferences, wide-open receivers and lots of penalties after most of the announced crowd of 56,343 got an early start to the exits.

"It seemed to me like that clock stood still there forever," said Holgorsen. "I don't know if it was the penalties or reviewing numerous plays that never got overturned but it's getting out of hand."

Shorts Jr. caught seven passes for 104 yards and a touchdown and Gibson added 102 yards on four receptions - West Virginia's first multi-100-yard receiving game this season. WVU had 605 yards of total offense, the third time it has topped 600 in a game this year.

As they did in last year's 49-0 victory in Lawrence, the Mountaineers did a lot of their damage by land against a Kansas run defense, ranked eighth in the Big 12, that was allowing 210 yards per game. And they did so without starting running back Rushel Shell III, who sat out tonight's game with an ankle injury suffered during last week's loss at Oklahoma State.

Kansas (1-8, 0-6) scored two touchdowns in the third quarter, the first coming after Howard's fumble at the WVU 29. Ke'saun Kinner covered all 29 yards in four rushes, the final tote coming on third and goal from the two.

Kansas' other third-quarter score was the result of a busted coverage by the WVU defense when Taylor Martin was left alone out in the flat and backup quarterback Carter Stanley flipped a soft toss to him that he was able take down the near sideline for a 45-yard touchdown.

After Molina missed a 27-yard field goal try, Kansas once again took to the air, the big play being a Stanley-to-Steven Sims-to-Michael Zunica double pass for a 40-yard gain to the WVU 40. Three more Stanley passes, the final one going to Sims for 11 yards, gave Kansas its third touchdown of the game.

And because Kansas managed to score some late points, that meant West Virginia had to continue to play a lot of its starters, which meant its rapidly diminishing running backs corps took another hit when Crawford had to leave the game with 10:22 remaining.

Then, starting linebacker Justin Arndt was helped off the field shortly afterward.

In the first half, Howard tried to leap Kansas' Mike Lee at the the three and was flipped upside down on his back at the one.

"I'm not scared of injuries," said Holgorsen. "I mean if you started getting scared of injuries, you're going to get injured. (Howard) plays his best when he plays like that. I thought he sparked us, whether it was late in the first (period) or early in the second."

The Jayhakws had 135 yards of offense at halftime, but finished the game with 441 - most of those coming with backup quarterback Stanley in the game. He completed 9-of-11 passes for 127 yards and two touchdowns, and also ran four times for 34 yards.

Kansas has not won a Big 12 road game in eight years and is winless away from Lawrence in league play this year, losing by scores of 55-19, 49-7 and 56-3 prior to tonight's game.

WVU returns to the road to face improving Texas next Saturday in Austin. The Longhorns are now 5-4 following their 45-37 victory over Texas Tech earlier today in Lubbock.