Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It was another day at the office for West Virginia's Heisman Trophy contender Will Grier.
 
The senior fired four touchdown passes in leading the 14^th-rated Mountaineers to a 52-17 victory over Youngstown State Saturday evening on the soggy Milan Puskar Stadium turf in Morgantown, West Virginia.
 
"I'm glad this week is over, honestly, coming off the big win last week over Tennessee," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said afterward. "We talked all week about respecting our opponent, which I think we did."
 
A crowd of 58,446 sat in steady rain to watch Grier complete all but five of his 26 pass attempts for 332 yards - Grier's 11^th 300-yard-plus passing performance in just 13 career games for the Mountaineers.
 
"I thought Will did a really good job of getting us into the right plays," Holgorsen said. "We're a big-play offense, always have been, and I told Will at halftime, 'Don't get anxious and do dumb things because we're frustrated with 5 or 6 yards per play. Just continue to manage the game' and he did."
 
His night ended with 12:03 left in the final quarter and the Mountaineers comfortably ahead, 49-17. Backup quarterback Jack Allison came in to lead WVU to a field goal on his first drive as a Mountaineer, but the bulk of the yardage came on the ground from freshman Leddie Brown and junior Kennedy McKoy.
 
Evan Staley culminated that march by booting a 31-yard field goal when the drive stalled at the Penguin 14.
 
Brown had an impressive night, demonstrating an ability to consistently break tackles and get positive yardage whenever defenders were near him. He ran 15 times for 115 yards and scored one of West Virginia's three rushing touchdowns. Another Brown touchdown run, for 39 yards, was called back because of a holding penalty on Chase Behrndt.
 
"Leddie went in there and didn't look like a freshman to me," Holgorsen said.
 
West Virginia's other TD runs came from Alec Sinkfield, who later left the game with what appeared to be an ankle injury sustained in the second quarter, and McKoy, who finished the night with 76 yards on just 11 carries.
 
Last week's starter Martell Pettaway was credited with 77 yards on 12 attempts.
 
WVU wanted to see more from its ground game tonight and its four tailbacks delivered by combining to gain 292 yards on 45 attempts.
 
And when a pass was needed, Grier usually completed it. 
 
Three of his touchdown tosses went to senior Gary Jennings Jr., who hauled in only one TD reception last year and now shows four in two games so far this season. He has taken some considerable ribbing from his teammates for his inability to get into the end zone despite leading the team with 97 catches a year ago.
 
"We gave him so much crap last year for not scoring more touchdowns," Holgorsen joked. "He scored about 1 percent of the time last year, about 100 catches and only one touchdown. He's tired of hearing it.
 
"I can't explain that, and he's a really good player and we focused on that and probably have targeted him more in those situations," Holgorsen said. "It was good to see him get into the end zone."
 
Tonight, Jennings Jr.'s touchdown catches covered distances of 11, 24 and 33 yards, while Grier also hooked up with senior Dominque Maiden for a 40-yard scoring strike early in the fourth quarter before Grier's night was finished.
 
Marcus Simms was West Virginia's leading receiver with eight catches for 119 yards while Jennings barely missed becoming WVU's second 100-yard receiver with 97 yards.
 
David Sills V, who caught seven passes for 140 yards and two touchdowns in West Virginia's 40-14 season-opening win over Tennessee, was limited to just two catches for 33 yards. He had one opportunity to score a touchdown early in the third quarter when he was wide open down the middle of the field, but Grier overthrew him in the end zone – one of the few times he was off target all night.
 
Another came on the game's opening possession when Will Latham intercepted his third-down pass at the Penguin 23.
 
Youngstown State (0-2), which lost to Butler last weekend in its season opener, played much better tonight against the Mountaineers.
 
"Coach (Bo) Pelini is a heck of a football coach, and they did some things that had us scrambling in the first half, and their kids played hard," Holgorsen said. "We expected that, got that, and we'll see if that makes us better."
 
The Penguins got touchdowns from backup tight end Miles Joiner in the second quarter, a 4-yard pass from Montgomery VanGorder, and from running back Tevin McCaster in the third quarter, a 13-yard rush.
 
Zak Kennedy also booted a 45-yard field goal for Youngstown State.
 
The Penguins finished the game with 136 yards rushing and 157 yards passing from VanGorder, who completed just 11 of his 24 pass attempts with one interception, that one going to senior safety Dravon Askew-Henry.
 
"A heck of a catch by Dravon," Holgorsen said.
 
The coach said he was disappointed in the substantial number of penalties his team committed, 12 in all for 114 yards, including three pass interference infractions that resulted in 10 Youngstown State points.
 
"Way too many penalties, and I don't even want to look at it, honestly," Holgorsen said. "We weren't penalized at all last week and this week it was bad. Talking with the referees out there, they felt like we were doing some uncharacteristic things that they haven't seen out of us in the past few years.
 
"I don't know, but we've got to look at it because it was not good," Holgorsen added.
 
West Virginia concludes the non-conference portion of its schedule next Saturday with a trip down to Raleigh, North Carolina, to face NC State, which improved to 2-0 with a 41-7 victory over Georgia State earlier today.
 
Next Saturday's game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPNU.