Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It figures the biggest play in the football game would come from the littlest guy on the football field.
 
Junior Tevin Bush, all 5-foot-6, 166 pounds of him, took a simple Austin Kendall pass in the flat on the very first play of the second half and turned it into a 41-yard gainer – by far West Virginia's most effective offensive play from scrimmage.
 
Six plays later, Kendall got West Virginia into the end zone for the very first time when he completed a 28-yard touchdown pass to George Campbell, propelling the Mountaineers to a difficult-as-expected 20-13 victory over James Madison here at sold-out Milan Puskar Stadium this afternoon.
 
Bush, who finished the game with four catches for a team-best 74 yards, also gave the Mountaineers some breathing room with 8:43 left in the game when he hauled in Kendall's 22-yard pass before falling onto his derriere near where the gold U in Mountaineers rests in the south end zone.
 
That's when West Virginia finally got the James Madison offense to be one-dimensional.
 
Before that, the Dukes were controlling the football game by running the ball and stuffing West Virginia's run game. JMU had a 137 to 18 rushing advantage at halftime and expanded it to 164 to 29 by the end of the third quarter.
 
Consequently, Kendall had to chuck the football far more than he expected coming into the game, but not more the Neal Brown had anticipated after analyzing the tape of JMU's front four and watching his offense struggle to run the ball all preseason camp.
 
"I knew we were going to have to throw," Brown explained. "That's probably where I thought we'd be (42 pass attempts). I thought we'd run more plays; some of that's from third-down struggles, some of that's from dropped passes.
 
"I think that's kind of where we are right now. We've got to do some things in the run game," Brown said. "We didn't do a whole lot of what I call dressing-up run plays today."
 
WVU finished the game with a disappointing 34 yards rushing on 24 attempts, which makes Kendall's 27-of-42, 260-yard, two-touchdown passing effort all the more impressive.
 
Twice, when West Virginia had the ball late in the fourth quarter and was trying to put away the game, Brown opted to throw the ball instead running it between the tackles and milking the clock.
 
Both were unsuccessful. 
 
The first one came with less than four minutes remaining in the game and WVU's 10-point lead whittled to seven following Ethan Ratke's second field goal of the game.
 
Faced with a second and 8 at the WVU 37, and following James Madison's first called time out, Brown chose to have Kendall throw a go-route to freshman Sam James running down the near sideline. James had a step on Dukes cornerback Wesley McCormick, but Kendall was unable to connect.
 
Then, following a James Madison punt, Brown again called for a pass with 1:14 remaining after two short Martell Pettaway runs were wiped out by freshman tight end Mike O'Laughlin's false start penalty.
 
This time, Brown opted to roll out Kendall to the nearside of the field on a run-pass option to James, who broke off his pass pattern right at the sticks. Kendall delivered a perfect strike but James was unable to hang on. That gave JMU one last opportunity to tie the game after D'Angelo Ames was tackled catching Josh Growden's 37-yard punt at the Dukes' 38 with 58 seconds remaining.
 
Had WVU chosen to run the football there and been unsuccessful, 30 more seconds would have likely run off the clock because James Madison was out of time outs.
 
Instead, the Dukes had 58 seconds left to work with and the football 12 yards shy of midfield.
 
Ben DiNucci, who was officially sacked four times and pressured into throwing an interception to Keith Washington II just prior to Bush's big touchdown, avoided another heavy rush to complete a 14-yard pass to Devin Ravenel to the JMU 48.
 
Outside pressure by Bandit linebacker Quondarius Qualls resulted in a holding penalty on right tackle Liam Fornadel, nullifying a completed DiNucci pass over the middle for first down yardage. The walk off moved the football back 10 yards to the JMU 42.
 
DiNucci's next pass deep down the middle to Ravenel was broken up nicely by freshman free safety Kerry Martin Jr., presenting the Dukes with a second and 20 and the clock winding down inside of 30 seconds remaining. 
 
Another DiNucci pass try was stopped at the line of scrimmage when a hustling Reuben Jones tracked him down from behind. That left time for just one more play, and that one ended 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage – the eighth negative yardage play of the game for Vic Koenning's young defense.
 
When the final seconds ticked off the clock, Brown was unable to avoid the Gatorade bath he received for his first victory at West Virginia, one he figured would play out the way it did.
 
"It was a quality win over a really good JMU team," he said afterward. "I felt like on film, watching their personnel, I knew they'd be well-coached after watching (Curt Cignetti's Elon team) the last couple of years, and they were."
 
JMU really controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball in the first half, rushing 26 times for 137 yards and limiting the Mountaineers to only 18 yards on 10 attempts in building a 7-3 halftime lead.
 
West Virginia's longest gainer from scrimmage prior to intermission was Kendall's 20-yard pass to T.J. Simmons that resulted in Evan Staley's successful 38-yard field goal. The junior missed a 49-yard field goal attempt on the Mountaineers' second possession of the game when they were unable to cash in on a muffed punt at the JMU 36. 
 
Three cracks at the Dukes' defense netted just four yards, which is how much of the first half went for the WVU offense.
 
The only first half touchdown was scored by James Madison, that coming on Solomon Vanhorse's 9-yard jaunt right through the middle of the WVU defense to complete a seven-play, 80-yard march that consumed just 2:43 of the clock. He crossed the goal line without being touched.
 
The Dukes (0-1) were in position to score three more points with 7:56 left in the second quarter, but Darius Stills got a hand on Ratke's 27-yard field goal attempt and the football bounced harmlessly into the end zone.
 
Brown pointed to Stills' blocked field goal and James Madison's three turnovers as the keys to West Virginia's victory.
 
WVU alum Cignetti, coaching his first game at James Madison, agreed with Brown.
 
"It's not very often you see a team rush for 172 yards and hold the opponent to 34 and lose. Also, by the same token, the flip side of the coin, it's not every often you see one team win the turnover ratio four-to-zero, including the blocked kick, and only win by seven," he said. "I think that was the story of the game."
 
So today's game represents a starting point for Neal Brown's Mountaineers. The first-year coach preached all spring and all fall that plenty of work was needed, and that message hasn't changed after watching the way his team struggled against an FCS opponent, albeit one of the best FCS teams in college football.
 
"Moving forward, it's not always pretty," he admitted. "Winning is hard. I knew it would be, but I'll take it."
 
It sure beats the alternative, no matter how the victory was achieved.
 
"I'm glad to be 1-0," he concluded.

So are we.