Box Score LANDOVER, Maryland - Travon McMillan's 3-yard touchdown run with 6:30 left in the fourth quarter snapped a 24-all tie and helped lift Virginia Tech to a 31-24 victory over West Virginia in the renewal of the Black Diamond Trophy game here at FedEdField Saturday night.
 
Two missed second-half field goals by usually reliable Virginia Tech kicker Joey Slye made the ending interesting, however.
 
His second botched kick, from 32 yards out, with 1:55 remaining opened the door for West Virginia (0-1) to try and score a game-tying touchdown.
 
Mountaineer quarterback Will Grier marched West Virginia from its 20 to the Hokie 15, using all but nine seconds of the game clock and burning the remainder of WVU's timeouts.
 
On second down, Grier eluded heavy pressure and fired a pass to David Sills V in the end zone, but Sills was unable to secure the pass as he was sliding to the ground. That left the Mountaineers with just one last crack at the end zone with just two seconds showing on the clock.
 
The final play was anticlimactic, however, as two penalty flags were dropped on the field as Grier's pass fell incomplete in the corner of the end zone.

"We ran out of time," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "In fact, we had two minutes and two timeouts with plenty of time to get it down there and we did. You pop a run on them or two, you get  the first down, the clock stops, you get them lined up and keep playing."
 
A total of nine penalties were called on West Virginia totaling 81 yards - two big ones coming on one play late in the third quarter after the Mountaineers, trailing 24-17, had marched to the Tech 23.
 
The two walk offs, one whistled on the WVU sideline for arguing an initial holding call, moved the football back to the 48 where the Mountaineers had to punt. Asked afterward if he thought opportunities to score were lost from penalties, Holgorsen replied, "Yeah ... we'll stop there."
 
West Virginia also suffered from some spotty special teams play, either by giving the Hokies outstanding field position on poor kickoffs and punts, or by putting itself in a hole when failing to catch punts.
 
Tech quarterback Josh Jackson, the first freshman to start a season-opening game for Virginia Tech since Michael Vick did it in 1999, completed 15-of-26 passes for 235 yards and a touchdown and also ran 11 times for 101 yards and another score.

"Their quarterback is going to be a really good player," Holgorsen said.
 
Hokie wide receiver Cam Phillips caught seven of Jackson's aerials for 138 yards and a touchdown.

"That was one hell of a football game," Holgorsen said. "I'm disappointed for my guys and incredibly disappointed for our fan base and that's not going to go away any time soon."
 
The loss spoiled an outstanding West Virginia debut for Florida transfer Will Grier, who completed 31-of-53 passes for 371 yards and three touchdowns.

"For someone who hadn't played in two years, live snaps, I thought he played really well," Holgorsen said. "I mean he's a ball player. Everything we thought he was he is."
 
Senior Justin Crawford added 106 yards on the ground - his sixth career 100-yard rushing performance - on just 13 carries while junior Gary Jennings Jr. led all receivers with 189 yards on 13 catches.
 
West Virginia outgained the Hokies 592-469.

"We played really well on defense in the first half and then I think there was some fatigue that set in and that benefits the offense," Holgorsen explained. 

West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said afterward he's not yet to the point where he's got 22 reliable players to use on his defense. He estimated he has about 14 players ready to go right now, and his defense simply wore down in the second half.
 
That led to a third quarter that was the complete opposite of the first half when both teams seemed to be getting used to their new quarterbacks. After Tech's unsuccessful opening drive, points came in flurries.
 
West Virginia tied the game at 10 on its opening possession of the third quarter, marching 58 yards in seven plays to the Hokie 16 where Mike Molina bounced one off the right upright through the goal post.
 
It took Virginia Tech (1-0) only 1:28 to untie it when two big plays, one a Jackson-to-Chris Cunningham 39-yard pass to the WVU 18, set up Deshawn McClease's 12-yard touchdown run.
 
The Mountaineers knotted the score again at 17 with 2:18 to go in the third quarter when Grier found Sills V a second time for a 10-yard touchdown, but this time it took Virginia Tech just 32 seconds to re-take the lead.
 
