ORLANDO - It took Miami quarterback Brad Kaaya a while to get warmed up, but once he did he was really good. The junior tossed four touchdown passes to lead the Hurricanes to a 31-14 victory over 14th-ranked West Virginia in the 2016 Russell Athletic Bowl played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida.
Miami (9-4) couldn't get a single first down in the first quarter, but when the Hurricanes finally got one at the start of the second they kept getting them and getting them.
In all, Miami piled up 20 first downs and 366 yards of offense - 282 through the air - to register their first victory over a nationally ranked football team in the Mark Richt era.
But it was a suffocating Miami defense that held West Virginia to just 11 first downs and 229 yards of offense - both season lows - that was the difference in tonight's game.
"They're a good football team," West Virginia coach
Dana Holgorsen said. "They kind of wore us out in the second half; we didn't tackle well in the second quarter and if you want to win a football game like this you've got to play well for all four quarters. We didn't play well in the second quarter."
This looked much like the dominant Hurricane defenses West Virginia used to face in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Miami was annually competing for national championships.
"This is the best defense we've faced all year," Holgorsen admitted.
Tonight, the Hurricanes spotted West Virginia a 7-0 lead before jumping on the Mountaineers with three rapid-fire second quarter touchdowns - all Kaaya touchdown passes.
His first one was a quick throw to freshman Ahmmon Richards out to the right, where he got away from Rasul Douglas, changed direction to the far side of the field, picked up a block from Stacy Coley and raced 51 yards to the end zone.
"That one little quick hitch helped his confidence and after that he put them on the money," Richt noted.
"Ahmmon made a big play for us. It took a young guy to make a big play and after that we never looked back," Kaaya added.
They sure didn't. Two minutes later, Kaaya's second scoring toss was a pretty three-yard lob to Malcolm Lewis in the back of the end zone to give Miami a 14-7 lead. Kaaya got the Hurricanes into scoring territory with a 30-yard strike to Coley, taking the ball to the WVU 28.
Two plays later, Mark Walton carried 16 yards to the WVU four. Another Walton run put Kaaya in position to throw a soft pass to Lewis behind a drawn-up Mountaineer defense.
Miami got another quick touchdown after West Virginia's offense was unable to move the sticks. The big play was Joe Jackson's sack of Skyler Howard for a 13-yard loss that moved the football back to the Mountaineer 17.
Billy Kinney then punted 48 yards to the Miami 35 and the Hurricanes were called for an illegal block during Braxton Berrios' return, moving the ball back to the 30 with 1:19 showing on the clock and UM possessing just one timeout.
Richt burned it right away, but following a short Kaaya pass to Lewis, WVU was flagged for a substitution infraction that stopped the clock and placed the ball on the 39.
Kaaya hit Coley for seven yards, found Berrios for 16 more over the middle to the 38, and then completed a 12-yard pass to Lewis to the WVU 26.
Here, Kaaya delivered the ball to Berrios down the middle of the field beyond
Toyous Avery for his third touchdown pass within a span of six and a half minutes.
With the exception of West Virginia's third offensive possession, when a Howard 24-yard keeper set up
Kennedy McKoy's 6-yard touchdown run, the Mountaineers struggled to move the football at all in the first half against Miami's aggressive front four.
"It got to the point where we just needed to get out of that half," Holgorsen said. "It was a tight game and then it just got away from us in the second quarter."
Miami sacked Howard three times and pressured him nearly every time he dropped back to throw the ball. He finished the first half completing 8 of 13 passes for 58 yards and rushing 14 times for 32 yards.
Howard accounted for nearly all of West Virginia's 104 first-half yards and his career-concluding totals as a Mountaineer quarterback included 17 completions in 26 attempts for 134 yards.
He also led the team with 63 yards on 21 rushing attempts.
On Miami's opening possession of the third quarter, an interference penalty called on Avery trying to make a play on an up-for-grabs pass that he intercepted - the second play like that called against him tonight - gave Miami a first down at the UM 43. That interference penalty set up Kaaya's 23-yard scoring strike to tight end David Nojoku.
Michael Badgley's conversion gave the Hurricanes a 28-7 lead.
WVU answered Nojoku's touchdown on the following possession with its only other touchdown of the game. Hurricane linebacker Michael Pinckey's targeting penalty on Shelton Gibson's 15-yard reception gave West Virginia 15 additional yards to the Miami 45.
Three plays later, Howard held his ground in the pocket against heavy pressure to fire a 26-yard pass to Daikiel Shorts Jr. down the middle, giving WVU a first down at the UM six. Three plays later, Howard scooted in from the four to reduce Miami's lead to 28-14.
However, Miami's next possession led to more points when Badgley punched through a 30-yard field goal with 3:24 left in the third quarter. Kaaya completed four passes on the drive for 44 yards before getting sacked by Christian Brown back to the 13 on a third-and-four play.
Tonight's loss was West Virginia's 17th in 20 all-time meetings against Miami, the last coming in 2003 when the two schools were members of the Big East Conference.
"I just told those guys to settle down and let's just be us," Kaaya said. "I didn't feel like I was myself but we settled down and got our bearings and that's what you need to do to win a game like this.
"We haven't had a bowl win in a long time so this means a lot to these seniors," Kaaya added.
Miami snapped its six-game bowl losing streak, the Hurricanes having last won a bowl game in 2006 beating Nevada in the MPC Computers Bowl.
"I'm really hoping we end up in the top 25. I'm really proud of them," Richt said.
The Mountaineers concluded their sixth season under Holgorsen and their 125th in school history with a 10-3 record.
"We got beat by a good football team," Holgorsen said. "I'm not going to allow it to be a negative. There are 21 seniors and their legacy is this was the best football team that West Virginia has had in the five years they have been in the Big 12. There is a lot to be proud of. Ten wins doesn't happen here a lot. It's rare.
"We're disappointed that we didn't get to 11," Holgorsen continued. "Our fan base is disappointed we didn't get to 11 and our coaches are disappointed, but we're going to hold our heads high and understand that we had a fantastic football season."
