No. 7 West Virginia Smothers TCU 47-10

Saturday, November 10

Morgantown, W.Va.

12:00 p.m.

West Virginia University

8-1 , 6-1

TCU

4-6 , 2-5

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

TCU

West Virginia

Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks

November 10, 2018 04:56 PM | Football

Box Score TCU Postgame Notes Game Photos TCU Football Quotes [1]

By: John Antonik

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. Seventh-ranked West Virginia used a second-quarter touchdown flurry to defeat visiting TCU, 47-10 here at sunny, windy and sold-out Milan Puskar Stadium this afternoon.

After spending the first 20 minutes in a field position battle that resulted in field goals from both teams, one an Evan Staley 47-yarder that hit the left upright and bounced off of the back post before falling back onto the field, West Virginia finally caught fire when it decided to speed things up and not let the Horned Frogs substitute on defense.

Four quick Will Grier passes to Gary Jennings Jr., Kennedy McKoy and two straight to David Sills V got the ball to the Horned Frog 33, where the Mountaineers crossed them up with a draw play to McKoy.

The junior got past the first wave of tacklers, angled back toward the middle of the field and dove into the end zone for the game's first touchdown with 5:09 remaining in the half.

On the ensuing kickoff, freshman Taye Barber failed to field Staley's short kickoff at the Horned Frog 17 and backup linebacker Exree Loe pounced on the loose football.

Five plays later, the Mountaineers were right back in the end zone when Martell Pettaway bulled his way in from the 1.

"It kind of started the way I thought it would," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. The win today moved Holgorsen past Rich Rodriguez into sole possession of second place in career victories at WVU with 61.

After Pettaway's score, the offense got the football back at its own 36 after a quick TCU possession burned just 1:19 off the clock and West Virginia taking over with 2:13 still showing and all three timeouts at its disposal. Here, Grier again went to work with his quick game by hitting Pettaway out in the flat for a 15-yard gain to the TCU 49.

A 17-yard Pettaway rush got the ball to the 32, and two plays later, Grier located a wide-open Trevon Wesco down the far sideline for a touchdown, his first of the season. There was no defender within 15 yards of him when he caught the ball and leisurely jogged into the end zone.

"I thought we did a good job of changing our mindset offensively toward the end of the second quarter," Holgorsen noted. "We started using some different tempos with them, which I thought was good on (offensive coordinator) Jake (Spavital's) part."

"Well, in essence it turned after 3-3 with about five minutes left to go in the second quarter as we got our butt kicked," added TCU coach Gary Patterson. "We're not good enough right now to make up for mistakes, and they're a good football team. You have to give West Virginia a lot of credit."

The Mountaineers added two points more on a safety to begin the third quarter when quarterback Mike Collins was called for intentional grounding from his own end zone. TCU put itself in a deep a hole when Emari Demercado fumbled the kickoff and fell on the ball at the 4.

On the ensuing free kick WVU took over with great field position when Alec Sinkfield returned it 18 yards to the Mountaineer 40.

After McKoy lost two trying to probe the middle of TCU's defense, Grier connected with Marcus Simms down the far sideline for 53 yards to the Horned Frog 9. A McKoy 8-yard run moved it to the 1 where he scored on the next play, giving West Virginia a 33-3 lead following Evan Staley's conversion kick and the rout was on.

TCU crossed the goal line for the only time with some assistance from West Virginia after it had stopped the Horned Frogs. Adam Nunez's line-drive rugby punt hit the back of Keith Washington's leg and La'Kendrick Van Zandt fell on the football at the WVU 43.

Collins immediately completed a 15-yard pass to Barber and then hit Reagor in stride running in the corner of the end zone for a 28-yard touchdown.

West Virginia added two more touchdowns with Grier still in the game, the first coming on an 8-yard pass to Gary Jennings Jr. near the end of the third quarter and the second occurring early in the fourth when Grier hooked up to Sills V for a 4-yard scoring toss - Grier's third of the game and Sills' Big 12-leading 12^thtouchdown of the season.

Staley's conversion kick made it 47-10, WVU.

The Mountaineers should have had seven more when Tevailance Hunt clearly fumbled the football while attempting to advance it and linebacker JoVanni Stewart scooped it up and ran it into the end zone. But the officials ruled Hunt down on the play so the replay official couldn't intervene and change it. That score and Staley's conversion would have given the Mountaineers 54 points – a rarity against TCU.

Soon afterward, backup quarterback Jack Allison entered the game to run out the remaining 7:15.

"That last quarter, they kind of pushed us around to be honest with you, just running the divide zone," Patterson said. "(Holgorsen) was nice to us, so it could have been a lot worse. I respect that. We've been on the other side of these many times."

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Grier had another Heisman-worthy performance by completing 25-of-39 passes for 343 yards and three touchdowns. Eight different players caught passes, including Wesco's five grabs for 86 yards – the first time in 16 years a tight end has led the Mountaineers in receiving yardage when Josh Bailey did it against Miami.

"I've been saying it all year, he's getting better every game," Holgorsen said of Wesco. "The blocking aspect of it is something we've seen all year. The more he plays and the more we scheme things up for him, the better he is."

Pettaway, McKoy and Leddie Brown led a WVU ground attack that finished the afternoon with 164 yards on 40 attempts, giving West Virginia 535 total yards for the afternoon.

TCU got all of its 222 total yards through the air. Actually, the Horned Frogs finished the game with minus-7 yards rushing, the first time a WVU defense has held its opponent to negative yardage since Maryland rushed for minus-10 yards in 2010.

Collins was under duress all afternoon and he was sacked four times for minus-30 yards. WVU its season average today with eight tackles for losses, linebacker David Long Jr. accounting for four of those with three coming on sacks. The Big 12's most explosive defender's stat line also included six tackles and three pass breakups.

"We've got high standards for playing good defense here," Holgorsen said in reference to last week's 41 points Texas scored against WVU. "We were pretty motivated to come back and play better. Obviously, we did."

After the conclusion of the game, Patterson chose to have his team stand in the corner of the stadium while the fans sang "Take Me Home, Country Roads" - likely as a way of sending it a message about the return game next year in Fort Worth.

Today's victory boosts West Virginia's record to 8-1 and keeps it in the College Football Playoff discussion with two regular season games remaining at Oklahoma State next Saturday and Oklahoma here in Morgantown on Black Friday.

The home final has already been announced a sellout.