A James Clark 44-yard return of Evan Staley's kickoff and a 15-yard personal foul penalty tacked on when freshman Kenny Robinson tackled him out of bounds gave Tech the ball at the WVU 32.
 
Here, Jackson used a pump fake to draw in safety Dravon Askew-Henry before flipping a 32-yard touchdown pass down the near sideline to Phillips.

"Virginia Tech hit us with an unbalanced formation, we bit up on the screen and that guy ran free," Gibson said. "That was a turning point because up until that point, they really weren't doing a whole lot to hurt us."
 
An exchange of possessions, West Virginia's ending after moving the ball to the Tech 23 before going backwards 25 yards on a pair of penalties, provided only a brief scoring respite.
 
It took a mere 29 seconds to see more points put on the board when Grier connected on a 60-yard bomb to Jennings Jr.  for his third TD pass of the evening. Jennings beat Hokie free safety Terrell Edmunds to the football at the 34, and then evaded Adonis Alexander at the 27 to score standing up.
 
This was in stark contrast to a first half mostly controlled by the two defenses, the Hokies limiting West Virginia to one second-quarter drive resulting in points while the Mountaineers surrendered two scores.
 
Tech got on the board first with 6:10 left in the first quarter when Slye punched through a 25-yard field goal.
 
The Hokie drive began at their own 34 and consumed 58 yards in 12 plays - eight of those coming on the ground, but the big play was a Jackson pass down the near sideline to Phillips for 28 yards to the Mountaineer three.
 
After Jackson lost two, a false start penalty on right tackle Kyle Chung moved the ball back five yards to the eight. Jackson missed twice on passes to Phillips, forcing Slye to convert his 64^th career field goal, now four shy of Shayne Graham's Virginia Tech record of 68.
 
West Virginia's lone first-half score began at its own 14. After Crawford ran three yards to the 17, offensive coordinator Jake Spavital called the senior's number again and he burst through a crack in the middle of the Hokie defense to race 42 yards to the Virginia Tech 41.
 
Three plays later, on fourth and two at the 33, Grier hit Ka'Raun White on an eight-yard slant pass to the Tech 25. A crossing pass to Jennings Jr. netted 12 to the 13 and Grier ran for two to the 11. Two plays later, a scrambling Grier was flushed out of the pocket to his left and flipped a pass toward the far corner of the end zone that Sills V was able to snare before falling out of bounds.
 
Virginia Tech, getting the ball on its own 35 when Staley's kick sailed out of bounds at the two, moved the ball to its 43 before being forced to punt. Here, Jennings failed to catch Oscar Bradburn's line-drive punt to the near sideline and the ball bounced all the way to the Mountaineer three where it was downed by a pair of Tech pursuers.
 
West Virginia's inability to get a first down deep in its own territory gave the Hokies great field position when Greg Stroman fair caught Billy Kinney's short punt out to the WVU 47.
 
Two McMillan runs netted nothing, but Jackson flipped a high-arching pass down the near sideline to Phillips, who was able to wrestle the ball away from WVU corner Mike Daniels Jr. for a 28-yard gain to the Mountaineer 19.
 
Two plays later, Jackson again converted a third down pass on the move to C.J. Carroll for 10 yards to the eight. A Steven Peoples run got the ball to the WVU five, and following a timeout, Jackson slipped through the Mountaineer defense for a five-yard touchdown.
 
Tonight's victory was Tech's eighth in its last 11 meetings against West Virginia, the two teams last playing 12 years ago in Morgantown in 2005.

"I told our guys don't hang your head, be proud of what you did, let it motivate you," Holgorsen said. "We've got a chance to be really good, I think. We've got a chance to keep improving and we will."
 
West Virginia faces East Carolina (0-1) in the 2017 home opener at Milan Puskar Stadium on Sept. 9, at noon. The game will be televised nationally on FS2.
 
Virginia Tech opens its season at home against Delaware.